Tragic Cognition and Philosophical Thinking

Abstract

Greek philosophy was created from strained relations with traditional thought. In ancient Greece, there were both rising intellects who stood by philosophical thinking and defenders of traditional thought who were prejudiced against the newly developed innovative thinking. Accordingly, Greek philosophy cannot be considered to represent Greek thinking or civilization. Greek tragedy, which sublimates strained relations between philosophy that represents rising thinking and traditional thoughts into art, would rather be the one that represents what's Greek. When we closely examine closely Oedipus the King of Sophocles, we read a stern warning that was formed in the tense relations between the new and the traditional thinking. As the new thinking that searches for universal knowledge grounded on the sense of identity(hybris) cannot be the tool with which one could inquire into the human fate or providence(moira), it warns strictly that we would eventually end up collapsing when we use philosophical thinking in searching for the truth. We can read the following messages from such a warning on the philosophy. First, Greek philosophers after the era of tragedy, such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, established their philosophies based on the stern warnings and criticisms of Greek tragedy. Second, one would hardly be able to surpass western philosophical thinking without a critical consciousness as strict as the tragic poets held.