Ancient social & political philosophy

The second Book of the Politics has been object of multiple considerations, but it has called the attention of the scholars mainly because of its detailed criticism of Plato's political projects, especially the Republic. In fact Aristotle devotes 6 of the 12 chapters of Book II to examine Plato's proposals. Most of the scholarly contributions are focused on the criticism of Plato trying either to demonstrate the justice of Aristotle's reproaches or to invalidate his chapters on the basis of a supposed inexactness of his words.

In the introduction to the volume, the editors explain the overarching aim of the volume and contextualize the main themes of its chapters. Even if the notions of biopolitics and biopower have played a crucial role in philosophy, the humanities, and the social sciences over the last decades, they have been used in various and at times diverging senses, which has also produced different narratives about the history of biopolitics. The main aim of the volume is to clarify whether and to what extent the concept of biopolitics is applicable to antiquity. To answer such questions, the chapters collected in the volume address three main topics, namely the possible presence of biopolitical discourse in ancient thought, the extent to which the application of a biopolitical approach to ancient thought requires qualifications, and some influential contemporary interpretations of the relation between biopolitics and antiquity.

This article examines the performance context of Synesius of Cyrene’s
(ca. 370–415 CE) On Kingship. Synesius draws heavily on the classical tradition, and also incorporates many elements of Themistius’ philosophical style into his speech. But the work was not delivered before the emperor, as it purports, and hints at the fictionality of its own dramatic situation. These hints are not mere play but fit very closely the rhetorical needs of the circumstances. The performance appears to have been a success.

Cette étude tâche de dégager la double signification de la philosophie socratique comprise comme philosophie politique à l’aide d’une interprétation des Amoureux rivaux. Le refus d’accorder à ce court dialogue socratique une affiliation au corpus platonicien a jeté injustement de l’ombre sur la pertinence de son contenu : le discrédit des Amoureux rivaux a quelques limites qu’il est bon de montrer. La structure soignée du dialogue, qu’il est possible de mettre en lumière au moyen du Phèdre, invite à une interprétation attentive de cette architecture. Une telle lecture permet d’expliciter la parenté entre la philosophie et la politique dans la philosophie socratique. Les Amoureux rivaux présente deux dimensions politiques de la philosophie : une philosophie qui s’oppose à la philosophie physiologique en constituant plutôt un questionnement sur l’homme qui s’exprime dans un mode de vie réflexif, de même qu’une politique du dialogue, c’est-à-dire une bonne gouverne de la communauté dialectique.

Plato describes the constitution of the Republic as faithful to the saying according to which « among friends, everything is common » and he also calls friends the citizens of the Laws. he present paper suggests that the nature of the community implied in the idea of political friendship in Plato is mani-fold and that it should be understood in the light of the two forms of the common known in Archaic and Classical greek thought: the exclusive common, i.e. a common ressource to be set apart from individual possessions, and the inclusive common, i.e. a community based on the equality of individual possessions. he constitutions of the Republic and of the Laws can thus be seen as two types of communism, adapted to two diferent kinds of situation and citizen, depending on whether individual property and families are allowed or not. he irst kind, the communism of the Republic, inspired by Aristophanes, makes all individual property collective: goods are used in common because they are not individually assigned; in the second kind of communism, the one exposed in the Laws, all individual families have equal shares of a good, which is therefore perceived as common. his is how Plato conceives the two best form of government, but he does not determine whether there could be a third form of government where there would be enough community to establish political friendship.

Il pensiero politico antico, caratterizzato da una forte componente etica e ricostruibile a partire da una grande varietà di fonti, molte delle quali frammentarie, è sempre strettamente legato alle condizioni storiche, istituzionali e sociali del mondo greco-romano che lo ha prodotto e si concentra in particolare su temi quali l'individuazione della miglior forma di governo, la natura e le qualità del politico o del princeps, il rapporto tra governanti e sottoposti, l'utilità della vita comunitaria per raggiungere la virtù e/o la felicità.

Recensione a P. Vidal-Naquet, Atlantide. Breve storia di un mito, Torino, Einaudi 2006 (trad. it. di Id., L’Atlantide. Petite histoire d’un mythe platonicienne, Paris, Les Belles Lettres 2005).
Recensione pubblicata in «RCCM» 50, 2, 2008, pp. 435-439.

