Jeremy Corbyn is the master of ‘raising issues’. He received an obscure prize last year for his ‘work for disarmament and peace’ — i.e. talking about it. He ‘raised issues about human rights in Iran’, he said, when he worked for TV there. It will be at the ‘centre of my foreign policy’.
The ancient Greek for ‘word, speech’ was logos, and words could be regarded as tricky and deceitful: mere talk, no substance. Logos, however had another range of meanings: ‘reason, rational account, argument.’ It was in that sense that Plato saw logos as the sole route to the truth: using debate to produce a reason-based account of the world.
The Athenian Thucydides, the contemporary historian of the catastrophic ‘Peloponnesian war’ between Athens and Sparta (431-404 bc), took on board both of these senses, but asked the crucial question: what did logos actually achieve? What was actually done as a result of logos? More importantly still, what fit was there between man’s logos and the real world?
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in