24. Zu Aristophanes

Aristophanes on Tragedy

Fifty years before Aristotle wrote his Poetics, Aristophanes had devoted two comedies, Thesmophoriazusae (411) and Frogs (405), to the subject of tragedy. In both plays the plot shows the education of the main character in the nature of tragedy. Euripides learns in Thesmophoriazusae that he must present noble and not base women in his dramas. His depiction of perverse women in the theatre had m...

The Ionian at Aristophanes

The Invention Of Secularity In Aristophanes

The last two plays of Aristophanes show a world that for the first time in the development of Western civilization can reasonably be called secular. The secularity of Ecclesiazusae and Plutus lies in their presenting human individuality as containing in its activity the various aspects of the life of the polis, more thoroughly than the gods who presided over them. The gods do not thereby vanish...

Zu-th 24/93 Quantum Cosmology and the Emergence of a Classical World

Quantum cosmology is the application of quantum theory to the Universe as a whole. At first glance such an attempt seems surprising since one is used to apply quantum theory to microscopic systems. Why, then, does one wish to extrapolate it to the whole Universe? This extrapolation is based on the assumption that quantum theory is universally valid, in particular that there is no a priori class...

The Third Hypothesis of Aristophanes' Peace again