Iliad, Homer - Michael Naas (essay date 1995)

Michael Naas (essay date 1995)

SOURCE: Naas, Michael. “Persuasion in the Eyes of the Other.” In Turning: From Persuasion to Philosophy, A Reading of Homer's Iliad, pp. 182-93. Atlantic Highlands N.J.: Humanities Press, 1995.

[In the following essay, Naas appraises the concepts of valor, shame, honor, and supplication as they relate to community relations that mediate between the Self and the Other in the Iliad.]

In a society of face to face relations, a culture of shame and honor where competition for glory leaves little room for a sense of duty and knows nothing of sin, the existence of each is constantly placed beneath the gaze of the other. It is in the eye of the one facing you, in the mirror that he presents you, that a self-image takes shape.

—Jean-Pierre Vernant1

If the relation of man with man ceases to be that of the Same with the Same, but rather introduces the...

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