Esta tese visa a mostrar que a comédia As Nuvens de Aristófanes (423 a.C.) possui um valor heurístico para os alunos de graduação de Pedagogia, isto é, que a obra possibilita um trabalho de cotejo de textos para a formação de um quadro complexo da educação ateniense da época. Compõe-se de duas partes, a primeira dedicada ao estudo da peça e de suas possíveis relações com o ensino da filosofia em Atenas e a segunda dedicada ao relato do trabalho com alunos, desenvolvido durante duas experiências com o Curso Experimental. A metodologia utilizada baseia-se em três pilares, a pesquisa bibliográfica, a análise textual e a aplicação experimental em sala de aula. A avaliação final do trabalho mostra que As Nuvens possui um caráter altamente heurístico e que a sua aplicação em sala de aula apresenta resultados altamente satisfatórios. / The aim of this thesis is to show that the comedy Clouds (423 b. C.) by Aristophanes has a heuristic value to the graduation students in Education, i. e., that this play allows a text comparative work in order to form a complex scene of the Athenian education at Aristophanes time. It consists of two parts, the first one shows the play study and its possible relations with the philosophy teaching at Athens and the second one is the report of the work whit graduation students, during two Experimental Course. The methodology used is founded in three cornerstones, the bibliographical research, the textual analysis and the experimental application in class. The conclusive evaluation of this work shows that The Clouds has a highly heuristic character and the use in classrooms has highly satisfactory results.

Le δεῖπνον et le συμπόσιον ne constituent pas le simple cadre formel des Banquets littéraires. Leur déroulement et les conventions morales qui s’y expriment sont des éléments structurants de la narration, dont ils assurent la progression. Surtout, ils deviennent l’objet même de la discussion des convives. Le récit s’attache plus particulièrement à contextualiser le déroulement du δεῖπνον et du συμπόσιον, pour en faire ressortir un élément qui, par son incongruité ou par son obscurité initiale, ébranle l’opinion première et crée les conditions de la ζήτησις. Il existe donc un type de προϐλήματα spécifique aux Banquets littéraires, où l’on ne parle que de ce qu’on a sous la main. Cette proximité conduit chacun à proposer un développement personnel qui, loin de tout exposé dogmatique, lui permet de mettre en avant son acribie et son esprit d’à-propos sur des objets qui, le plus souvent, échappent au champ de la philosophie. Ce faisant, les Banquets littéraires mettent les philosophes à l’épreuve de la table et du vin et définissent la nature véritable du savoir en faisant tomber, dans la bonne humeur, le masque des imposteurs. Partant, le δεῖπνον et le συμπόσιον ne sont jamais refusés, mais permettent de créer un rapport d’identité entre le philosophe idéal et le parfait convive au sein d’œuvres qui sont toutes caractérisées, malgré leur irréductible diversité formelle, par leur ambition propédeutique. Ce ne sont donc ni la référence à un modèle initial ni le respect d’éventuelles conventions régulatrices qui assurent l’unité du corpus des Banquets littéraires, mais le partage d’une même intention programmatique. / Δεῖπνα and συμπόσια are not merely formal settings in literary symposia. Their organization and the moral conventions that they entail are part and parcel of the narrative structure. Above all, they become the very topic of the participants’ conversation. These narratives make use of the context of δεῖπνον and συμπόσιον in order to emphasize one item whose oddity or whose initial obscurity challenges common wisdom and paves the way for ζήτησις. Thus, there is a type of προϐλήματα that is specific to literary symposia, which consists in only discussing matters immediately at hand. Far from leading to dogmatic discourses, this allows every dinner guest to offer their personal views, displaying their acumen and wit on topics that are often outside the realm of philosophy. In these literary symposia, the philosophers are put to the test of good meals and good wine, and define the true nature of knowledge, while cheerfully unmasking impostors. By no means are δεῖπνον and συμπόσιον rejected, but on the contrary they create a link between the ideal philosopher and the perfect dinner guest in literary works that, in spite of their inevitable formal variety, all share propaedeutic ambitions. Literary symposia, therefore, are not defined as a genre by references to one initial model nor by normative conventions, but by the intentions that they share.

This work deals with education for virtues in Ancient Greece and Rome and is looking for common elements that can be traced in current educational practice as a reference to this education. It focuses on several important philosophers: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca and Quintilianus. It examines the virtues which were considered to be the most important, how one can reach them and if they can be learned. The final chapter describes how the antique education for virtue influenced the contemporary Czech education, particularly in the General educational programme for basic education and General educational programme for high schools.

