Thucydides' Search for the Truth

Thucydides' book on the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians has generally been considered a historical chronicle. By contrast, Peter Ahrensdorf here makes the case that it is better understood as a work of philosophy, inasmuch as it seeks to understand the permanent truth about human nature. Thucydides, he argues, focuses on this particular war because of its theoretical significance. It presents a clash, not only between military powers, but between two theoretical outlooks - Periclean Athenians' progressive and humanistic understanding of the fundamental character and condition of human beings, and the Spartans' traditional and religious understanding. Ahrensdorf leads us through Thucydides' examination of the case for and against both Athens and Sparta and shows how Thucydides ultimately offers for our consideration an account of himself as an individual who -- unlike outstanding characters as such Alcibiades, the Athenian ambassadors at Sparta and Melos, Diodotus, and Pericles - ascends to a truly independent and genuinely philosophic understanding of the human condition.