{"product_id":"9780942299861","title":"The Masters of Truth in Archaic Greece","description":"\u003cp\u003e  foreword by \u003cb\u003ePierre Vidal-Naquet\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cblockquote\u003e  \"Marcel Detienne undertakes a new and daring intellectual   project with both rigor and erudition. . . .  A fascinating   study which is essential reading for sociologists of   religion and historians of philosophy alike.\"\u003cbr\u003e  -  J\u003cb\u003eean-Pierre Vernant\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Masters of Truth in Archaic Greece\u003c\/em\u003e, the   acclaimed French classicist Marcel Detienne's first book,   traces the odyssey of \"truth,\" aletheia, from mytho-  religious concept to philosophical thought in archaic   Greece.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e    Detienne's starting point is a simple observation: in   archaic Greece, three figures - the diviner, the bard,   and the king - all share the privilege of dispensing   truth by virtue of the religious power of divine memory,   which provides them with knowledge, both oracular and   inspired, of the present, past, and future. Beginning with   this definition of the prerational meaning of truth,   Detienne examines how truth in Greek literature, especially   in the poetic tradition, first emerges as an enigma, a   paradox defined neither by its opposition to nor its   contradiction with falsehood or with lethe (oblivion and   forgetfulness), but by its association with ambiguity and   ambivalence.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e  Detienne then explains how sophists and orators alike figure   into the lineage of these pre-Platonic masters of truth.   Still distinct from the logic of correspondence and of   noncontradiction that comes to characterize the mode of   argumentation of the first Western rationalist philosophers,   these masters' truth appears through their maneuvering of    apate, deceit, and cunning.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e  In following this artful understanding and use of speech   -  its effect, techniques, and relation to the world   and other people -  Detienne identifies, particularly   in the work of Simonides, a movement from a religious to a   secular thought about truth. The study culminates with an   original reinterpretation of Parmenides' poem on Being.   \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Zone Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47034482753776,"sku":"9780942299861","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780942299861_p0.jpg?v=1763861558","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780942299861","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}