La thèse examine la relation de la rhétorique, de l’éthique et de la politique dans les fragments des œuvres perdues d’Aristote, et la recherche porte plus largement sur le lien de cette relation avec l’ensemble de la philosophie d’Aristote. Cette étude tente donc de savoir si Aristote, par opposition à ses prédécesseurs, est bien « l’inventeur » de la rhétorique – à laquelle il confère le rang de technique avec une méthode et un objet propres dans le traité éponyme – dès ses premières œuvres de jeunesse, ou bien si sa conception a évolué au cours du temps. Ce faisant et en considérant les aspects éthico-politiques des ces œuvres perdues, l’examen discute les grandes hypothèses interprétatives qui ont été proposées à ce sujet pour soutenir la thèse d’une cohérence de la pensée d’Aristote plutôt que celle d’une évolution. L’étude comporte deux grands moments. Le premier consiste en l’édition, la traduction parfois inédite en langue française, et l’annotation des fragments des Librorum deperditorum relatifs à la rhétorique et la politique, avec la présentation des apparats critiques correspondants. Le second se consacre à l’examen de la cohérence de la pensée aristotélicienne au moyen du commentaire des fragments et de leur comparaison aux œuvres des sophistes (Protagoras, Gorgias, Isocrate, Lycophron), de Platon (Gorgias, Phèdre) et des traités aristotéliciens. Pour ce faire, le travail propose une étude lexicale du vocabulaire employé par Aristote, une analyse philosophique de certains concepts importants (andreia, eleutheriotês, eugeneia, metron, orgê, phronêsis) justifiée par leur emploi dans les fragments et le reste du Corpus aristotelicum, et une exégèse d’ensemble. / The thesis investigates the relationship between rhetoric, ethics and politics in the fragments of Aristotle’s lost works, and more globally its relation in Aristotle’s entire philosophy. This study intends to understand if Aristotle, in opposition to his predecessors, is the « inventor » of the rhetoric – to which he awards the value of technique with a proper methodology and object in the eponym treatise – from is early years works, or if his conception of it evolved in time. In doing so, and considering the ethico-political aspects of these lost works, the thesis discusses the main interpretative hypothesis that have been proposed on this subject in order to support the theory of Aristotle’s thought consistency, more than its evolution. The study stands in two main parts. The first one consists in the edition, the translation sometimes unprecedented in French language, and the annotation of Librorum deperditorum’s fragments related to rhetoric and politics, including the corresponding critical apparatus. The second inspects the consistency of Aristotle’s thought using the fragments’ comments and in comparison to the works of the sophists (Protagoras, Gorgias, Isocrates, Lycophron), of Plato (Gorgias, Phaedrus) and of the aristotelian treatises. To proceed, a lexical study of the vocabulary used by Aristotle, a philosophic analysis of a few main concepts (andreia, eleutheriotês, eugeneia, metron, orgê, phronêsis) justified by their presence in the fragments and the rest of the Corpus aristotelicum, and a comprehensive textual exegesis have been undertaken.

