PHIL 203 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Theogony, Cosmogony
3 May 2018
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HAP 8.31.17 Lecture Notes
Hesiod and the Genesis
- Mythography/mythology
- Oral, magical, tendency to moralize and be didactic
- Explains natural phenomenon
- Command belief and specific to a certain culture
- Invocations of gods and goddesses of memory – the poet has to remember the whole
myth as well
Hesiod
- 750-650 BC
- Rough contemporary of Homer
- Theogony and Works and Days – two main works
- Other passages of his work often include details of his life – usually embellished
Theogony
- Theo – God, divine; Gon – becoming = account of how the gods came to be
- He’s also gie us a osogo
o Kosos: order – something that has some sort of logic to it
o There is order to the universe and that we, as humans, can know about it
o Sentiment that are shared by most of the pre-Socratic philosophers
- (104-234) Muses – establish epistemological grounding on which Hesiod can justify his
story
- Alternative sources (alternative to invoking the muses) of knowledge?
o Witness
o Passed down
- Earlier in the poem – he talks about the Muses appearing to him and tell him that the
Muses can make falsities seem true but can also tell the truth
o Introduces a sense of doubt
o God-ispired oie i e
- Story – how Earth and the gods came to be – a origi stor
o Chasm (aka Chaos) – first god
▪ Could be a chasm between the earth and Tartaros
▪ Chasm already exists – aoids the prole of reatio out of othig
o Stories of natural phenomenon
▪ Night and stars
▪ Sea
▪ Account of origin of gods simultaneous with explanation of natural
phenomenon
o 154-160: Ouranos stuffs his children back into the earth to maintain his rule
▪ Gaia devises a plan
▪ Kronos castrates Ouranos and the drops of blood give birth
▪ Gods have some sort of life-granting force
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