Great Ideas of Philosophy

2. This perspective humanizes human history. It helps us address the command “Know thyself.” To knowthyself is, among other things, to know what we’ve done. The problems of knowledge and of conductand of governance may not be solved by historical study, but they can be thus illuminated.II. If Herodotus’s history of the Persian war succeeds as a descriptive psychology of human nature underconditions of stress and strain, it is less successful as an accurate historical account of events.A. Herodotus has been accused by later ages of having written bad history, telling of encounters betweenpeople who could not have met. Yet throughout the work, Herodotus pauses to alert readers tointerpretations that are based chiefly on the opinions of the author or to records of events that he did notwitness.B. His account includes parables, morality tales that communicate the lessons of history: What happens if weare cowardly? What do we stand to gain if we are brave and decent? In this way, Herodotus addresses theproblem of conduct.1. The dialogue of Croesus and Solon—the man famous for wealth and the man famous for knowledge—is not intended to be historical; it is a disquisition on the nature of happiness.2. Croesus asks Solon who the happiest man in the world is, obviously expecting the reply to be that it isCroesus himself. Instead, Solon tells the story of Cleobis and Biton, asserting that they are the happiestmen in the world because they died in a state of being that all would honor and aspire to emulate.3. Happiness is not fame or riches or heroic virtue, but a state that will inspire posterity to think, inreflecting upon another’s life, that it was the life one would wish to live. We can say of no man that heis eudaimonios, that his was a truly flourishing life, until his days are over.III. These two elements that Herodotus addresses—the problem of knowledge and the problem of conduct—raisethe issue of the problem of governance.A. We know that the ancient Athenian democracy had to save itself from what would have been the tyrannicalrule of the Persians. It turns out, however, that the Athenian democracy was not saved by the Athenians butthe Spartans.B. In illuminating this fact, Herodotus passes to Plato and Aristotle a historical perspective on a paradoxicalquestion of governance: In the attempt to cultivate virtue, must one be battle-hardened?C. Plato, like Herodotus, would recognize that in the spectacle of war, the truths of our mortality can belearned as in no other way, but this conclusion is worrisome. Are strife and conflict necessary if characteris to be formed? Perhaps as an answer, Herodotus gives us the story of Cleobis and Biton, suggesting thatthere are alternatives to warfare in the cultivation of virtue.Recommended Reading:Collingwood, R. G. The Idea of History. Oxford University Press, 1994.Herodotus. The Persian Wars. G. Rawlinson, trans. Random House, 1942.Questions to Consider:1. Explain whether the past is prologue.2. Summarize whether the writing of history presupposes what is now widely doubted—namely, that eventstaking place at one time under unique conditions can help explain yet other events, widely separated in time andcontext.16©2004 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership