The research shows the way to liberate the word from the imperative hierarchical social system to the equality, to the cooperative search for truth. It’s the way from Logos to Dialogos. The article analyzes the development of the social structure of Athens from the Mycenaean Age to the end of the 6th century BC. The author highlights the main stages and principles of this development: dysnomia, eunomia, isonomia. Special attention was paid to the definitions and explication the relationship between these (...) principles. Dysnomia is characterized as wrong order, lawlessness. It was a principle of total political inequality, where the class of urban aristocracy is endowed with full rights, and ordinary people do not have them at all. Eunomia is the conception of good order, the right social system. It was a principle of geometrical equality that left power in the hands of the aristocracy, but expanded the rights of the people. The author shows that Eunomia“s role in the development of the political equality in Athens as a transitional stage to the notion of Isonomia was fundamental. He claims that the emergence of dialogue as a social phenomenon, and partly as a genre, in Athens becomes possible after Cleisthenes“ reforms on the ground of principle of Isonomia. (shrink)

As a drama and a poem theEumenidesis often regarded with unease. It brings theOresteiato a conclusion; but its account of Athens and the Areopagus seems to many readers inspired more by patriotism than a sense of dramatic unity. Hence much attention has been devoted to Aeschylus' supposed political message in the play; as a result, the question of its fitness to crown the trilogy recedes into the background or even vanishes. On the other hand, those whose concern is with Aeschylus' (...) poetry tend to ignore his ‘politics’. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it seeks to vindicate Aeschylus the artist: to show, that is, how the founding of the homicide court and the cult of the Semnai on the Areopagus in Athens properly marks the end of the troubles of the Argive Atridae, and how the sufferings and guilt of individual men and women are resolved in a city's institutions. In pursuing this aim, it also has to consider, and try to define, the relation of the tragedian to his audience and to contemporary society. My concern, then, is with the individual and the community, both within the play and behind it. (shrink)

The ancient lawgiver Solon of Athens left norms of proper conduct that carry important ethical implications for all manner of human affairs, including commercial activities and the pursuit of wealth. In his extant poetry, he emphasizes the strong connections between individual virtue and its consequences in the social and political sphere. In considering the proper means of obtaining material wealth, he describes multiple ways to earn a living and connects them to proper intellectual and ethical dispositions through a concept of (...) justice. This focus on virtue establishes a long-range ethics that is based on a principle of justice, demands rational intellectual activity, and carries implications for everyone’s self-interest. Solon’s concern for matters of virtue, the proper means of attaining wealth, and the need for long-range awareness of consequences offers a valuable point of historical focus for our own examinations of business ethics today. (shrink)