Hesiod's Mythical Poems In The Source Of Classical Political Philosophy

Hesiod lived in Greek in the eighth century. His two substantial myth poems arethe Theogony ("Generation of Gods") and the Works and Days, in which ponder onthe political and moral ideas. And other Greek thinkers afterwards profited from hisprinciples and viewpoints, when carrying on the political philosophy observation tothe realistic polis life. Thus, his poems have become one of the Greek classicalphilosophy sources.The first part of the article mainly analyzes the related background. The articlebelieves that Greek myth combines the multi-national myth history, and it is theintuitive reflection to the universe of ancient Greek who was in limited cognitiveability.The second part of the article mainly analyzes the Hesiod's conception of theuniverse. Gods have created the universe and it is a unified order with social nature.Zeus formulated the justice as a standard to protect the order. With the standardestablished, the universe order essentially becomes a political-moral order.The third part mainly analyzes the Hesiod's theory of human nature. From hiswork, we can find humanity's history is degenerate, just because human's behaviorsdestroy the justice. But it also has redeem, and it depends on people practice thejustice all over again.The fourth part mainly analyzes his theory of justice. He opposed Homer's idea——the strength is justice, thought the justice is not violence or power. He dividedjustice into two parts——universal justice and individual justice. Universal justicemeans justice is a standard of the universe order, and everyone should observe it. Itincludes assignment fair and judicial fair two levers. The individual justice is not onlya heteronomy of person's behavior, but also is a moral autonomy. In this kind ofsignificance, justice becomes the constituent of individual morality.The fifth part——the influence to the Greek thought development, firstly indicates that Hesiod reconsidered the heroic code of Homer Epic. The justice nolonger represents strength and privilege; it controls the society as a moral standard.Then, this part explains how the myth——including Hesiod's poems, initiated theGreek philosophy.In the sixth part——as one of Greek classical political philosophy sources, thearticle believes his theory of justice inspired thinkers such as Solon, Pythagoras andPlato, and we can also find it in Aristotle's works. When these thoughts were used toresearch on realistic polis political life, justice has become one of core concepts ofGreek classical political philosophy. In addition, his works contains the maincharacteristic of classical political philosophy——utilizing the moral principle in thepolitical life as a dominate rule. They also have some important ideas such as thevariant equality. These ideas stimulated the occurrence of classical politicalphilosophy.Holding on the methodology of the combination of history and logic, this articleanalyzes the poems from angles of political philosophy and the writer's historicbackground. From studying the text carefully, the article wants to return to originalmeaning as real as possible, grasps its status in the ancient Greek thinking history, andcontribution to classical political philosophy.