Tragedy, Comedy, and Philosophy in Ancient Greece

The purpose of this conference is to revisit the relationship between philosophy and poetry by centering the discussion on the two dramatic genres that defined classical Athens: tragedy and comedy. Plato called this relationship “an ancient quarrel,” and Aristophanes, before him, never tired of staging a rivalry between comedy and tragedy (especially Euripides’), on the one hand, and between comedy and philosophy (especially Socrates’), on the other. Drawing on readings of the dramatic corpus—from Aeschylus to Aristophanes—as well as of Plato and Aristotle, and of modern and contemporary authors such as Hegel and Nietzsche, Heidegger and Adorno, Arendt and Strauss, the conference will, however, give particular attention to approaches that do not view tragedy, comedy, and philosophy merely as rivals in their claim to authority over the paideia of citizens, but rather as complementary modes of interrogating human existence and its conditions of possibility within the Greek polis.

The conference brings together specialists in classics and philosophy from five universities: NOVA University Lisbon, PUC–Rio de Janeiro, the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, the University of São Paulo, and the University of Patras (Greece).

The event will also feature the participation of the theatre group Colectivo Sul, as part of its artistic residency at FCSH during the year 2026.

Programme

24 February | Tower A, Auditorium A2

14h–16h Maria João Branco & Carolina Araújo

16h–18 Luisa Buarque & João Constâncio

25 February | Tower B, Auditorium B2

18h Colectivo Sul

26 February | Tower A, Auditorium A2

14h–16h Charis Tabakis & Vasia Kousoulini

16h–18 Paulo Lima & António de Castro Caeiro

18h Adriane Duarte