Unrivaled in scope and scholarly rigor, the Encyclopedia examines the history of political thought, contemporary political theory, and political philosophy. The entries range in size from shorter definitions and biographies to extended treatments of major topics and traditions. Tracing the evolution of political thinking from antiquity to the present, the scope of this unprecedented resource emphasizes the richness and diversity of the field’s traditions. # Offers over 900 A-Z entries including shorter definitions and biographies as well as extended treatments of major topics from over 700 contributors from around the world. # Examines the history of political thought from antiquity to contemporary political theory and political philosophy # Reflects diverse traditions in the evolution of political theory and political science # Addresses the theorists, their key theories and methods from within the western canon as well as from non-western perspectives # Published in association wi...

Protagoras' Grand Speech is traditionally considered to articulate a contractualist approach to political existence and morality. There is, however, a newly emerging line of interpretation among scholars, which explores a naturalist layer in Protagoras' ethical and political thought. This article aims to make a contribution to this new way of reading Protagoras' speech, by discussing one of its most elaborate versions. Keywords Protagoras – morality – naturalism – contractualism – myth – justice – human nature

Though Plato's Euthydemus is usually interpreted as an unambiguous attempt to discredit the sophists' teaching methods, I argue that the dialogue defends the role sophists play in philosophic education. Read in its dramatic context, the dialogue reveals that sophists offer a low-stakes environment for the testing and development of an important political virtue: moderation. The sophist's classroom facilitates the cultivation of moderation by simulating the agonistic conditions of the assembly or courtroom, where many encounter temptations to bully others verbally. By arousing one's inner bully, the sophists expose the limits of one's moderation. While not sufficient for developing moderation, such self-revelations constitute a necessary part of the process even for a philosopher like Socrates. Ironically, by bringing out the worst in their students, the sophists unknowingly supply a protreptic to philosophy.

Without science, there had been difficulties in understanding the universe, nature, life, and humans and how they originated or created. Societies had tried to explain such cosmic phenomena by developing unique mythological stories.

In this study, the belief systems of ancient societies which settled on Anatolia and Aegean region, were discussed in general terms. The methods which they followed in order to explain the facts that govern the cosmos were defined.

The power struggle amongst the gods and their cosmic domination was explained; characterised by the gods of Ancient Greek myths Uranos, Kronos and Zeus, who seised power by overthrowing each other. The significance that had been put upon these gods was interpreted. To better understand the viewpoint of ancient societies, the Mesopotamian and Anatolian gods of Anu, Kumarbi and Teshub were analysed. The myths of these gods were examined comparatively.

This is full text of the first part of my monograph "The logos of Heraclitus",  published by Academic publishers "Nauka" in Saint-Petersburg in 2014, in English translation which contains all five chapters of the Introduction on Heraclitus' life, work and philosophy, as well a reconstruction of his lost work,  the Greek text of the fragments with apparatus criticus and English translation.  The second part contains commentary on fragments and is available in the original Russian edition on this personal page. This edition contains 160 fragments in the main corpus and 15 "Probabilia", i.e. probable fragments that are quoted without explicit mention of Heraclitus' name, but supported verbal coincidences and by parallels. Most of "Probabilia", including anonymous quotations in Plato, are based on new attributions. More than 20 fragments of the main corpus are not included in Diels-Kranz and other editions. Some of these fragments are new, some have been known before, but their status of authenticity has been reassessed and upgraded, e.g. from a doxographicum to a paraphrase of a verbatim quotation that contains a unique authentic tenet. In some other cases fragments considered authentic in DK, have been downgraded to interpretive paraphrase (B7, partly B91 DK) or to spuria (e.g. B105, B115 DK). In this edition we understand «fragment» not in Diels' formal sense as a verbatim quotation distinguished from «doxography» (an ill-defined category that we have criticised on our article "The origin and transmiision of the doxographical tradition... 2016), but as any ancient text that contains a unique piece of information on the philosophical content of a lost Preplatonic work, that cannot be reduced to other texts, an elementary «atom» of information.  The status of authenticity may be variable starting from a flawless verbatim quotation in Ionian dialect and descending down to a mixed verbatim quotation with paraphrase, to a good paraphrase close to original text, to a free paraphrase, to an interpretive paraphrase, to a polemical paraphrase that seriously distorts the original, to a mere reminiscence of term or a topos. We usually restrict the admission to the main corpus of fragments by first three categories. Some fragments in our edition are reconstructed on the ground of ancient summary that after quoting a verbatim fragment points to the existence of «other, similar» sayings of Heraclitus (such are 6 hypothetical fragments in 44A and 45A in our edition). Some «fragments» in our edition are «thought-fragments» rather than «text-fragments», i.e. a doctrinal (rather than lexical) convergence of several independent sources that does not allow to establish the exact wording of the lost original, but makes more ol less certain the existence of a certain analogy, idea or other tenet, since the name of Heraclitus appears in one or more contexts. Such cases are found especially in the reconstruction of the section on krafts (τέχναι) imitating nature, fr.106-124 Leb.