Há uma tradição platônica entre os grandes leitores da obra de Erasmo de Rotterdam, o Príncipe dos Humanistas, que se concentra sobre a cuidadosa síntese feita pelo mestre para superar a ruptura entre fé e razão, através da compatibilização da erudição pagã à cristã em uma mesma doutrina que significasse, na polifônica Europa renascentista, uma urgente unidade da verdade nada menos do que o componente estabilizador do amálgama grecoromano, judaico-cristão que hoje define o Ocidente. Em efeito, no Livro dos Antibárbaros, que editou em 1521, a cisão entre fé e razão provocada pelas especulações dos próprios escolásticos é superada por uma solução média entre a noção hebraica de uma divindade arbitrária e a noção grega de deuses inseridos na natureza e suas leis; as histórias grega, judaica e cristã são unificadas pela busca do Sumo Bem; as várias escolas filosóficas e correntes teológicas são reunidas em uma Philosophia Christi; o conhecimento divino e o conhecimento humano são reafirmados como pertencentes à mesma unidade, à mesma natureza e fundados na mesma razão; o conhecimento humano pode ascender gradativamente dos assuntos dos homens aos divinos; os Studia Humanitatis são necessários para a verdadeira evangelização e a correta interpretação da Bíblia e as disciplinas pagãs são assimiladas como descobertas inspiradas pela Divina Providência para a utilidade dos cristãos. No entanto, persistentes leituras da imensa obra de Erasmo abrem um horizonte onde se elevam inúmeros outros temas povoados por argumentos que podem ser agrupados em antíteses desconcertantes, o que dificulta seu tratamento ainda em termos platônicos. Já uma reflexão sobre a escrita erasmiana, a partir das concepções aristotélicas presentes na Retórica, tomadas como reconhecimento e explicação da autonomia e legitimidade da dedução retórica frente à dedução científica e dialética, permite que nos afastemos do cânon da leitura platonizante desta escrita. Como resultado, esta nova reflexão se vê livre para entendê-la não como um discurso irrefutável e imposto por longo exercício dialético, mas como um tecido de argumentos verossímeis, colhidos em uma miríade de fontes, agenciados com eloquência e capazes de constituir o que aparece como unidade totalizante, o efeito de unidade em meio à pluralidade da verdade em que de fato respiram os discursos retóricos. Escrita que almeja para seu autor a glória de obter em geral o assentimento rápido e espontâneo de seus leitores postulando um saber que é, sobretudo, uma pacificação sem armas. De fato, a solução aristotélica, ao reconhecer um status científico para a retórica e superar a complexa comparação e outras especulações indevidas, especialmente entre a retórica e a filosofia, propõe ricas e novas abordagens. Esta solução insere a arte oratória e seus efetivos discursos no quadro histórico das disputas entre os homens, que sob leis isonômicas, e em busca da glória devem agir pela palavra, e no quadro social das deliberações públicas, em que o saber retórico pode ser visto como resultado de um procedimento heurístico reiterado por gerações de retóricos e de um dinamismo uma mútua determinação entre um saber proposto pelo orador e outro detido pelo auditório e entre saberes de oradores concorrentes. Ambos os quadros convidam então a uma análise, respectivamente, da gênese e da natureza da escrita erasmiana a partir de uma perspectiva política. / There is a platonic tradition among the greatest Erasmus of Rotterdam readers, the Prince of the Humanists, that concentrates upon the careful synthesis established by him in order to overpass the detachment between Faith and Reason through the Pagan and Christian eruditions compatibility in a same doctrine capable to offer in the context of polyphonic Renaissance Europe, an urgent truth unity nothing less than the steady component from the Greek-Latin-Jewish-Christian amalgam, what defines today Western World. As a matter of fact, in his Anti-barbarian Book edited in 1521, the rift between Faith and Reason leaded by the scholastics own speculations is overcome by a middle way solution between hebraical arbitrarian divinity notion and the Greek notion of divinities inserted in nature and its laws; the Greek, Jewish and Christian history are unified by the Sumun Bonum quest; the varies of philosophical and theological schools are reunited in a Philosophia Christi; the divine and the human wisdom are reaffirmed as belongings to the same unity, to the same nature and grounded on the same reason; the human wisdom can gradually escalate from manhood to the divine matters; the Studia Humanitatis are necessary for the real evangelization and the correct Bible interpretation and the pagan disciplines are assimilated as discoveries inspired by the Divine Providence for the utility of christians. However, perseverant readings of Erasmus immense work opens a horizon where countless topics populated by arguments appeared that can be assemble in astonishing antitheses, what makes difficult its treatment at a standstill platonic terms. Yet, a reflection towards erasmian writing, from the aristotelian conceptions existing in the Rhetoric, taken as an acknowledgement and explanation of the autonomy and legitimacy of rhetorical deduction in face of scientific and dialectical deduction, allows us to take distance from the platonic reading canon of this writing. As a result, this new reflection awakes to the possibility of understanding it, not as a irrefutable discourse imposed by the enduring dialectical exercises, but as a tissue of plausible arguments, collected in a myriad of sources, articulated with eloquence and able to build what appears as a totalizing unity, the effect of unity in the middle of the truth plurality of rhetorical discourses. Writing that aims, for his author, the glory of obtaining, in general, the quick and spontaneous assertion of its readers, claiming a wisdom that is, at best, an appeasement without arms. Actually, the aristotelian solution, recognizing an epistemological status for rhetoric, and overcoming complex comparison and another inappropriate speculations, specially between Rhetoric and Philosophy, proposing riches and new questions. As a matter of fact, this solution introduces the art of eloquence, and its effective speeches, in the historical frame of struggles between men that, under isonomic laws, and in the search of glory, must act by words, and in the social frame of public deliberations in which the rhetorical wisdom can be seen as the result of a heuristically process repeated by countless rhetors generations, and as a dynamism a mutual determination between the wisdom proposed by the orator and the wisdom diffused in the auditorium; and between the wisdom of opponent orators. Both frames invites, then, to an analysis, respectively, of the genesis and the nature of erasmian writing from a political perspective.

