Herodotean Inquiries

Rating:
Summary: Tocqueville meets Strauss
Review: "What is the nature of the search? you ask. Really it is very simple, at least for a fellow like me; so simple that it is easily overlooked. The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. This morning, for example, I felt as if I had come to myself on a strange island. And what does a castaway do? Why, he pokes around the neighborhood and he doesn't miss a trick. To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair." W.P.

Rating:
Summary: Benardete is back!
Review: Finally, we have a readily available printing of Benardete's Herodotean Inquires. Students and scholars of Herodotus have known for a long time that this is simply the best interpretation available. Unlike the "stuffy" classicists, Benardete attempts to follow the trail of Herodotus' argument (logos) through the apparently cozy memoirs of the world's first jet-setter. Herodotus, it is suggested, does not rise to the level of the great Greek philosphers, but neither do we, and consequently we have a great deal to learn from his most remarkable inquiry.