Aristotle is famous for stressing the impact of the legislation in the city-state on the moral development of its citizens. Also, it is crucial for Aristotle's political theory that a city-state is the kind of community that strives for a common good or purpose and that citizens are assessed according to their contribution to the realization of this common purpose. At first glance this looks pretty similar to Alasdair MacIntyre's approach to virtue ethics, especially with respect to the role of communities and questions of justice. These similarities notwithstanding, the following paper attempts to pinpoint some crucial differences. Above all, it turns out to be difficult for any community-relative conception of the virtues to integrate Aristotle's appeal to human nature. Moreover, one might question whether Aristotle would be willing to join MacIntyre in rejecting community-independent standards of justice. MacIntyre's interpretations of Aristotle are too complex to do justice to them in their entirety here. However the general contours of his reading seem to be clear.

Das Problem der Expertokratie (Herrschaft der Experten) wirkt zunächst unscheinbar gegenüber dem öffentlichkeitswirksameren Diskurs über ‚Populismus'. Bei näherem Hinsehen zeigt sich jedoch ein enger Zusammenhang, wenn es sich nicht gar um zwei komplementäre Phänomene handelt: Der Aufstieg des Populismus kann auch als Antwort auf die ungebremste Macht von Experten verstanden werden. Als politisches Problem hat Expertokratie eine lange Geschichte, die auf die Anfänge der griechischen politischen Philosophie zurückgeht. Das Thema der Macht von Experten ruft die grundsätzliche Frage nach dem Wissen von politischen Dingen auf und verweist auf die Krise des politischen Wissens. Auf diese Weise konfrontiert es uns mit tiefgreifenden Herausforderungen für die Demokratie im 21. Jahrhundert.

In my text I am making a reconstruction of the axiology contained in the Egyptian text: The Admonitions of Amenemope. I analyze the form of the argument, present the structure of the text, and describe the methodology of value reconstruction using the threpartite conception of norms. After the reconstruction, I show how its content can be understood as ideology, and I locate the text against the background of other ancient Egyptian wisdom texts.

This is my translation of Thucydides 5.84-116, "The Melian Dialogue," from two Greek classes I had at Berk with Profs. Leslie Threate (Spr. 1994) and Ron Stroud (Fall 1996).  After 10 years of fighting, in 421 BC, Athens made peace and an alliance with the Lacedaemonians (Spartans) by the "Peace of Nicias" and turned on the small neutral powers and attacked them. Melos tried to persuade Athens to be decent and leave them alone, but Athens explains this is not about morals, it is because you have $ and we want it. Hand it over or suffer the consequences of futile resistance. The strong do whatever they want and the weak must accept that if they wish to survive. This section is a study in bullies and power politics in Greece, 421 BC.

Abstract
In Res Gestae 8, 5 Augustus boasts of having renewed «multa exempla maiorum» and of being himself responsible of «multarum rerum exempla». This could appear in line with Roman tradition about mos mairoum; actually, this statement, while giving moral excellence to Augustus (as the Greek RGDA declare more explicitly), can supports a monarchical rule. This is shown by comparison with Greek political thought (Isocr. Nic.; Pl. Leg. 709ss.; Arist. Pol. 1285a-b), with Cicero, with several texts of Julio-Claudian age.

Key-words: Res gestae; monarchy; example.


M. Capasso (a cura di), Quattro incontri sulla Cultura Classica (I Quaderni di ‘Atene e Roma’, 6), Lecce, Pensa Multimedia 2019 (il volume contiene gli Atti dell’VIII Congresso Nazionale dell’Associazione Italiana di Cultura Classica, Roma 18-19 ottobre 2014, “La pacificazione di Augusto fra realtà e propaganda”), pp. 103-148.

