TheTensionofMetaphysicaland Post-metaphysicalPoliticalPhilosophiesinGreece

Post-metaphysical thinking as a critique of the metaphysical tradition of Western philosophy spread in the second half of the twentieth century, and some have regarded it as a sign of a break from ancient Greek tradition. This article examines the post-metaphysical possibilities of the Greek philosophical tradition by browsing of intellectual debates between poets and philosophers, Milesian School and Eleatic school, the Sophists and Socrates, and finally Plato and Aristotle, and concludes that not only the whole Greek tradition may not be considered metaphysical, but also there are some components of post-metaphysical thinking such as situated reason, the priority of action to theory, and attention to the metaphorical aspect of language in the minds of epic and tragic Greek poets, Sophists and Aristotle. Thus, a contextual interpretation of the texts shows that, besides the metaphysical objective reason in Greece, there are also traces of subjective and rhetorical reason in the minds of some Greek thinkers and so the tension between metaphysics and post-metaphysics that peaked in the twentieth century has also been present in the founding of philosophy and in the system of Greek philosophical knowledge. This is particularly testable in Aristotle's critique on two theories of Ideas and philosopher king of Plato by applying the thoughts of epopees, tragedians, and sophists.