(Ellwood Wiggins) The Ethics and Aesthetics of Sympathy in Sophocles' Philoctetes

DEAN'S LECTURE SERIES
Professor Wiggins, from the German Department at the University of Washington, will deliver his lecture, "The Ethics and Aesthetics of Sympathy in Sophocles' Philoctetes."
The plot of Sophocles' Philoctetes turns on the experience of sympathy, which is often given credit for the moral education of Neoptolemus, Achilles' son. Yet is this emotion a reliable force for good? Sophocles' tragedy is a perfect proving ground to explore this question, and to test Aristotle's description of compassion in the Rhetoric.