Department of Philosophy Presents: Sophie-Grace Chappell, Open University, UK

Title: Humility in ancient Greek ethics

Abstract: In the West we are the inheritors of two main virtue-ethical traditions, the Christian tradition and the pagan [1] Greek tradition. Both traditions are flourishingly alive today, both in our individual psyches and in our life together. It is often said (as suggested by my two epigraphs) that one major difference between them is that the Christian tradition recognises, and the pagan tradition does not, a virtue of humility. One of the concerns that motivate this essay is the historical question whether and in what sense this commonplace might be true, in particular of the Greek tradition from Homer to Aristotle. Another (though I won’t have space to say much about it here) is the philosophical question whether we should recognise a virtue of humility, and if so, what that virtue should look like here and now.