This thesis is a study of Archaic and Early Classical philosophical poetry within the competitive context which characterized the poetic production of that period. In particular, I evaluate the ideas and arguments of Xenophanes, Parmenides, Epicharmus and Empedocles in the context of the social and cultural aspects of Archaic poetic performance in order to evaluate their response to traditional agonism. As I argue, these figures entered the poetic contest not only to defeat their poetic adversaries, but also to transform and (...) redefine the terms of the competition itself. Chapter 1 is devoted to the analysis of three institutionalized forms of poetic agonism: sympotic games, rhapsodic contests, and dramatic performances. In chapter 2, I evaluate the socio-political import of Xenophanes' poetry and argue that his conception of the greatest god serves to substantiate his moral prescriptions aimed at eliminating civic conflict. In chapter 3, I examine Parmenides' original notion of alētheia as logical deduction, whereby he provides a solution to the problem of the truth-status of poetry stemming from the Muses' ability to inspire both genuine and false accounts, as narrated in Hesiod's Theogony. Chapter 4 provides an analysis of Empedocles' polemic allusions to his poetic and philosophical predecessors. I argue that Empedocles' confidence in his poetic authority is ultimately grounded on his self-declared divine status, which grants him a unique and comprehensive poetic knowledge. In chapter 5, I evaluate Epicharmus' philosophical fragments against the background of early rhetoric and argue that, through the use of philosophically inspired arguments, Epicharmus aimed to make manifest philosophy's agonistic potential and to show how it could be exploited to one's own advantage. (shrink)

Although Presocratics in 600 B.C founded new research ways in science and philosophy, wrote the first scientific essays, introduced basic conceptions of deduction, and abandoned mythological explanations, all we have of their works is but the fragments in the works of further doxographers, biographers, historians or philosophers who brought their statements between their own words. This would sometimes result in misunderstanding the presocratics’ purposes. Hermann Diels in his Doxographi Graeci raised a new method for dealing with doxography tradition. Diels’ new (...) approach to doxography returned all this tradition to Aristotle’s pupil, Theophrastus. Some scholars like Jaap Mansfield criticized his disregard for the sophists like Gorgias and Hippias, and the successions of philosophers. According to his criticism, some matters like the Sophists’ influence on Plato, Aristotle’s definition of Doxa in the Placita and the influence of the succession and interpretation tradition on doxogtaphy are more noteworthy than Diels has thought. (shrink)