“Man of One Too Many Ways”: Professor Ahrensdorf Redefines Heroism in Homer’s Odyssey

Peter Ahrensdorf, a professor of political science at Davidson College and the author of Homer on the Gods and Human Virtue, visited Tufts on October 23 to speak on Homer’s Odyssey and its relationship to political philosophy.

His talk, subtitled “The Complex Heroism of Homer’s Odysseus,” focused on the motivations that lead Odysseus to abandon his home in Ithaca to fight in the Trojan War. According to Ahrensdorf, these motivations are essential to understanding not only Odysseus’s role as a “war hero,” but also “the philosophic passion to know the truth about ourselves.”

In introducing his main theme, Ahrensdorf raised a central question: “What is it that makes Odysseus a hero?” At first glance, Ahrensdorf explained, it would seem that being “faithful to [his] home” makes Odysseus heroic, similar to such biblical characters as Abraham and Moses.