Les mots de la démesure
The traditionally recognized twofold meaning of hubris, i. e. on the one hand human arrogance in front of divinities and, on the other hand, an insult against everyone’s honour in the human community, seemingly cannot be reduced to the second meaning only. While measu...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | fra |
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Presses universitaires de Caen
2004-12-01
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| Series: | Kentron |
| Online Access: | http://journals.openedition.org/kentron/1821 |
| Summary: | The traditionally recognized twofold meaning of hubris, i. e. on the one hand human arrogance in front of divinities and, on the other hand, an insult against everyone’s honour in the human community, seemingly cannot be reduced to the second meaning only. While measure is a very important concept in Greek thought, there is no word left to express its contrary, if one expels hubris. Therefore one is compelled to see that, beyond the kinship connecting its two meanings, both involved in human wrongdoing, hubris is an evolutive word which, starting with an indeniable religious value in the most ancient texts, gets a political one as well in the archaic period, then, during the Vth and IVth centuries, is reduced to the psychological and legal value of personal insult, culminating in rape. In the meantime, a new word emerges beginning in the second part of the Vth century onwards. Pleonexia conveys the secularised idea of arrogance, i. e. the encroachment upon the just share everyone or every city is entitled to. |
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| ISSN: | 0765-0590 2264-1459 |