Talk:Silloi

The following claim in the article seems debatable if not clearly false:

Timon's verses satirized the philosophies of other philosophers, and not the philosophers themselves....

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says the following about Timon's Silloi:

The work as a whole, however, was devoted to abuse and ridicule of non-Pyrrhonist philosophers.

The Stanford article cites an example that clearly seems to be a case of a philosopher being satirized:

The Stoic Zeno is represented as a (notably unsuccessful) fisherwoman.... Isokrates 15:44, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As you wish, but the same statements can be made either way. If I satirize Bush's foreign policy and invoke him, am I making fun of the man or the philosophy? Generally, they attack the philosophies and the philosophies through the people. The article is striving to point out the silloi as a genre rather than a detailed description of the silloi. The reason it's important to break it away from merely describing Timon is that parody was not satire generally, and the history of parody is generally a history of imitation for the purposes of satirizing the object not imitated. Such discussion as we have in Aristotle's Poetics indicates that it is an "ornament" just above the school boy exercise. In other words, to reiterate, this article is about silloi, not about Timon's Silloi. Whether the balance of Timon's Silloi is generally a satire of people or philosophies is a matter of interpretation. Brogan et al. think not. Stanford thinks so. Geogre 15:54, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Thanks for your clarification. But if what you say is the purpose of the article, then the article doesn't live up to its purpose. If the article "is about silloi, not about Timon's Silloi", then it shouldn't make that claim about Timon at all, or (in its place) there should be a similar claim made about silloi in general. Isokrates 16:43, 5 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]