Ancient Greek and Roman Political Philosophy

This chapter surveys the origins and development in Greek philosophy of the thought that living well requires living as a citizen of the world.

Argues that Tacitus’ shaped his account of Seneca and the characterization of Nero within his social environment according to features characteristic of Seneca’s conception of friendship. Surprisingly, Tacitus assigns to Nero an active power: The emperor drives a ubiquitous inversion of the social values promoted by his mentor. Patterns of Seneca’s social thought are adduced to characterize not only the portrayed emperor but also the political institution itself.

Discusses conceptions of freedom displayed in Tacitus' Agricola. Tacitus seems to have had a clear-cut conceptual grid in which the German defectors, the Usipi, mirror the futile demonstrations of freedom by senators seeking a "ambitious death." The British provincials, including Calgacus and his followers, correspond to the ordinary Roman people and their leadership. It is in the army that a form of non-debasing hierarchy for the common benefit can be conceived, as long as the army and their leader is in (...) the field. Problems arise when the military meets the civilian sphere. (shrink)

The Constitution of the Athenians ascribed to Xenophon the orator.--The Politeia of the Spartans by Xenophon.--The Boeotian Constitution from the Oxyrhynchus historian.--The Constitution of Athens by Aristotle.

Investigation of Cicero's contribution to Virtue Ethics in his "De Officiis".

This paper presents a political reading of the Phaedrus. It is argued that the dialogue's speeches on love describe types of political leadership and that, using the Socratic account of the statesman as someone who promotes moral improvement, political relations are not bound by institutions. Political relations become those in which one person affects the moral development of another and, thus, political 'space' is between people, not in specific locations. As a result, this new kind of forum must affect the (...) way we think of critical Socratic citizenship. (shrink)

En este artículo, nos preguntamos si es pertinente un análisis del personaje de Medea de Eurípides, y más concretamente, de su filicidio, a la luz de la doctrina aristotélica de la acción. Resulta dudoso, y quizás equívoco, hablar de "responsabilidad" (en sentido aristotélico) en el caso de la heroína, ya que sus motivaciones, como las de todo héroe trágico, tienen un doble signo: enfrentado a una ἀνάγκη superior, también desea lo que está forzado a hacer. Además, Medea no es una (...) mujer común: es un personaje ontológicamente complejo que participa, más de lo que frecuentemente se ha enfatizado, del plano divino. In this article we wonder if it is pertinent to analyse the character of Euripides' Medea and, more precisely, her filicide, in the light of Aristotle's doctrine of action. With regard to the heroine, it is doubtful and perhaps confusing to talk about "responsibility" (in Aristotelian terms) because her motivations, as all tragic heroes', are two-sided: faced to a superior ἀνάγκη he wants what he is forced to do as well. In addition, Medea is not an ordinary woman: she is an ontologically complex character that has a share in the divine level, a share which is more crucial than what has usually been emphasized. (shrink)

At least since the time of Plato’s writings, epideictic rhetoric has been criticized as deceptive, as epistemologically bankrupt, and as politically irrelevant. Aristotle himself emphasizes that the key ‘topic’of epideictic is amplification and stresses that the epideictic orator chiefly adds ‘size’ and ‘beauty’ to widely shared memories. This paper reinterprets Aristotle’s statements and argues that Aristotle’s account brings to light significant civic resources embodied in epideictic. A genuine statesman uses ceremonial speech to articulate and explain a regime’s underlying ethos and (...) purposes; thus he defines the regime’s telos and orients the citizenry toward it. In that way, it is argued, epideictic oratory is not the trivial cousin of deliberative and judicial rhetoric, but rather the rhetorical genre whose essential function is to explain and defend the fundamental building blocks of the regime. (shrink)

