An archeology of self-concern. Hesiod and the background by lifestyle. Wisdom, practice, and subjective transformation

Abstract

The following work will address the characteristics of ethical concern in Works and Days. We will break down the topic from an ethical anthropological dimension, searching for vestiges of it in the work of the thinker from Ascra. Let us remember that Works and Days represents a work of an ethical-anthropological nature that addresses the problems present in Theogony from another level or, rather, without fracturing the unity that, in our opinion, unites Hesiod's work.

Consequently, we want to investigate to what extent the first Hesiodic babblings can constitute an antecedent of the “constitution of the wise man”, the constitution of the prudent man, passed through the sophrosyne, following the proposal formulated by Pierre Hadot, in which the way of life and the question of wisdom, oriented towards the realization of a certain type of bios, is directly related to the notion of askesis. The concept of life is associated with a continuum and not with a disjointed succession of isolated moments.

The work will move in the aforementioned dimension, investigating the relationships between poetic thought and philosophy, since we are located in a line of reflection in which Hesiod represents the philosophical or pre-philosophical interlocutor who constitutes the magma with which he nourishes himself the subsequent philosophy.