Grecka tragedia, tragiczność a polityka

Tomasz Żyro, Greek Tragedy, the Tragic, and PoliticsThis essay focuses on a proto-political reflection that emerged inAthens in the middle of 5th Century B.C. The intellectual context is clearand picturesque due to sophists’ activity, but also to the three generationsof Greek dramatists.As a point of departure for considering origins of the political anthropologythe Sophocles’ Antigone was used. It is worth remarkingthat it was an age of earnest optimism and of serious thinking. It wasthe age of Man, as some scholars are inclined to term. Athenians’ successin both military and naval warfare against the Persians at the beginningof the century (491-479 B.C.) was momentous. It provided apparentlycertain proof that the free institutions of the Athenian poliswere superior to any other kind of political organization.It also gave impetus for intellectual debates in Athens in which “sophistoi”and poets were taking essential part. The very important rolein debates accrues to dramatists. Whereas Aeschylus’ fame as a thinker,apart from his poetic and dramatic fame, must always rest more onhis theology than on his political ideas, which centre round a poet’sconception of dike and a belief that Zeus will punish the wicked and notallow the righteous to perish, Sophocles’ fame rests upon his interest inpolitical issues.Before the time of the analysis and synthesis, the classification andimaginary construction of the various possible forms of constitutionfor a polis was to become one of the chief concerns of Greek politicalphilosophers, Sophocles offered a very interesting discussion on originsof the state and “nature” of citizenship. His drama follows themost intricate debate in 5th century B.C. concerning relationships betweenthe “nature” (physis) and “laws” (nomoi).The essay ends with some conclusive remarks on further changes intreating the subject. As a point of references useful are St. Paul’s reflections,that overcame the realm of “nature” by introducing a concept ofgrace in understanding of man’s destiny, as well as Hobbes’ preliminarydisquisitions on the nature of man, that opened a chasm signifyingthe coming of modernity.