A re-analysis of Old Babylonian letters (2003–1595 BC) reveals the construction of class identity for men called “gentlemen” (awīlū) through their use of sympathetic expressions positioning correspondents as brothers, friends, colleagues, etc. While this observation is not new, this article makes two further points. First, I argue that class consciousness was created through the policing of failures to enact the social relations expressed in the letters, rather than superficial claims that such relations existed in the first place. This reading requires that we engage seriously with the contingent nature of class identity—that fears and anxieties about falling out of status were more in evidence as the motor for and incentive towards class membership than simple claims of inclusion or group solidarity. Second, I argue that the sympathy enjoined by the letters simulated the affective-spatial cognitive states necessary for group identity. Group problems of geographic and physical distance and even loneliness were solved by the letters’ production of sympathy. Not only does a sincere consideration of the subjective experience of class formation require an understanding of individual and group emotional states, the letters themselves, filled with expressions of pathos and worry, invite it.

This book consists of two essays that discuss political ideas and practice in ancient India through a close comparison of texts and inscriptions. The first essay compares  the political ideas associated with Kautilya's Arthashastra and the inscriptions of Ashoka. The second essay compares the political ideas reflected in the Allahabad pillar inscription of Samudragupta and Kalidasa's Raghuvamsha. These lectures were presented as the K.P. Jayaswal Memorial Lectures 2016 and were published as a monograph by the K. P. Jayaswal Research Institute, Patna, in 2017.

Because the royal ideology of ancient Israel was largely identical to that of the broader ancient Near East, the points of divergence are the more remarkable. In particular, the legal corpus of Deuteronomy conceptualizes the king in a way that rejects all prevailing models of monarchic power, both Israelite and Near Eastern. Deuteronomy submits a utopian manifesto for a constitutional monarchy that sharply delimits the power of the king. This redefinition of royal authority takes place as part of a larger program (Deut. xvi 18-xviii 22) whereby the authors of Deuteronomy redefine the jurisdiction of each branch of public office (local and central judicial administration, kingship, priesthood, and prophecy). Each is subordinated, first, to the requirements of cultic centralization, and, second, to the textual authority of deuteronomic Torah. This utopian delimitation of royal power never passed from constitutional vision into historical implementation: it represented such a radical departure from precedent that the Deuteronomistic Historian, precisely while seeming to implement deuteronomic law, pointedly reversed the deuteronomic program and restored to the monarch all that Deuteronomy had withheld.

Keywords:
Law of King Deuteronomy 17:14-20; Deut 17:14-20; Dtn 17, 14-20; Kingship, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomistic History, Ämtergesetze; constitutional theory, democracy, Deut 16:18-18:22; Ezekiel 37; democratic kingship; Greek ideology of kingship; constitutional monarchy; Elyon, Psalm 1, royal psalms, Laws of Public Officials.

Polis birçok araştırmada hatalı bir şekilde kent-devleti olarak tanımlanmıştır. Ancak polis konusu, devlet olduğu kavramından başlayarak her noktasında tartışmaya açık bir konudur. Devlet olarak kabul edildiğinde, polisin Yakın Doğu’daki benzerleriyle olan karşılaştırmaları sonucu, bu yapının kent-devleti olarak nitelendirilmesi tartışma konusu
yaratmaktadır. Gerçekten de polisi sadece kent-devleti olarak adlandırmak onun tüm dinamiklerini açıklamakta yetersiz kalmaktadır.

Polisin anlamına dair bahsedilen tartışmalardan sonra bu kavramın Yunan bölgesinde ne zaman ortaya çıkmış olabileceği önem teşkil etmektedir. Bu amaç doğrultusunda da polisin en temelinde ikili bir anlamı olduğunun bilinmesi gerekir. Bu anlamlar: Kentsel anlamda polis ve politik anlamda polistir. Kentsel anlam tek başına ele alındığında Zagora, Herakleion gibi erken yerleşimler bu başlangıca kanıt olarak gösterilebilir. Ancak politik birliktelik ele alındığında, bu ideoloji içerikli yapılanmanın M.Ö. 8. yüzyılda başlamış olabileceği düşünülmektedir. Bunun sebebi olarak da M.Ö. 8. yüzyılda yaşanan yoğun sosyo-kültürel ve sosyo-ekonomik değişimler gösterilmektedir. Bu noktada polisin ortaya çıkışını, genel kanı olarak, M.Ö. 8. yüzyıla tarihlemek doğru olacaktır.

