GREEK ATHEISM: A REALITY

This article is a response to Thomas Harrison’s lively thesis that atheism in ancient Greece is not a historical reality but ‘fundamentally, a scholarly mirage’. Repurposing and updating the arguments from the influential work of Lucien Febvre, The Problem of Unbelief in the Sixteenth Century , Harrison reasons that atheism could not have emerged in the age of Socrates and Plato: all we have from this period are empty accusations of atheism, a religious mentality which was incompatible with total unbelief, and a society in which religion dominated every sphere of personal and public life. This article, conversely, will argue that Greek atheism was a reality: in the fifth century bce and beyond, there were some Athenians who believed in no gods at all. Reasoning from the testimony of atheism in Plato’s Republic and the Laws , and also the intellectual and social conditions of Classical Athens, it will be argued that atheism probably had some limited currency in the upper classes of Athens as a life option. Along the way, the article will assess the merits of applying Febvre’s thesis to an ancient society and identify some of its flaws in the terminological ambiguities it can create.