Sean, I found your distinction between "returning home" and "returning order" very interesting and thank you! It made me think about the difference between possessing power and possessing legitimacy. Odysseus didn't simply reclaim his throne because he was strong enough to defeat the suitors; he reclaimed it because his actions restored the moral and social order the people recognized as rightful. That's a distinction many modern leaders overlook. Authority may be established through position or force, but legitimacy emerges when people believe a leader's actions align with the values and meaning system of the community. It raises an interesting question for today: how many leaders lose legitimacy not because they lack power, but because they no longer embody the story their people believe should guide them?
Glad you enjoyed it my friend! This was wonderfully said. Especially this line, which sums it up:
“Odysseus didn't simply reclaim his throne because he was strong enough to defeat the suitors; he reclaimed it because his actions restored the moral and social order the people recognized as rightful. That's a distinction many modern leaders overlook”
Thanks for the gift, Sean. I'll send it to some friends.
I really enjoyed this article. You explained very well the moral, political, and religious arc that connects Homer, Plato, and Aristotle.
It is, in a way, the Greek version of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Force comes before justice. Or, to put it differently, there are always moral gaps that must be bridged before the rule of law can be established.
With your permission, I should add that, while I recognize the value of your work and your commitment to historical and textual accuracy, I do not share the Greek conservative perspective. In my view, the democratic tradition has ultimately been more beneficial to humanity than the aristocratic one.
Perhaps the greatest surprise in political history is not the strength of the great philosophical systems, but the persistence of the democratic impulse. Despite the intellectual prestige of thinkers who distrusted government by the people, the human desire to participate in shaping one's own destiny has reappeared again and again throughout history.
I hope we will have the opportunity to discuss all of this.
Thanks for reading Sergio! I appreciate your thoughts on this as well my good sir.
Would love to hear more about your background and appreciation of the democratic tradition. You strike me as particularly thoughtful on matters of the political domain.
Thank you very much for your channel and your posts. I think you do rigorous and genuinely honest work.
Let me introduce myself, as you suggested, so you have a little sense of who I am.
My name is Sergio, and I'm from Barcelona.
I studied philosophy in the 1990s, more than twenty-six years ago.
At that time, French postmodern philosophy was in fashion. Thinkers like Deleuze, Foucault, Derrida, and Baudrillard dominated the intellectual landscape. I remember spending countless hours trying to understand a single page of Deleuze. I never managed it. To me, it was completely incomprehensible. It felt like an intellectual junkyard, and I couldn't make sense of any of it.
I was very surprised when 10 years later french postmodernim stroke american campuses. I couldn't believe it and I still struggle with that.
I left the public university and enrolled in a Catholic one, hoping to find a little more meaning and clarity. Clear and distinct ideas, as Descartes would have said. That didn't seem like too much to ask. I still find it remarkable that the country of Descartes also gave birth to what I regard as the excesses of postmodern philosophy.
At the Catholic university I studied the classics in depth—especially the Greeks, of course. I still remember an excellent course on Aristotelian logic with great affection. I came to understand the system from the inside. Plato and Aristotle were taught primarily as a preparation for Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas was king, of course.
But I also studied the great German philosophers: Kant, the German Idealists, and, above all, Heidegger.
For me, Heidegger was a revelation. The rumor was true, as Hannah Arendt once said: he made the Greeks speak again; he brought them back to life.
I encountered all of this through French Catholic scholars, many of them associated with the University of Louvain, where the Husserl Archives are housed. De Waelhens, Merleau-Ponty, and even Sartre were among my favorite authors.
So, in practice, I was learning German philosophy through French thinkers. I also studied many figures who stood at the boundary between theology and philosophy, especially Rudolf Bultmann. He was fascinating. From him I learned a great deal about the ancient world and about both the profound differences and the unexpected similarities between Greeks, Jews, Romans, and Christians.
Looking back, however, there was one significant weakness in my education: my professors did not read English.
And I couldn't read German.
I still remember one professor telling me, "You have no future in philosophy because you don't know German. Young people today only know English—and English is useless for philosophy."
He was right.
It was useless—for that particular philosophical tradition.
I eventually completed an MBA so I could earn a living.
Later, however, I discovered the great English-speaking intellectual tradition: Karl Popper, Paul Johnson, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Sam Harris, Robert Sapolsky, Jared Diamond, and many others. Thanks to Arcadi Espada, a writer from Barcelona, I discovered the Third Culture—a tradition that brings science and the humanities together, championed by John Brockman through Edge.org.
That was another major intellectual turning point for me. Today, this is the kind of philosophy that interests me the most.
I also spend a great deal of time reading about astrophysics, mathematics, materials science, and structural engineering. I am gradually discovering mathematics—Plato would probably be pleased about that!
And, of course, I still return to the Greeks whenever something captures my attention.
Fortunately, I am now in a position where I can read whatever genuinely interests me.
