Publisher's Synopsis
This study analyzes the representation of persuasion in pre-Platonic Greek texts, particularly Homer's "Iliad". It treats the notion of persuasion in Homer in a detailed and systematic way, including drawing on specific features of contemporary philosophy in order to interpret ancient Greek texts.;Michael Naas demonstrates how essential persuasion was to all relations between mortals and gods in early Greek texts. Although subsequently reduced to a mere psychological phenomenon in Greek philosophy, and restricted to the study and practice of rhetoric, persuasion was, for the early Greeks, a pre-ontological force associated with a turning toward presence.;Indeed, this work may be thought of as contributing to the so-called critique of presence, since it tries to articulate a notion - perusasion, turning - that cannot be squarely located within metaphysics.
