Sophrosyne, synesis, sophia

Euripides’s Intellectualism

Abstract

Can a thesis of an intellectualistic kind be attributed to Euripides – at least in a certain sense and under certain conditions? An analysis of his tragedies reveals that Euripides seems to indicate and outline a form of higher sophía, based predominantly on intellectual understanding, which can prove superior to other psychic forces and which in any case never appears to be overwhelmed by anything else. Authentic sophía, which consists in a form of sōphrosýnē and of correct aidos, can be an object of learning; but, unlike in Socrates and Plato, it cannot guarantee happiness; it certainly does not shelter man from týchē or from the questionable decisions of the gods, but it can strongly limit the error that lies at the root of the tragic outcome. Despite unbridgeable differences, Euripides proves less distant from a form of ‘ethical intellectualism’ of a Socratic-Platonic kind than it might initially seem.