Sean, I found your distinction between "returning home" and "returning order" very interesting and thank you! It made me think about the difference between possessing power and possessing legitimacy. Odysseus didn't simply reclaim his throne because he was strong enough to defeat the suitors; he reclaimed it because his actions restored the moral and social order the people recognized as rightful. That's a distinction many modern leaders overlook. Authority may be established through position or force, but legitimacy emerges when people believe a leader's actions align with the values and meaning system of the community. It raises an interesting question for today: how many leaders lose legitimacy not because they lack power, but because they no longer embody the story their people believe should guide them?
Glad you enjoyed it my friend! This was wonderfully said. Especially this line, which sums it up:
“Odysseus didn't simply reclaim his throne because he was strong enough to defeat the suitors; he reclaimed it because his actions restored the moral and social order the people recognized as rightful. That's a distinction many modern leaders overlook”
Thanks for the gift, Sean. I'll send it to some friends.
I really enjoyed this article. You explained very well the moral, political, and religious arc that connects Homer, Plato, and Aristotle.
It is, in a way, the Greek version of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Force comes before justice. Or, to put it differently, there are always moral gaps that must be bridged before the rule of law can be established.
With your permission, I should add that, while I recognize the value of your work and your commitment to historical and textual accuracy, I do not share the Greek conservative perspective. In my view, the democratic tradition has ultimately been more beneficial to humanity than the aristocratic one.
Perhaps the greatest surprise in political history is not the strength of the great philosophical systems, but the persistence of the democratic impulse. Despite the intellectual prestige of thinkers who distrusted government by the people, the human desire to participate in shaping one's own destiny has reappeared again and again throughout history.
I hope we will have the opportunity to discuss all of this.
Best regards,
Thanks for reading Sergio! I appreciate your thoughts on this as well my good sir.
Would love to hear more about your background and appreciation of the democratic tradition. You strike me as particularly thoughtful on matters of the political domain.
Hi Sean,
Thank you very much for your channel and your posts. I think you do rigorous and genuinely honest work.
Let me introduce myself, as you suggested, so you have a little sense of who I am.
My name is Sergio, and I'm from Barcelona.
I studied philosophy in the 1990s, more than twenty-six years ago.
At that time, French postmodern philosophy was in fashion. Thinkers like Deleuze, Foucault, Derrida, and Baudrillard dominated the intellectual landscape. I remember spending countless hours trying to understand a single page of Deleuze. I never managed it. To me, it was completely incomprehensible. It felt like an intellectual junkyard, and I couldn't make sense of any of it.
I was very surprised when 10 years later french postmodernim stroke american campuses. I couldn't believe it and I still struggle with that.
I left the public university and enrolled in a Catholic one, hoping to find a little more meaning and clarity. Clear and distinct ideas, as Descartes would have said. That didn't seem like too much to ask. I still find it remarkable that the country of Descartes also gave birth to what I regard as the excesses of postmodern philosophy.
At the Catholic university I studied the classics in depth—especially the Greeks, of course. I still remember an excellent course on Aristotelian logic with great affection. I came to understand the system from the inside. Plato and Aristotle were taught primarily as a preparation for Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas was king, of course.
But I also studied the great German philosophers: Kant, the German Idealists, and, above all, Heidegger.
For me, Heidegger was a revelation. The rumor was true, as Hannah Arendt once said: he made the Greeks speak again; he brought them back to life.
I encountered all of this through French Catholic scholars, many of them associated with the University of Louvain, where the Husserl Archives are housed. De Waelhens, Merleau-Ponty, and even Sartre were among my favorite authors.
So, in practice, I was learning German philosophy through French thinkers. I also studied many figures who stood at the boundary between theology and philosophy, especially Rudolf Bultmann. He was fascinating. From him I learned a great deal about the ancient world and about both the profound differences and the unexpected similarities between Greeks, Jews, Romans, and Christians.
Looking back, however, there was one significant weakness in my education: my professors did not read English.
And I couldn't read German.
I still remember one professor telling me, "You have no future in philosophy because you don't know German. Young people today only know English—and English is useless for philosophy."
He was right.
It was useless—for that particular philosophical tradition.
I eventually completed an MBA so I could earn a living.
Later, however, I discovered the great English-speaking intellectual tradition: Karl Popper, Paul Johnson, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Sam Harris, Robert Sapolsky, Jared Diamond, and many others. Thanks to Arcadi Espada, a writer from Barcelona, I discovered the Third Culture—a tradition that brings science and the humanities together, championed by John Brockman through Edge.org.
That was another major intellectual turning point for me. Today, this is the kind of philosophy that interests me the most.
I also spend a great deal of time reading about astrophysics, mathematics, materials science, and structural engineering. I am gradually discovering mathematics—Plato would probably be pleased about that!
And, of course, I still return to the Greeks whenever something captures my attention.
Fortunately, I am now in a position where I can read whatever genuinely interests me.
That is no small privilege.
So, more or less, that's who I am.