{"id":2439,"date":"2025-09-01T10:37:01","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T09:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.resonances-through-history.ch\/?p=2439"},"modified":"2025-09-04T09:17:30","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T08:17:30","slug":"the-grammar-of-sympathy-in-plutarch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.resonances-through-history.ch\/en\/the-grammar-of-sympathy-in-plutarch\/","title":{"rendered":"The Grammar of \u201cSympathy\u201d in Plutarch: Human Beings in Resonance with the Divine"},"content":{"rendered":"

2 September 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The word \u201cgrammar\u201d is frequently used to talk about structural elements in certain discourses: the grammar of love, the grammar of society, the grammar of ornament, and the like. In that sense, this lecture, which is the product of a collaboration of my Bern research team \u201cResonances,\u201d will discuss the \u201cgrammar of sympathy\u201d in Plutarch\u2019s oeuvre (including related concepts such as harmony, resonance, and echo as well as the Stoics\u2019 notion of oikei\u014dsis). Just as important, however, are actual grammatical (as well as semantic) aspects in the usage of the word \u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03c0\u03ac\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1 (\u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03c0\u03b1\u03b8\u03ae\u03c2, \u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03c0\u03b1\u03b8\u03ad\u03c9, etc.), which will provide us insight into Plutarch\u2019s reasoning about the contact between humans and the divine as well as into Plutarch\u2019s discussions with his Stoic counterparts. The imagery of sympatheia (within one body, between strings on an instrument, \u2026) helps Plutarch to illustrate how humans are related to the world (including animals, plants, and fellow human beings) on the one hand, and to the divine or God on the other. Active\/passive (grammatically, \u201cvoice\u201d) and activity\/passivity (the aspect of moving or being moved) will be shown to delineate different philosophical and theological positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n