DIRECTOR’S BOOKSHELF
An Agora of Ideas
Seeger Center Director Dimitri Gondicas in conversation with Spyridon Rangos
The Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies supports more than a dozen fellows each year who conduct intensive research at Princeton. Former Seeger fellows have published hundreds of books with leading publishers and thousands of articles. Their scholarship reflects the broad, interdisciplinary nature of Hellenic Studies, spanning fields from history to religion to literature and periods from antiquity to the present.
In the May 9, 2024, edition of Director’s Bookshelf, Seeger Center Director Dimitri Gondicas speaks with Spyridon Rangos about θαυμάζειν – ἀπορεῖν – φιλοσοφεῖν: Η αρχή της φιλοσοφίας και η φιλοσοφία ως αρχή στην κλασική εποχή (To Wonder – To Be Perplexed – To Philosophize: The Beginning of Philosophy and Philosophy as a Beginning in the Classical Era) published by Crete University Press in November 2023. Rangos is a professor of Ancient Greek literature and philosophy at the University of Patras. He was a visiting research fellow at the Seeger Center in 2016.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
How did this book project begin?
The project developed from my long-standing conviction that philosophy’s beginning lies in wonder. During the 2015-16 academic year, I participated in a reading group on wonder and philosophy developed by psychoanalyst Eleni Filippachi, a Princeton alumna. The group included distinguished historians of philosophy, and we met at the premises of the National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation (MIET) in Athens, thanks to the generosity of Dionysis Kapsalis, who was the director of MIET at that time. Those discussions inspired me to reconsider the concept of wonder.
At Princeton, I explored the complex meaning of θαυμάζειν (“to wonder”) in classical philosophy texts, receiving encouragement that inspired further research when I returned to Greece. Step by step, I discovered that Aristotle had a different understanding of wonder and perplexity – and philosophy itself – from Plato. In late 2017, I participated in an international conference on medical emotions organized by George Kazantzidis and Dimos Spatharas, which prompted me to expand my research to include the Hippocratic corpus.
My research revealed a new dimension to Plato and Isocrates’ conflict about the aim and scope of philosophy. I now think that the stance one takes vis-à-vis wonder determines the value one ascribes to philosophy in its complex relation to science and rhetoric.
Gradually, my explorations of these ideas evolved into a book project. I was thrilled that Crete University Press published the manuscript. The work of Panagiotis Soultanis, my copyeditor, and Photos Varthis, who created the cover, was θαῦμα ἰδέσθαι (“a wonder to behold”), as Homer would have it.
Please tell us about your time at the Seeger Center and the research you conducted then.
At the Seeger Center, I researched Aristotle’s notion of truth in Metaphysics. I wanted to find out how and why truth became, for Aristotle, at the end of Book Theta, a relevant subject of first philosophy as the science of being qua being. I read widely on that issue, gathering necessary bibliographical references in the Hellenic collections at Firestone that would have been difficult to find in Greece. I also participated in reading groups and seminars, attended lectures, and met people with whom I could discuss my ideas. It was a very stimulating intellectual experience.
How did that research impact your work as a whole and this book project in particular?
I gave a lecture at the Seeger Center entitled “Aristotle and Plato on Wonder and Philosophical Perplexity.” The respondent, Professor Benjamin Morison of the Philosophy Department, challenged some of my points in a well-argued way. Professors Andrew Ford, Melissa Lane, and Christian Wildberg provided suggestions that helped me improve my argument. This feedback gave me the motivation to continue.
What would you like your readers to learn?
I would like readers to consider that what we understand as philosophy today is the long-term result of an intellectual struggle fought in Greece in the fourth century B.C.E., not earlier. That was when philosophers gave the term “philosophy” – and the intellectual practice that we associate with it – the precise meanings they still have today. In addition, those meanings are crucially related to experiences of wonder and puzzlement vis-à-vis both ordinary occurrences and exceptional events.
A transformative journey to Greece inspired Stanley J. Seeger to found Hellenic Studies programs at Princeton. Please tell us about a journey that expanded your intellectual horizons or influenced your research.
In 2008-09, I spent four months as a visiting fellow affiliated with Banaras Hindu University in India. While living in Varanasi, a sacred city, I felt that I had traveled abroad for the first time. My familiar ways of thinking and certainties were seriously challenged, and I felt a new sense of tranquility that continues to influence how I see things.
Photo of Dimitri Gondicas by Sameer A. Khan/Fotobuddy. Photo of Spyridon Rangos by Stephanos Pappas.