Mind and World in the Iliad and the Odyssey

Abstract

This dissertation is a study of how characters understand reality in the Iliad and the Odyssey through their cognitive faculties. Thus, I describe this dissertation as an investigation into the interaction between the mind and the world in the Homeric poems. I discuss this topic vis-à-vis the ancient philosophical tradition. Scholars of ancient philosophy have discussed a shift from the god-centered worldview of the Homeric epic to the human-centered worldview of the Presocratics. This has contributed to the definition of an evolutionary narrative, often encapsulated in the expression “from Mythos to Logos.” While recent scholars resist using a polarizing vocabulary (e.g., from myth to reason, from irrationality to rationality), the idea that some line must be drawn between the poets and the philosophers persists. This has implications on how Homeric and Presocratic epistemology is viewed. Mortals in Homer need the support of the gods to attain knowledge, while according to the Presocratics, mortals are active agents in their search for and attainment of knowledge. By showing that some of the epistemological concerns that we find in the Presocratic fragments already emerged in the Homeric poems, in this dissertation, I argue that the gulf between Homeric and Presocratic epistemology is narrower than expected. My analysis shows that Homeric characters do not take for granted the possibility of instantaneously grasping the reality that surrounds them through sense perception, nor do they consider acquiring truth about reality an easy enterprise. What makes understanding reality difficult for Homeric characters is often divine intervention. I argue that gods’ epistemic role in the Homeric poems is ambivalent: they can dispense insights into reality and truths to mortals, but they can also falsify, hide, and modify reality. Thus, this dissertation focuses on passages in the Iliad and the Odyssey where mortals solely rely on their capacities to navigate reality. I argue that mortals in the Homeric poems achieve insight into reality independently of divine revelation and that their reliance on their cognitive and intellectual capacities stems precisely from the need to navigate a world where divine intervention introduces ambiguity and deceit. All these epistemological issues (the limits of perceptual experience and the skepticism toward communication reliability, the ambiguity of the divine revelation, and the possibility of acquiring understanding by relying on reason and reasoning) become prominent in Presocratic philosophy. Overall, this dissertation follows a progression. I start by analyzing how Homeric characters employ and regard perceptual experience as the first and most immediate point of entry to reality (Chapter 1). Then, in Chapter 2, I discuss different types of knowledge in the Homeric poems based on its objects. Homeric characters primarily aim to know about specific past, present, and future events. However, they can also know general truths or rules and be seen as possessors of a specialized body of knowledge. In Chapter 3, I consider mind-reading and the ability to recognize people. Someone’s thoughts and their identity are aspects of reality, and characters who are good at grasping them have an advantage. Finally, in Chapter 4, I consider cases where Homeric characters recur to reasoning. Homeric characters engage in reasoning when they face cognitively difficult-to-grasp situations.