Ξεκινώντας από το θέμα του Μένωνα, χωρίζεται σε δύο μέρη. Το πρώτο μέρος είναι εμφανές ήδη από την αρχή του διαλόγου, όταν ο νεαρός Θεσσαλός θα απευθύνει το ερώτημα στον Σωκράτη αναφορικά με ποιον τρόπο αποκτάται η αρετή. Σύμφωνα με την σωκρατική τοποθέτηση, το εν λόγω ερώτημα δεν είναι δυνατόν να απαντηθεί, αν πρωτίστως δεν διατυπωθεί ο ορισμός της αρετής, οπότε τίθεται εμμέσως ως το δεύτερο μέρος της θεματολογίας. Το ότι ο Μένων έχει μαθητεύσει πλησίον του Γοργία αποτελεί έναυσμα για τον Σωκράτη, ώστε να προκαλέσει τον συνομιλητή του να ορίσει την αρετή, προφασιζόμενος τον αμνήμονα. Ο Μένων επιχειρεί να ορίσει την έννοια της αρετής τρεις φορές, χωρίς μία ορισμένη επιτυχία, εφόσον ο Σωκράτης κατορθώνει να εντοπίζει σφάλματα. Ωστόσο, ο Μένων, οδηγούμενος σε αδιέξοδο, θα διερωτηθεί: πώς είναι δυνατόν κάποιος να ερευνήσει ένα θέμα το οποίο δεν γνωρίζει, και αν το γνωρίσει πώς γνωρίζει ότι αυτό είναι αυτό που αναζητούσε (το παράδοξο του Μένωνα). Ο Σωκράτης θα απαντήσει στην απορία του επικαλούμενος την θεωρία της ανάμνησης, σύμφωνα με την οποία η γνώση είναι ανάκληση του ήδη υπάρχοντος, έχοντας αναντιλέκτως προϋποθέσει την αθανασία της ψυχής. Μάλιστα θα προχωρήσει και σε απόδειξη της εν λόγω εκδοχής, προβαίνοντας σε ένα μαθηματικό πείραμα με έναν από τους δούλους του Μένωνα. Η θεωρητική παράμετρος που θα αποκομίσουν από την διαδικασία του πειράματος είναι η αξία της έρευνας, όταν σκοπός είναι η προσέγγιση της αλήθειας, όπου απαιτείται μάλιστα και η αποδοχή της άγνοιάς μας. Σε μια αντίστοιχη έρευνα έγκειται και ο φιλοσοφικός προσδιορισμός που επιδιώκει ο Σωκράτης και θα παρακινήσει τον Μένωνα να ερευνήσουν από κοινού για την αρετή. Αυτή τη φορά θα ακολουθήσουν την υποθετική μέθοδο μέσω της οποίας θα εξετάσουν με ποιον τρόπο αποκτάται η αρετή, εφόσον δεν κατόρθωσαν προηγουμένως στην συζήτησή τους να διατυπώσουν έναν επαρκή ορισμό.Η αρετή δεν είναι έμφυτη. Διαφορετικά, θα έπρεπε να διαφυλάττονται οι νέοι που γεννώνται ενάρετοι προκειμένου να μην διαφθαρούν. Η αρετή δεν είναι ούτε διδακτή, εφόσον, έπειτα από διάλογο που παρεμβάλλεται με τον Άνυτο, διαπιστώνουν ότι ούτε οι σοφιστές είναι οι αρμόδιοι δάσκαλοι ούτε και οι πολιτικοί κατόρθωσαν να μεταδώσουν στα τέκνα τους την αρετή. Άρα, ένα πρώτο συμπέρασμα στο οποίο οδηγούνται είναι ότι η αρετή δεν διδάσκεται. Όμως, πώς εξηγείται η διαπίστωση ότι υπάρχουν άνθρωποι που προβαίνουν σε ενάρετες πράξεις; Σε αυτό το σημείο ο Σωκράτης οδηγείται στην εκτίμηση ότι μία παράμετρος τους έχει διαφύγει της ερευνητικής προσοχής. Επαναπροσδιορίζουν τα όσα έχουν συζητηθεί και τελικώς εναποθέτουν τον ενάρετο χαρακτήρα των ανθρώπων στην εκ θεού αποκτηθείσα ορθή γνώμη, εισάγοντας με αυτόν τον τρόπο την διάκριση από την επιστήμη. Ωστόσο, ο διάλογος καταλήγει σε απορία, καθώς δεν διατυπώνεται ένας επαρκής ορισμός για την αρετή. / The main question of platonic dialogue Meno is distinct in two topics. The first one is manifested by the beginning of the dialogue, when younger Thessalian asks Socrates for the way that virtue is acquired. According to Socratic account, this question is impossible to be answered because it is required the formulation of determination of what the virtue is. That is the second topic of this dialogue that is mentioned indirectly. The fact that Meno was student of Gorgias is a Socrates' motivation to challenge his interlocutor to determine the notion of virtue, pretended his ignorance. Meno tries to determine the notion of virtue three times, without successful, since Socrates identifies many errors. However, Meno having reached deadlock wonders himself how someone can investigate something that he does not know it, and by extension if he know it how he can know that this is what he searched about (Meno's paradox). Socrates answers to that paradox with the theory of recollection, having presupposed the immortality of soul. Indeed, he proceed in the evidence of that theory by doing a geometrical experiment with one of Meno's slaves. What they reap from this experiment is the value of researching, for which is required the acceptance of our