Polisin bahsedilen bu dualistik anlamını kavramak onun içsel dinamiklerini tanımaktan geçmektedir. Polisin içsel dinamikleri de kendisi gibi somut ve soyut kavramlardan oluşur. Bu oluşumlar polisi yaratan toplumun yapısı hakkında bize bilgi vermesi bakımından önemlidir. Bu yapıların incelemesiyle, polis ile onun ortaya çıkmasına sebep olmuş ve sonrasında da yarattıkları bu yapının vatandaşları olacak olan toplumun ilişkisi anlaşılmış olacaktır. Polisin bu bahsedilen anlamları anlaşıldığında da ortaya çıkmasına sebep olan dinamikleri ve süreci fark etmemiz daha kolay olacaktır.

This is the first book-length study to explore the Hebrew Bible, and specifically the Pentateuch, as a coherent book of political philosophy.

In Created Equal, Joshua Berman engages the text of the Hebrew Bible from a novel perspective, considering it as a document of social and political thought. He proposes that the Pentateuch can be read as the earliest prescription on record for the establishment of an egalitarian polity. What emerges is the blueprint for a society that would stand in stark contrast to the surrounding cultures of the ancient Near East -- Egypt, Mesopotamia, Ugarit, and the Hittite Empire - in which the hierarchical structure of the polity was centered on the figure of the king and his retinue. Berman shows that an egalitarian ideal is articulated in comprehensive fashion in the Pentateuch and is expressed in its theology, politics, economics, use of technologies of communication, and in its narrative literature. Throughout, he invokes parallels from the modern period as heuristic devices to illuminate ancient developments. Thus, for example, the constitutional principles in the Book of Deuteronomy are examined in the light of those espoused by Montesquieu, and the rise of the novel in 18th-century England serves to illuminate the advent of new modes of storytelling in biblical narrative.

Introduction Appended

What is legitimacy, and what does narrative have to do with it? “Legitimacy” might be the most commonly used word in all of ancient Near Eastern political history writing, but its premises have been woefully undertheorized. What follows will, perhaps predictably, quibble over the meaning of a word which is important to many of the papers in this and many other books. But rather than just kibitz over a term and muddy the waters, my goal is to elucidate how narrativity produced political authority through “validity.” I will argue that we ought to use the term “validity” to refer to the concepts of wholeness and cogency of political authority that narrativity creates, rather than the rule-bound criteria that “legitimacy” suggests.

The aim of this article is to explore Gadamer’s early reflections on Plato’s
utopian thought and its potential topicality. In the following section, I will show how
areté, understood as a hermeneutical and existential virtue, is dialectically related to
ethics and politics in Gadamer’s phenomenological reception of Plato’s philosophy. I
argue that, in Gadamer’s eyes, Socratic-Platonic self-understanding enables human
beings to be aware of their political responsibilities, to recognize how they are
existentially and mutually related to the other, and to clarify dialectically their own
existential possibilities in order to transcend their inherited world of values. In the
third section, I aim to show how these are the grounds on which Gadamer’s initial
thoughts on the utopian dimension of Platonic political philosophy developed, mainly
through his further critical account of the works on the German “political Plato”
published in Germany between 1927 and 1933, i.e., Kurt Singer’s Platon, der Gründer
(1927), Julius Stenzel’s Platon. Der Erzieher (1928), and Kurt von Hildendrandt‘s Platon,
Der Kampf des Geistes um die Macht (1933). Then, in the fourth section, I will express my
own views on the relevance of reconsidering how the notions of areté, phrónesis, and
andreía are already related in Plato’s dialogues, complementing the insights on
Gadamer’s interpretation of areté in section two. My purpose is to go beyond
Gadamer’s reading and provide us with a more solid ground to address his late
reflections on political courage and its relations with his dialectical understanding of
Platonic utopia as a myth. Therefore, I will explore the problem of civil disobedience,
a topic that was actually not at the centre of Gadamer’s concerns, as a genuine mode
of utopian political action which can enact a true deviation from the sophistic pólis and
its understanding of power. Finally, in the conclusion, I will characterize Gadamer’s
portrait of Platonic utopia as a dialectical myth which enables human beings to
recognize when politics are being reduced to mere power abuse by the State and also
suggest why Gadamer’s approach to utopias is still relevant today

