FROM ΑΣΕΒΕΙΑ TO ΑΚΡΑΣΙΑ – SOCRATES’ AND PLATO’S REINTERPRETATION OF THE NOTION OF UNGODLINESS

Abstract

The author examines a shift in Ancient Greek notion of a “wanton” or “godless crime”, starting from the point in which a political notion of “ungodliness” (ἀσέβεια) has taken over the sense and the role in society, which was earlier played by the notion of “hybris” (ὕβρις), as described by the epic and tragic poets, and leading to a philosophical and strictly ethical notion of akrasia (ἀκρασία), reflecting a similar shift of authority of the laws of the state (derived from divine authority of the gods) to a form of autonomy of a virtuous individual. The trial of Socrates is discussed as a shattering point of the authority of Athenian laws and religious customs, and the first step towards the founding of ethics as an answer to an increasingly deteriorating morality of the Greek city state. It is argued that Socrates’ famous claim for all virtue to be knowledge leads to Plato’s formulating of the ethical concepts of akrasia and akolasia, seen as a form of internal psychological heteronomy of the affective part of the human soul. Finally, Aristotle’s views on these notions are discussed.