Peter Adamson

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1,235 appearances 6 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 13 Sep

Peter Adamson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 6 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 2.

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History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps · HoP 500a Marguerite Johnson on Sappho · 27 Sep 2026 podcast

And one thing she says that's quite famous is that it's bittersweet.

So maybe could you start with that and broaden out to say more about her description of what it's like to be in love?

You just mentioned that she describes herself, as you put it, getting Aphrodite on side.

I like that.

And I suppose you're thinking of poem one in which she calls on Aphrodite to help her with a love affair.

She says the beloved person has wronged her, apparently just by not requiting her love.

And I thought this was really an amazing poem for a variety of reasons.

But one reason is that it thematizes the power relationship that exists in love.

So what you were just describing is the power that Eros has over the lover, but there's also the power relationship between the two people in the love affair or the love relationship.

And what's especially striking is this line where Aphrodite speaks to Sappho and basically says, yes, I'll help you.

Aphrodite says that she will make the other woman love Sappho against her will.

That reminds me of things we also see in Plato.

Since you brought up Plato, there's a lot about power relationships in erotic context in Plato as well.

Do you think that's a fair reading of this poem?

You mentioned sophists a couple of times, actually.

The idea of magic and sort of the power of magic often comes up in the case of talking about sophistry as well, like the power to convince someone using words.

And that put me in mind of something else that I read about Fragment 16.

This is what you said before, the part where she's mucking around with definitions of beauty, as you put it.

And the reason why it connects to the Sophists, maybe, is that she seems to be saying something like beauty is in the eye of the beholder or things are beautiful to whoever loves them, right?

And that sounds a bit like Protagoras' claim that man is the measure of all things, at least applied to beauty.

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