Crise : du grec krisis ?

Abstract

Our notion of crisis comes from ancient Greek through learned medical usage, which continued into the Middle Ages and modern times. However, this continuity does not necessarily mean that the two concepts are perfectly superimposed. While the theme of rupture characterizes both the modern notion and ancient krisis, the deeper meaning of this division is not the same. Ancient krisis appears to be a sorting process that produces order and organization, whereas the rift that is the political crisis of modern times is not, since it ushers in an era of disorder. These positive meanings of ancient krisis can be observed as early as Homer, and are consolidated in a medical context, in the Hippocratic medicine of the 5th century B.C. It is rather the notion of stasis that we should expect to encounter when we seek a modern notion of crisis in ancient Greek texts.

Keywords

• anomia
• disorder
• Homer
• Hippocratic Medicine
• Thucydides
• Plato