Iamblichus’ Exhortation to Philosophy (Protrepticus),  the second volume in a ten-volume Pythagorean Encyclopedia, of which four volumes are extent,  is noted  mainly as a source of eclectic extracts from the protreptic literary form. Iamblichus does however contribute succinct connecting commentary paragraphs that as this paper intends to partly demonstrate, situate the excerpts into his own philosophical system. This paper proposes to examine two of such passages from chapter twenty, source of the Anonymous Iamblichi , a political text from the 4th century BC, both passages dealing with a certain concept of law (nomos), and will attempt to arrive at some conclusions as to what extent these passages represent Iamblichus’ views on political philosophy.

To situate things in the Protrepticus , chapter nineteen contains prominent Platonic ethical, social, political considerations from the Gorgias (506c-508a),  the Menexenus  (246d-248b) and Laws II (661d). Therefore, inclusion of the late fourth fifth century sophistic social political text that is the Anonymous Iamblichi ,  into chapter 20 can be seen, on one level,  as a continuation of themes presented more explicitly in the previous chapter. According to Des Places, the purpose of that text is to present simpler economic and political considerations for a wider, more popular audience appeal (Protreptique 19). Moreover, according to Cole, the text if not directly, at least thematically, has had an appeal to other Platonist-oriented philosophers.

Cole makes many suggestive comparisons of the Anonymous with book two of Cicero’s On Duties, which is mainly derived from Panaetius, and which contains a more elaborate discussion of themes similar to the Anonymus text.  Furthermore, Des Places has described the Platonistic aspects of Panaetius that can be found in book I of Cicero’s On Duties  (Platonisme 259-69).  Cole also notes that, if the attribution of the text to a follower of Democritus is correct,    then the frequent associating of Democritus with Pythagoreanism could have caused to text to be placed in a Pythagorean compilation accessible to Iamblichus.  The emphasis on the importance of childhood education in acquiring virtue,  what constitutes an honourable life,  dream psychology,  the importance of following laws for social stability,  Protagorean anthropological speculation , theories of tyranny  are elements that would give the treatise a Platonist-friendly appeal. Moreover, the use of simple, dualistic opposites could appeal to  the outlook of Pythagorean-influenced  Platonism found in the  Phaedo and Gorgias.

This article demonstrates the overlooked contribution of the ancient Near East to the development of constitutional law. The legal corpus of Deuteronomy provides a utopian model for the organization of the state, one that enshrines separation of powers and their systematic subordination to a public legal text—the “Torah”—that delineates their jurisdiction while also ensuring their autonomy. This legislation establishes an independent judiciary while bringing even the monarch under the full authority of the law. Deuteronomy’s implicit model for a political constitution is unprecedented in legal history. Two of its cornerstones are fundamental to the modern idea of constitutional government: (1) the clear division of political powers into separate spheres of authority; and (2) the subordination of each branch to the authority of the law. This legislation was so utopian in its own time that it seems never to have been implemented; instead, idealism rapidly yielded to political pragmatism. Nonetheless, Deuteronomy’s draft constitution provides an important corrective to standard accounts of constitutional legal history.

Keywords:
Constitutional theory; rule of law; separation of powers; Deut 16:18-18:22; Laws of public officials; Law of the king; independence of the judiciary; Deut 17:14-20; Ämtergesetze; Verfassungstheorie; Torah monarchy; Sophocles Antigone law; Herodotus Demaratus; Greek kingship; Mishnah King; mishnah Aboth 1:1; American constitution; Josephus πολιτεία [politeia]; origin of judicial system; Hammurabi; founding myth; independent judiciary.

"This paper argues that what Hugo Grotius presented as appetitus societatis in the 1625 edition of De iure belli ac pacis and later identified with oikeiosis corresponds essentially to the Stoic concept of oikeiosis as put forward by Cicero. Whether a specific war is compatible with natural law must according to Grotius be examined in accordance with recta ratio, which does not admit self-preservation as a sufficient criterion. Although Grotius bases his system of natural law norms developed in De iure belli ac pacis on anthropological presuppositions, these are not predominantly the impulse to self-preservation, but rather the anthropological characteristics outlined by the Stoics in their doctrine of oikeiosis. They manifest themselves, above all, in mankind’s social disposition that arises out of his essentially rational nature.