ignorance. The aim is to approach the Truth. In a similar way lies the philosophical determination that Socrates seeks and he prompts Meno to search about virtue together. In this point they follow the hypothetical method through which they search the way of acquiring the vitrue, since they did not succeed to give a sufficient definition.Areti is not inherent. Otherwise, young guys born virtuous should have been preserved in order not to be corrupted. Areti is not teachable. After the intervening dialogue with Anitos, they result to the fact that neither Sophists nor politicians are appropriate teachers and they are not able to teach the virtue to their children. Therefore, a first conclusion they lied to is that virtue is not teachable. But, how can someone explain the fact that there are people doing virtuous actions? Thus, at this point Socrates realizes that something is missed. They redefine their words and at the end they attribute the virtuous element of people in the orthi gnomi given by god. By this account they introduce the distinction between opinion and science. However, this dialogue result in query because an adequate definition about virtue is not formulated.

Há uma tradição platônica entre os grandes leitores da obra de Erasmo de Rotterdam, o Príncipe dos Humanistas, que se concentra sobre a cuidadosa síntese feita pelo mestre para superar a ruptura entre fé e razão, através da compatibilização da erudição pagã à cristã em uma mesma doutrina que significasse, na polifônica Europa renascentista, uma urgente unidade da verdade nada menos do que o componente estabilizador do amálgama grecoromano, judaico-cristão que hoje define o Ocidente. Em efeito, no Livro dos Antibárbaros, que editou em 1521, a cisão entre fé e razão provocada pelas especulações dos próprios escolásticos é superada por uma solução média entre a noção hebraica de uma divindade arbitrária e a noção grega de deuses inseridos na natureza e suas leis; as histórias grega, judaica e cristã são unificadas pela busca do Sumo Bem; as várias escolas filosóficas e correntes teológicas são reunidas em uma Philosophia Christi; o conhecimento divino e o conhecimento humano são reafirmados como pertencentes à mesma unidade, à mesma natureza e fundados na mesma razão; o conhecimento humano pode ascender gradativamente dos assuntos dos homens aos divinos; os Studia Humanitatis são necessários para a verdadeira evangelização e a correta interpretação da Bíblia e as disciplinas pagãs são assimiladas como descobertas inspiradas pela Divina Providência para a utilidade dos cristãos. No entanto, persistentes leituras da imensa obra de Erasmo abrem um horizonte onde se elevam inúmeros outros temas povoados por argumentos que podem ser agrupados em antíteses desconcertantes, o que dificulta seu tratamento ainda em termos platônicos. Já uma reflexão sobre a escrita erasmiana, a partir das concepções aristotélicas presentes na Retórica, tomadas como reconhecimento e explicação da autonomia e legitimidade da dedução retórica frente à dedução científica e dialética, permite que nos afastemos do cânon da leitura platonizante desta escrita. Como resultado, esta nova reflexão se vê livre para entendê-la não como um discurso irrefutável e imposto por longo exercício dialético, mas como um tecido de argumentos verossímeis, colhidos em uma miríade de fontes, agenciados com eloquência e capazes de constituir o que aparece como unidade totalizante, o efeito de unidade em meio à pluralidade da verdade em que de fato respiram os discursos retóricos. Escrita que almeja para seu autor a glória de obter em geral o assentimento rápido e espontâneo de seus leitores postulando um saber que é, sobretudo, uma pacificação sem armas. De fato, a solução aristotélica, ao reconhecer um status científico para a retórica e superar a complexa comparação e outras especulações indevidas, especialmente entre a retórica e a filosofia, propõe ricas e novas abordagens. Esta solução insere a arte oratória e seus efetivos discursos no quadro histórico das disputas