Publication at Faculty of Science |
2017
Abstract
Some very influential notions regarding the gradual development and changes in human culture had been articulated already in antiquity. On the one hand, we find here descriptions of the progress of human civilisation up to its current state, while on the other hand, it has also been claimed that civilisation had once experienced a Golden Age and since that time declined, all the way to the present, rather unfortunate times.
This chapter focuses on Hesiod and Lucretius, two authors who already in antiquity formulated different visions about the evolution of culture which show the subject of time and progress in its terrifying ambiguity