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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2021
Similarities between ancient Greek philosophy and Indian philosophy have long been recognized and are usually ascribed to East-West contact. However, when similarities are recognized between Greek and Indian poetic diction or, more generally, between the myths and the poetry of the two cultures, they are often ascribed to Indo-European common origin; and one asks whether the same explanation could apply in philosophy. The two types of explanation are not incompatible, for a remote common origin could have been followed by one or more periods of interaction. Nevertheless, it is worth seeing how far an explanation of common origin can be pressed before falling back on the explanation of contact.
1 Thus, when introducing the pioneering thinking of the Miletan sages, one specialist presents it as ‘in all probability … influenced by ideas from the other civilisations of the Near East’ (Hussey, E., The Presocratics [London, 1972], 1Google Scholar).
2 Dumézil, G., Mythes et dieux des Indo-Européens: textes réunis et présentés par Hervé Coutau-Bégarie (Paris, 1992), 248Google Scholar (at 95 he also talks of ‘la réflexion philosophique des Indo-Européens’).
3 Dumézil, G., Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus (Paris, 1941), 257–61Google Scholar.
4 Dumézil, G., Mythe et épopée (Paris, 1968, 1971, 1973), 1.473–6, 2.256 n. 3Google Scholar.
5 N.J. Allen, ‘Review of M.L. West, Indo-European Poetry and Myth (Oxford, 2009)’, BMCRev 2007.10.53.
6 Cf. Chousalkar, A.S., Social and Political Implications of Concepts of Justice and Dharma: A Comparative Study with Special Reference to the ‘Republic’ and ‘Shantiparvan’ (Delhi, 1986)Google Scholar—which is slight, or McEvilley, T., The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies (New York, 2002)Google Scholar. The latter was discussed by N.J. Allen in International Journal of Hindu Studies 9 (2005), 59–75.
7 Such an ideology, which can be called correlational, classificatory or partitional, is unfamiliar in the modern West, but is recognized by anthropologists (N.J. Allen, ‘Primitive classification: the argument and its validity’, in id., Categories and Classifications: Maussian Reflections on the Social [Oxford, 2000], 39–60).
8 See Dumézil, G., Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus IV (Paris, 1948), 155–61Google Scholar, a passage the author endorsed later: id., Les dieux souverains des Indo-Européens (Paris, 1977), 35 n. 1.
9 Lee, H.D.P., Plato The Republic (Harmondsworth, 1955), 365Google Scholar.
10 Allen, N.J., ‘The articulation of time: some Indo-European comparisons’, Cosmos 17 (2001), 163–78Google Scholar.
11 Dumézil (n. 3), 258.
12 Dumézil, G., L'oubli de l'homme et l'honneur des dieux: esquisses de mythologie (Paris, 1985), 202–10Google Scholar.
13 Allen, N.J., ‘The close and the distant: a long-term perspective’, in Pfeffer, G. (ed.), Periphery and Centre: Studies in Orissan History, Religion and Anthropology (Delhi, 2007), 273–90Google Scholar.
14 Traces of a farmer-artisan divide also occur in traditions about the four sons of Ion and the four Ionian tribes: Benveniste, E., Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes, 2 vols. (Paris, 1969), 1.289–91Google Scholar (transl. Indo-European Language and Society [London, 1973], 235–7); Bodéüs, R., ‘Société athénienne, sagesse grecque et idéal indo-européen’, AC 41 (1972), 468–75Google Scholar.
15 One translator, who uses the plural, nevertheless compares these ‘ideal legislators, belonging in the world of a transcendent fiction’, to the singular Demiurge in Plato's Timaeus: Leroux, G., Platon La République (Paris, 2004 2), 665 n. 98Google Scholar.
16 J. Annas, An Introduction to Plato's Republic (Oxford, 1981), 16, 335.
17 Parker, R., Athenian Religion: A History (Oxford, 1997), especially 170–5Google Scholar.
18 Allen, N.J., ‘Śiva and Indo-European ideology: one line of thought’, International Journal of Hindu Studies 11 (2007), 191–207CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
19 Rutherford, R.B., The Art of Plato (London, 1995), 74 n. 9Google Scholar.
20 M.F. Burnyeat, ‘First words: a valedictory lecture’, in id., Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 2012), 2.305–26, at 2.310–13.
21 Martino, M. De, ARCANA VERBA, Fortuna e Jupiter nel loro background indoeuropeo: II, Il “motivo della Sorte esteso” (Bari, 2015)Google Scholar, especially 209–44.
22 Leroux (n. 15), 527.
23 Cornford, F.M., The Republic of Plato (London, 1945), 223Google Scholar.
24 Allen, N.J., ‘The category of substance: a Maussian theme revisited’, in James, W. and Allen, N.J. (edd.), Marcel Mauss: A Centenary Tribute (Oxford, 1998), 175–91, at 185Google Scholar.
25 Leroux (n. 15), 667–8.
26 The valued part is presented as triadic but not trifunctional. In 572b the devalued part is terrible, wild and lawless (ἄνομον).
27 Ajax, who chose to reincarnate as a lion (620b), is the best candidate for F2 among the Greek warriors at Troy: see Allen, N.J., ‘Heroes and pentads; or how Indo-European is Greek epic?’, BICS 57 (2014), 1–19Google Scholar.
28 The diminution is echoed in the demography of the classes (428e, 503b, etc.) and in the sizes of the three components of the soul (442). This is where triangular models can be useful.
29 Not to mention plausible trifunctional sets, e.g. 443a: sacrilege, theft, betrayal, F1–3–2, assuming προδοσία connotes war.
30 My thanks to an anonymous referee for suggesting many improvements.
31 Also solo philosopher-king, founder/legislator, Socrates.
32 Also cosmos and Ananke.