entre os homens, que sob leis isonômicas, e em busca da glória devem agir pela palavra, e no quadro social das deliberações públicas, em que o saber retórico pode ser visto como resultado de um procedimento heurístico reiterado por gerações de retóricos e de um dinamismo uma mútua determinação entre um saber proposto pelo orador e outro detido pelo auditório e entre saberes de oradores concorrentes. Ambos os quadros convidam então a uma análise, respectivamente, da gênese e da natureza da escrita erasmiana a partir de uma perspectiva política. / There is a platonic tradition among the greatest Erasmus of Rotterdam readers, the Prince of the Humanists, that concentrates upon the careful synthesis established by him in order to overpass the detachment between Faith and Reason through the Pagan and Christian eruditions compatibility in a same doctrine capable to offer in the context of polyphonic Renaissance Europe, an urgent truth unity nothing less than the steady component from the Greek-Latin-Jewish-Christian amalgam, what defines today Western World. As a matter of fact, in his Anti-barbarian Book edited in 1521, the rift between Faith and Reason leaded by the scholastics own speculations is overcome by a middle way solution between hebraical arbitrarian divinity notion and the Greek notion of divinities inserted in nature and its laws; the Greek, Jewish and Christian history are unified by the Sumun Bonum quest; the varies of philosophical and theological schools are reunited in a Philosophia Christi; the divine and the human wisdom are reaffirmed as belongings to the same unity, to the same nature and grounded on the same reason; the human wisdom can gradually escalate from manhood to the divine matters; the Studia Humanitatis are necessary for the real evangelization and the correct Bible interpretation and the pagan disciplines are assimilated as discoveries inspired by the Divine Providence for the utility of christians. However, perseverant readings of Erasmus immense work opens a horizon where countless topics populated by arguments appeared that can be assemble in astonishing antitheses, what makes difficult its treatment at a standstill platonic terms. Yet, a reflection towards erasmian writing, from the aristotelian conceptions existing in the Rhetoric, taken as an acknowledgement and explanation of the autonomy and legitimacy of rhetorical deduction in face of scientific and dialectical deduction, allows us to take distance from the platonic reading canon of this writing. As a result, this new reflection awakes to the possibility of understanding it, not as a irrefutable discourse imposed by the enduring dialectical exercises, but as a tissue of plausible arguments, collected in a myriad of sources, articulated with eloquence and able to build what appears as a totalizing unity, the effect of unity in the middle of the truth plurality of rhetorical discourses. Writing that aims, for his author, the glory of obtaining, in general, the quick and spontaneous assertion of its readers, claiming a wisdom that is, at best, an appeasement without arms. Actually, the aristotelian solution, recognizing an epistemological status for rhetoric, and overcoming complex comparison and another inappropriate speculations, specially between Rhetoric and Philosophy, proposing riches and new questions. As a matter of fact, this solution introduces the art of eloquence, and its effective speeches, in the historical frame of struggles between men that, under isonomic laws, and in the search of glory, must act by words, and in the social frame of public deliberations in which the rhetorical wisdom can be seen as the result of a heuristically process repeated by countless rhetors generations, and as a dynamism a mutual determination between the wisdom proposed by the orator and the wisdom diffused in the auditorium; and between the wisdom of opponent orators. Both frames invites, then, to an analysis, respectively, of the genesis and the nature of erasmian writing from a political perspective.