This paper examines an issue that seems particularly overlooked in the debate on Plato and Popper, namely that of political change. The aim of the paper is to challenge the largely unchallenged assumption that modern liberal democracy can play the role of the general standard, upon which basis we can judge the thinkers of the past. Indeed, in the Open Society liberal democracy sets the boundaries of what is considered as a 'rational' political change, thus revealing that Popper holds a (...) form of teleological conception of historical development. The paper argues for a different interpretation of Plato's approach to the question of political change, against Popper's claim that the final aim of the utopian city of the Republic is the elimination of change. The conclusion is that Plato's utopian construction provides us with better tools than Popper's framework for thinking of change in politics. (shrink)

A stimulus may be given to the interpretation of Plato's Philebus by no longer ignoring the impact of Plato's political philosophy. A first hint is the occurrence of astasiastotaten , a notion exclusively functioning within Plato's political philosophy and no less surprising, in the 'non-political' Philebus, than 'Friday's Footprint' was to Crusoe. A second hint is the stasis between epistemai and hedonai, only to be avoided by the exclusion of hedonai unwilling to subordinate themselves to phronesis/nous . A new reading (...) of Philebus in light of these 'footprints' leads to the conclusion that not only the 'digressions' on ontology, cosmology and anthropology but also the analyses of hedonai and epistemai — in other words: the main body of Philebus — presuppose the substratum of Plato's political philosophy. Consciousness of this substratum contributes to understanding content and course of the dialogue, and even to recognizing its unity. (shrink)

In this paper, I oppose the now-dominant view that Thrasymachus offers a definition of justice in Book I of the Republic. This way of interpretation Thrasymachus does not pay sufficient attention to the methodological assumptions he makes during his disagreement with Socrates. To better understand Socrates’ antagonist, it is crucial to remember that he was, in fact, a sophist. I argue that what the character Thrasymachus is doing in Book I is importantly akin to a certain genre of sophistic arguments (...) from the 5th century. In his discussion with Socrates, Thrasymachus attempts a genealogical unmasking of justice, which he hopes will change the action-guiding beliefs of his audience. Although my discussion is primarily about the methodology or structure of Thrasymachus’ argument, I conclude by offering a brief discussion of its substance, as well. (shrink)

In accordance with Leo Strauss's ingenious suggestion, the Athenian Stranger of Plato's Laws is best understood as an alternative 'Socrates', fleeing from the hemlock to Crete. Situated between Crito and Phaedo, Laws effectively tests the reader's loyalty to the real Socrates who obeys Athenian law and dies cheerfully in Athens. Having separated Plato from the Stranger, a nuanced defence of Karl Popper's suspicions about Laws confronts the apologetic readings of both Strauss and Christopher Bobonich. As hinted by his preference for (...) wine, the antidote for hemlock, the Athenian Stranger repeatedly proves himself the opposite of Socrates, particularly with respect to piety. Once the Stranger is recognized as 'an unreliable narrator', this apparently ponderous product of Plato's senility becomes the taut thriller of an innovative teacher at the peak of his powers. (shrink)

These suggestions for the betterment and elucidation of the text of the De Beneficiis are additional to those already published in the Classical Quarterly in January, 1934. They are based on a conviction much deepened since that time that Buck1 is right when he says: N allein, und zwar ohne seine Ueberarbeitungen von späteren Händen, darf die Grundlage des Textes von de beneficiis bilden. Préchac3, the latest critical editor in this field, substantially confirms Buck's sweeping conclusion by an independent survey (...) of the evidence. The readings designated in the Teubner text3 as N2 and N3 are themselves conjectures, not readings drawn from independent sources of testimony, and as conjectures they must be judged. Gertz4 had long before discerned the truth even if he seemed somewhat cavalier in his attitude toward other manuscripts than N. (shrink)

and are always in some sense a 'public' undertaking, and Cicero displays a keen awareness of the opportunities that letters present for the construction and projection of his 'public' self-image. The letters' true philosophical value and ...

Pythagoreans dominated the political scene in southern Italy for nearly a century in the late 6th to 5th century BC. What was the secret of their political success and can their political, social and economic policies be assessed in the customary terms with which historians try to analyse ancient societies? I argue that they cannot, and that the Pythagorean approach to politics was sui generis, and successful because it was based on ideas, not force or popular demagogy.