Helen

Medusa reveals something the Greeks already suspected. Beauty and terror are not opposites. They are twins. Both arrest the mind through the eye. A man who sees Medusa cannot move. A man who sees Helen often cannot act. The mechanism is identical. The Greeks understood this long before philosophers explained it. The eye commands theContinue reading “Helen”

Medusa

The power of sight. Aristotle captures is succinctly: All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves, and above all others the sense of sight. Metaphysics 980a:21 Sight is superior because it reveals theContinue reading “Medusa”

KAIROS AND THE GEOMETRY OF TIMING

Book Five of the Iliad contains the most outrageous act of combat in all of Greek myth: a mortal wounds a god. Homer opens the Iliad with the anger of Achilles and his retreat from the field of battle. His mother, Thetis, bargains with Zeus, and the war is no longer a simple contest ofContinue reading “KAIROS AND THE GEOMETRY OF TIMING”