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Chapter 6 - Historical Inquiry and Presocratic Epistemology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2024

K. Scarlett Kingsley
Affiliation:
Agnes Scott College, Decatur
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Summary

This chapter turns to Herodotus’ unique narratorial reticence in making firm truth claims. "What is said" and "what seems" are found with much greater frequency than "what is true." Juxtaposing the Histories with contemporary discussions on epistemology will demonstrate the extent to which truth was problematized as a standard of inquiry in the fifth century. The narrator’s response to this is to use truth as an elusive criterion in order to highlight the difficulty of meeting its conditions. The final portion of this chapter looks to the frequency of "veridical" εἰμί in the Histories and points to its status as a criterion of accuracy in Presocratic epistemology. It argues for its incorporation in historical narrative as a distinctive marker of epistemic certainty.

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Herodotus and the Presocratics
Inquiry and Intellectual Culture in the Fifth Century BCE
, pp. 167 - 189
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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