Seth Benardete

Seth Benardete (April 4, 1930 – November 14, 2001) was an American classicist and philosopher, long a member of the faculties of New York University and The New School. He was married to Jane, a professor of English at Hunter College in Manhattan; and they had two children, Ethan and Alexandra.

Benardete was born in Brooklyn into an academic family. His father, Maír José Benardete, was a professor of Spanish at Brooklyn College and expert on Sephardic culture (See Studies in Honor of M. J. Benardete. Essays in Hispanic and Sephardic Culture, ed. Izaak A. Langnas and Barton Sholod, Las Americas Publishing Co., New York 1965). His older brother José is a noted philosopher.

At the University of Chicago in the 1950s he was a student of Leo Strauss, along with Allan Bloom, Stanley Rosen and several others who were to go on to illustrious academic careers. Philipp Fehl was one of his fellow students and a good friend. Benardete wrote his doctoral dissertation on Homer (recently reprinted as Achilles and Hector: The Homeric Hero by St. Augustine's Press). His publications range over the spectrum of classical texts and include works on Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus, the Attic tragedians, and most especially Plato and Aristotle. While his prose is considered by some to be dense and cryptic, as a teacher he regularly impressed his students with his tremendous erudition, which was certainly not limited to classical literature, and by his willingness to take seriously the opinions and thoughts of all his students. Many consider him to be one of America's greatest classical scholars: Harvey Mansfield and Pierre Vidal-Naquet are among those who have praised his achievements.

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