The second centre of interest of the conference concerns the theoretical discussion of knowledge: in Euripides’ Medea, the sophia of the protagonist in the field of poisons and magic is investigated in the social fracture and isolation that is created between the intellectual and society. In Aristophanes, the Clouds pose the problem of the potential conflict between education and the structure of the family unit, and the Frogs the function of the poet in the face of the emergencies of the polis.
The ambiguity between these two planes shines through in the tragedies that have most transmitted to modernity the model of intellectual experience, with the relationship between knowledge and power being the foundation of Oedipus’ reign, and with the foundation of civilisation by the titan Prometheus who instilled it in men along with “blind hopes”.