On 21st October at 18:00 Savle Tsereteli Institute of Philosophy organized a public lecture of Prof. Dr. Johan Tralau (University of Upsala) on the topic: “Greek myth and the beginning of time I: Hesiod’s Kronos and the aspects of time“.
When did time begin? Philosophers and present-day cosmologists still ask this question. It is a sophisticated problem that requires abstract thought. In this lecture, Professor Tralau argued that it can be found in the Greek 8th or 7th century BC poet Hesiod, who tells us the somewhat shocking myth of how the god Kronos emasculated his father Uranos. He contended that for Hesiod, temporal change, months, seasons and years are all created when Kronos cuts of his father’s genitals and throws them behind him. The poet thus asks an astonishingly philosophical question – and strangely enough, he finds the origin of time in a primordial act of violence.
Johan Tralau is Professor of Government at Uppsala University, Sweden. He has written widely on literature, myth and political philosophy in different shapes and genres, including on Thomas Hobbes, monsters, and Greek tragedy. His current research interests include the origins of political philosophy in ancient Greece and beyond; saffron in Greek myth and poetry; developing a normative theory of courtesy; and the beginning of time and justice in Hesiod, Greek, Hittite and Mesopotamian myth. In 2013, the Swedish Academy awarded him the first Johan Lundblad Prize in classical philology and ancient history.
