Key Arguments

• Ricoeur credits Hegel with having perceived in Antigone 'the narrowness of the angle of commitment of each of the char acters', i.e., the limited, one-sided perspectives from which they act.
• With Nussbaum he proposes to 'discern in the two main protagonists a strategy of avoidance with regard to the conflicts internal to their respective causes', suggesting that each simplifies his or her cause to evade its internal tensions.
• For Creon, 'the opposition friend-enemy is confined to a narrow political category and admits of no nuance, no exception', and 'Alone is "good" that which serves the city, "bad" that which is harmful to it; the good citizen alone is "just," and "justice" commands only the art of governing and being governed.' This 'impoverished and simplified vision of his own city' is said to 'lead Creon to his downfall.'
• For Antigone, 'Her manner of distinguishing between philos and ekhthros is no less rigid than Creon's; for her, the only thing that counts is the family bond, so magnifi cently concentrated in "sisterhood."', and 'Ultimately, only the dead relative is philos.'
• Antigone strips her cause of eros and civic dimension: 'This bond8 is stripped of the eros found in Haemon and celebrated by the chorus' and 'The laws of the city have lost their sacred cast', replaced by unwritten laws of the dead: 'For me it was not Zeus who made that order. Nor did that Justice who lives with the gods below mark out such laws to hold among mankind'.
• He notes that 'These are indeed two partial and unilateral visions of justice that are set in opposi tion by the protagonists.' and that Antigone’s 'strategy of simplification...does not make Antigone any less inhuman than Creon.'
• The consequences for Antigone are extreme: she ends 'without any fellow citizens, robbed of the help of the gods of the city, without husband and without offspring, and even without friends to mourn her', becoming an emblematic figure: 'The figure that walks away into the distance is not simply a person who suffers but Suffering itself.'

Source Quotes

So let us try again here. What Antigone teaches about the tragic wellspring of action was indeed perceived by Hegel in the Phenomenology of Spirit and in the Aesthetics, namely the narrowness of the angle of commitment of each of the char acters. Perhaps we must, with Martha Nussbaum,6 go even further in a direction which, as we shall see, is not as anti-Hegelian as she may think, and discern in the two main protagonists a strategy of avoidance with regard to the conflicts internal to their respective causes.

What Antigone teaches about the tragic wellspring of action was indeed perceived by Hegel in the Phenomenology of Spirit and in the Aesthetics, namely the narrowness of the angle of commitment of each of the char acters. Perhaps we must, with Martha Nussbaum,6 go even further in a direction which, as we shall see, is not as anti-Hegelian as she may think, and discern in the two main protagonists a strategy of avoidance with regard to the conflicts internal to their respective causes. On this second point, even more than on the first, we can graft the tragic wisdom capable of directing a practical wisdom.

Creon's conception of his duties with respect to the city not only does not exhaust the wealth of meaning of the Greek polis but does not take into account the variety and perhaps the heterogeneity of the tasks belong ing to the city. For Creon, as we have already mentioned, the opposition friend-enemy is confined to a narrow political category and admits of no nuance, no exception. This narrowness of viewpoint is reflected in his estimation of the virtues.

"Piety," an im portant virtue, is reduced to the civic bond, and the gods arc called upon to honor only those citizens who have died for their country. It is this impoverished and simplified vision of his own city that leads Creon to his downfall. His belated change of heart makes him the hero who learns only too late.7 We must grant to Hegel that Antigone's vision of the world is no less restrictive and subject to internal contradictions than that of Creon.

854-56). These are indeed two partial and unilateral visions of justice that are set in opposi tion by the protagonists. The strategy of simplification, as Nussbaum calls it, sealed by the allegiance to the dead alone—"O tomb, O marriage- chamber" (1.

These are indeed two partial and unilateral visions of justice that are set in opposi tion by the protagonists. The strategy of simplification, as Nussbaum calls it, sealed by the allegiance to the dead alone—"O tomb, O marriage- chamber" (1. 892)—does not make Antigone any less inhuman than Creon. Finally, the company of the dead will leave her without any fellow citizens, robbed of the help of the gods of the city, without husband and without offspring, and even without friends to mourn her (11.

880—82). The figure that walks away into the distance is not simply a person who suffers but Suffering itself (11. 892-928). Why, nevertheless, docs our preference go to Antigone?

Key Concepts

• What Antigone teaches about the tragic wellspring of action was indeed perceived by Hegel in the Phenomenology of Spirit and in the Aesthetics, namely the narrowness of the angle of commitment of each of the char acters.
• and discern in the two main protagonists a strategy of avoidance with regard to the conflicts internal to their respective causes.
• For Creon, as we have already mentioned, the opposition friend-enemy is confined to a narrow political category and admits of no nuance, no exception.
• It is this impoverished and simplified vision of his own city that leads Creon to his downfall.
• These are indeed two partial and unilateral visions of justice that are set in opposi tion by the protagonists.
• The strategy of simplification, as Nussbaum calls it, sealed by the allegiance to the dead alone—"O tomb, O marriage- chamber" (1. 892)—does not make Antigone any less inhuman than Creon.
• The figure that walks away into the distance is not simply a person who suffers but Suffering itself (11. 892-928).

Context

Central analytic section of the Interlude where Ricoeur reads Creon’s and Antigone’s positions through Hegel and Nussbaum to show their mutually simplifying, one-sided conceptions of justice and their avoidance of internal conflict.