St. Augustine's Press
This, the sequel to the same author’s much-acclaimed Xanthippic Dialogues, is a multi-faceted commentary on the post-modern condition, which takes the form of a part-Hellenistic, part-Arabian fairy tale. Archeanassa of Colophon, subject of a poem attributed by Diogenes Laertius
to Plato, has returned to her birthplace in search of the lost manuscripts of another ex-lover, the
poet Antimachus. There she encounters Perictione, Plato’s niece, who lives alone in the ruined
and brutalized city amid memories and dreams. Perictione tells the strange story of Merope of
Sardis, the Nietzschean philosopher who both made and destroyed her life. Little by little
Archeanassa comes to recognize that Perictione’s story is also her own story, and that the mystery
of Colophon is the mystery of modernity itself. Through dialogues, stories, and fantasies, the
narrative explores the aesthetic way of life, and the possibilities of meaning in an age of inverted
commas.
As original in form as it is inspired in content, Perictione in Colophon will take its place as one
of the major philosophical statements of our time, and one which gives a moving and memorable
account of two women seek, and finding, consolation.
This is how philosophy was meant to be learned.
Perictione in Colophon
Reflections on the Aesthetic
Way of Life
263 pages, 6” x 9”, clothbound,
ISBN: 978-1-890318-59-8, 2000
$30.00 (£21.00)