Hearing, Sound, and the Auditory in Ancient Greece represents the first wide-ranging philosophical study of the role of sound and hearing in the ancient Greek world. Because our modern western culture is a particularly visual one, we can overlook the significance of the auditory which was so central to the Greeks. The fifteen chapters of this edited volume explore "hearing" as being philosophically significant across numerous texts and figures in ancient Greek philosophy.

Through close analysis of the philosophy of such figures as Homer, Heraclitus, Pythagoreans, Sophocles, Empedocles, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Hearing, Sound, and Auditory in Ancient Greece presents new and unique research from philosophers and classicists that aims to redirect us to the ways in which sound, hearing, listening, voice, and even silence shaped and reflected the worldview of ancient Greece.

About the Author

Jill Gordon is Professor of Philosophy and Class of 1940/NEH Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Colby College. She is the author of Turning Toward Philosophy: Literary Device and Dramatic Structure in Plato's Dialogues and Plato's Erotic World: From Cosmic Origins to Human Death.

Reviews

"Hearing, Sound, and the Auditory in Ancient Greece attunes readers of ancient philosophy to themes of noise, sound, speech and their interrelation, which certainly are the sort of things that we might overlook if it were not for the care and attention provided by the essays in this volume."-Eric Sanday, University of Kentucky

"The essays in Hearing, Sound, and the Auditory in Ancient Greece share an attention to hearing as something philosophically significant across numerous texts and figures in ancient Greek philosophy-from Heraclitus and other Presocratics to Plato and Aristotle and later antiquity. This thematic focus allows for the authors to address the connection to a range of phenomena of interest to philosophers: logos, sense-perception, silence, crowd noise, the experience of pain. The collection as a whole makes for fascinating reading, and will be certain to inspire future work in philosophy."-Robert Metcalf, University of Colorado Denver

Book Information
ISBN 9780253062819
Author Jill Gordon
Format Hardback
Page Count 424
Imprint Indiana University Press
Publisher Indiana University Press
Weight(grams) 789g