Looking back. Rationality and irrationality in classical Greece.

Abstract

Martin Bernal‘s book Black Athena was published in 1987, a work that reconsiders the vision that, along the history of western thought, has turned the Greek civilisation into the model of rationality and perfection to which European occident has always directed its eyes. A debate starts then in the context of cultural studies, which, contrary to the classical idea of rationality and perfection deriving from the belief in the purity of the origin of the «Greek Miracle», becomes aware of the cultural mix from which Greek culture was born. Such mix, starting very early, offers a way to understand the legacy that has enriched Greek Philosophy, art and institutions. Regarding the European view on art and its way to define occidental taste, the figure of Winckelmann reinforces and establishes a vision that goes back to the perfection of classical models. A deconstruction of prejudgements and an acknowledgement of the presence of something else, apart from the influence of classical ideal, in the ups and downs of European taste, are the results of this debate that in these days is turning thirty years old.