The concept of episteme in Euripides' Hippolytus and in the Dissoi logoi

• Grant number: 18/13959-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: December 01, 2018
• End date: February 28, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Classical Literatures
• Principal Investigator: Breno Battistin Sebastiani
• Grantee: Marina Machado de Oliveira
• Supervisor: Timothy John Guy Whitmarsh
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of Cambridge, England
• Associated to the scholarship: 18/04891-0 - The concept of episteme in Euripides Hippolytus and in the Dissoi logoi, BP.IC

Abstract

Phaedra's suicide in Euripides' Hippolytus is the object of reflection of many researchers mainly due to the great speech in which the queen exposes the reasons of her drastic attitude. In the speech (v. 374-391), Phaedra claims to know what is good for herself, and yet she does not seem capable of acting according to this knowledge (episteme). This research proposal aims to compare the queen's speech with the Dissoi logoi, an anonymous philosophical treatise from the end of the fifth century BC or the beginnings of the fourth century BC, for it would provide an unprecedented comparison with a text contemporary to Euripides and in which there is a chapter entirely based on the concept of episteme. (AU)