Phos, Our Other Greek Name
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Phos, Our Other Greek Name Andrew Haas 1 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract It is perhaps time to revivify our other name in Greek: phos. For although the Greeks named us anthrôpos, they also called us phos. And the Greeks used the word phos because we are like light. Indeed, our way of being light-like is illuminating, which illuminates being and the truth of being, so that it can be thought and said, imagined, and sensed—especially insofar as we are this illumination. Thus, it is time to reclaim phos as our name and so rethink what it means to illuminate, whether we light up everything that is (and is not), as well as ourselves, or not. Keywords Being . Illumination . Ontology . Phos . Truth . Unity
What if we were to take up our other name? The one we called ourselves when we did not call ourselves ἀνήρ or ἄνθρωπος, man or human? And before we thought ourselves as rational animal, featherless-biped, Homo faber or Homo sapiens? For we have another name, one that survives throughout our history, one not limited to Greek philosophy, to ontology or metaphysics, ethics or politics, the one used by the poets—but which could continue to name us today: ΦΩΣ, or φώς, or just phos (not merely φῶς). This is the name that Euripides uses: ‘Life is short, and on this account the one who pursues great things does not achieve that which is present. In my opinion, these are the ways of mad and ill-advised men [φωτῶν].’1 It is the name that Sophocles speaks: ‘A husband lost, another might have been found, and if bereft of a child, there could be a second from some other man [παῖς ἀπ᾽ ἄλλου φωτός].’2 It is the name that Homer names in the Iliad: ‘Then among them uprose also Menelaus, sore vexed at heart, furiously wroth at Antilochus; and a herald gave the staff into his hand, and proclaimed silence among the Argives; and thereafter spake among them the Euripides 1994, 386–401; also, φωτῶν, man (429), φάος, light (425, 608), φῶς, light (1084).
1
Sophocles 1990, 891–910; also, φῶτα, man (106); φάος, light (101, 600), φῶς, light (944). See also, Aeschylus 1973, 499; Sophocles 1990, 107.
2
* Andrew Haas [email protected]
1
School of Philosophy, The Higher School of Economics, Staraya Basmanaya 21/4, Moscow, Russia 105066
A. Haas
godlike man [ἰσόθεος φώς]’ (Homer 1920, 23.555–569). And in the Odyssey: ‘Then first of all Odysseus rushed on, holding his long spear on high in his stout hand, eager to smite him; but the boar was too quick for him and struck him above the knee, charging upon him sideways, and with his tusk tore a long gash in the flesh, but did not reach the bone of the man [οὐδ᾽ ὀστέον ἵκετο φωτός]’ (Homer 1922, 19.428–51). Indeed, it would be easy enough to provide additional evidence that the Greek poets call us φώς, but this is not just a matter of poetry or genre (poetry or prose)—for it has implications for philosophy as well.3 As Parmenides writes: ‘the one who knows,’ the illuminated observer, the εἰδότα φῶτα (Parmenides, Diels and Kranz 1960, B1.3; Laks and Most 2016, D4.3; McKirahan and Curd 2011, 56), is
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