idiot
The term idiot is used today as a swear word and describes a stupid person. More or less strongly pejorative synonyms include " idiot ", "depp" (especially in the Upper German dialects ), "stupid", "stupid", "stupid", "wooden head", "idiot", "horny ox", "simpleton" , "Spacko", " Vollpfosten " (new) or " Narr " (obsolete).
Etymology and conceptual history
The word is derived from the ancient Greek ἰδιώτης idiotes , which roughly means "private person". In the polis , it referred to people who stayed out of public-political affairs and held no office, even if this was possible for them. In the Attic democracy , which was based on informed and active citizens (Politai) , the Idiotai were little appreciated. People were born as idiotes and remained so, if upbringing and education did not create the politically conscious citizen (Tocqueville). Anyone who publicly devoted themselves to doing nothing during the popular assemblies was punished.
Into Latin as Idiota borrowed, the meaning of the word shifted towards " layman as" charlatans, "" Tinker "," ignoramus ",". Later the term was generally applied to laypeople or people with a low level of education .
Nikolaus von Kues (Cusanus) has in some of his later writings a main character called idiota , who is characterized as a layman or non-specialist, to present the actual position developed in the text, sometimes in conversation with various scholars. Similar to other Renaissance theorists, Cusanus turns implicitly, elsewhere quite explicitly, against the theoretical subtleties of scholastic specialists: “ A dialecticis libera nos, Domine ” (German: “Liberate us, Lord, from the dialecticians ”), it says in his defense de docta ignorantia .
In medicine and psychology , “idiocy” was used as a diagnosis of certain forms of intellectual disability until the early 20th century, but has completely disappeared from today's medical nomenclature .
literature
- Marie Simon : Idiot of ἰδιώτης . In: The survival of ancient Greek social type terms in the German language. Edited by Elisabeth Charlotte Welskopf . Akademie, Berlin 1981 (= social type terms in ancient Greece and their survival in the languages of the world. Volume 5), pp. 291–306.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Wilhelm Gemoll , Karl Vretska : Greek-German School and Handbook , Verlag Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky, 9th edition, ISBN 3-209-00108-1 .
- ^ Parker, Walter C. (v86 n5 p344 Jan 2005). "Teaching Against Idiocy," Bloomington: Phi Delta Kappan.
- ↑ Apologia, Heidelberger Ausgabe, 2, 21, 10; similar in two speeches; the saying is already of the Venerable Bede the Ambrose attributed Commentarius in librum de Trinitate Boetii, PL 95, 394 B.