Στόχος της παρούσας εργασίας είναι η εξέταση του δικτύου των σχέσεων, οι οποίες αναπτύσσονται εντός των σοφιστικών και φιλοσοφικών κύκλων που παρουσιάζονται σε δύο βιογραφικά corpora, στους Βίους Σοφιστῶν του Φιλοστράτου και στους Βίους Φιλοσόφων καὶ Σοφιστῶν του Ευναπίου, καθώς και του κεντρικού ρόλου που διαδραμάτισαν οι σχέσεις αυτές (κυρίως η σχέση δασκάλου και μαθητή) στη συγκρότηση των δύο συλλογών. Η μελέτη του δικτύου αυτών των σχέσεων στοχεύει στην ανάδειξη της μοναδικότητας των δύο συλλογών από άποψη δομής, η οποία καταδεικνύεται, επί παραδείγματι, από την ένταξη ορισμένων σοφιστών ή φιλοσόφων και τον αποκλεισμό άλλων. Ταυτόχρονα, διερευνάται πώς αυτές οι σχέσεις λειτουργούν ως μια βασική οργανωτική αρχή των Βίων και μας επιτρέπουν να διαμορφώσουμε μια σαφέστερη εικόνα για τη σοφιστική/φιλοσοφική ταυτότητα κατά την ελληνορωμαϊκή αυτοκρατορική περίοδο. Το πλέγμα σχέσεων που διαμορφώνεται ανάμεσα στους σοφιστές και τους φιλοσόφους, καθώς και ο τρόπος ταξινόμησής τους στα δύο βιογραφικά corpora μας επιτρέπουν να αναγνώσουμε τις συλλογές ως ρυθμιστικά, κανονιστικά κείμενα, τα οποία υπαγορεύουν και εξασφαλίζουν την επιβίωσή των βιογραφουμένων προσώπων για τις επόμενες γενιές. / The aim of this thesis is to examine the network of relationships developed among the sophists and the philosophers in two biographical corpora, Philostratus’ Lives of Sophists and Eunapius’ Lives of Philosophers and Sophists, as well as the pivotal role these relationships (especially those of master and student) played in the formation of the two collections. The study of the nexus of these relationships aims to demonstrate the structural singularity of these corpora, which is pointed, for instance, by the inclusion of certain sophists/philosophers and the exclusion of others; at the same time, these relationships are shown to constitute a major organizational principle of the Lives, allowing thus a sharper understanding of the sophistic/philosophical identity in the Graeco-Roman Imperial period. The two corpora are read as regulatory, canonistic texts, in the sense that they dictate and determine, to a great extent, the type of the biographised sophists and philosophers worth preserving for future generations.

The thesis, entitled “From Self-Praise to Self-Boasting: Paul’s Unmasking of the Conflicting Rhetorico-Linguistic Phenomena in 1 Corinthians,” examines the rhetorical conventions of “boasting” and self-praise among those vying for social status and honor within the Greco-Roman world. While the terminological options for “boasting” and self-praise frequently overlap, a survey of these conventions demonstrates that the ancients possessed a categorical distinction between “boasting” and self-praise, which oftentimes conflicted with Paul’s distinction. Clear examples of this conflict appear in 1 Cor 1:10-4:21; 5:1-13; 9:1-27; 13:1-13; and 15:30-32, where Paul addresses the Corinthians’ overestimation of wisdom and eloquence, redirects the Corinthians’ attention away from loyalties to specific leaders to loyalty to Christ, redefines the standards by which the Corinthians should view themselves and their leaders, counters the Corinthians’ tendency to engage in anthropocentric “boasting,” and affirms his own apostolic ministry. It is the Corinthian community’s inability to grasp the application of theocentric “boasting” which leads Paul to address certain aspects and values of secular Corinth that have penetrated the Corinthian community. Thus, operating from an eschatological perspective, Paul critiques both the Corinthians’ attitudes and the Greco-Roman cultural values upon which their attitudes are based. Through irony, self-presentation, imitation, differentiating between theocentric and anthropocentric “boasting,” and distinguishing between personality and gospel rhetoric, Paul challenges the secular notions of social status, power, wisdom, leadership, and patronage and exhorts the Corinthians to focus their attention on their relationship with the Lord rather than on improving their social status or on increasing their honor.