Richard Tuck's view that self-preservation is the foundation of Grotius’s natural law must thus be rejected. The only criterion taken into account under recta ratio is the substantive one of justice. This means that, for Grotius, self-preservation is in accordance with natural law only to the extent that such self-preservation is just."

This paper analyzes Aristotle’s discussion of courage, the first and paradigmatic virtue in his account of moral virtue, as the perfection of human beings’ natures as both political and rational. It identifies unrecognized complexities in his definition of courage as “a mean with respect to fear and confidence,” in his subtle analysis of political courage, and especially in what he reveals to be the conflict-riddled reasons people find courage noble and good. While working to moderate the excessive fieriness of traditional heroism and to render citizens’
courage more sober and moderate, Aristotle shows why political courage can in fact never be made perfectly rational, pointing to a key limit to human rationality
altogether.

Sosyal ve politik yaşamı bir bütün olarak değerlendirildiğinde, dil bilimciler, filozoflar ve hukuk tarihçileri Cicero’nun yazmış olduğu eserleri Politik-Siyasi Söylevler, Edebi-Felsefi Eserler ve Ailesi Dostlarına Yazmış Olduğu Mektuplar şeklinde üç temel kategori altında sınıflandırmaktadırlar. Cicero, gerek kaleme almış olduğu edebi ve felsefi eserlerle, gerek vermiş olduğu söylevlerle ve gerekse aile yakınları, dostları ve politik rakipleri için yazmış olduğu mektuplarıyla olsun, aktarımlarının geneliyle döneminin Roma Tarihi’ne sıkı sıkıya bağlı kalmış ve Roma Cumhuriyeti’nin M.Ö. I. yüzyılının ilk yarısına ışık tutmuştur.

Despite the increasing emphasis on the neo-Roman aspect of republicanism, few, if any, republicans substantively interrogate the character of Roman republicanism, either in its constitutional practice, its social relations, or in the works of its primary defenders. This neglect raises some problems for the republican interpretation of Roman liberty as a form of non-domination. The purpose of this article is twofold. First, it seeks to critically reassess the primary historical source upon which the republican interpretation of Roman libertas relies—Chaim Wirszubski’s Libertas as a Political Idea at Rome During the Late Republic and Early Principate. In so doing, it emphasizes the contested nature of the meaning of libertas within the context of the social struggles that frame the politics of the Late Republic, thereby problematising the clear association of non-domination with what has become identified as neo-Roman republicanism. Secondly, it critically examines the meaning and status of libertas within Cicero’s two systematic dialogues of political philosophy—De Re Publica and De Legibus—in order to assess the status of liberty as a form of non-domination in these texts. Given Cicero’s status as a founding father of Roman republican political thought, the meaning that he attributes to liberty in his works is of particular interest for scholars of republicanism. It will be argued that liberty as a form of non-domination is not the operative conceptual ideal in Cicero’s republicanism; rather, concordia along with equity as a form of proportionate equality that depends upon the recognition of substantive differences of status and power, serve as the foundation of his republican political thought.

This chapter approaches the question of biopolitics in ancient political thought looking not at specific political techniques but at notions of the final aim of the political community. It argues that the “happiness” (eudaimonia, beatitudo) that constitutes the greatest human good in the tradition from Aristotle to Thomas Aquinas is not a “biopolitical” ideal, but rather a metabiopolitical one, consisting in a contemplative activity situated above and beyond the biological and the political. It is only with Thomas Hobbes that civic happiness becomes “biopolitically” identified with simple survival; for modernity, as Hannah Arendt puts it, mere being alive becomes the greatest human good, and happiness is understood as a subjective “quality of life.” In both models, the political realm is a means to an end. Arendt draws our attention to a neglected third alternative to both the classical/metabiopolitical and the modern/biopolitical ideals: “public happiness” consisting in political participation itself.

Nel pieno della crisi delle istituzioni politiche e degli antichi valori etici espressi dal mos maiorum che afflisse Roma nell’ultimo secolo della res publica, Cicerone cercò di attuare attraverso i suoi scritti una vera e propria forma di educazione etico-politica, di paideia, rivolta alle presenti e future generazioni, in particolare ai giovani nei quali egli vedeva l’auspicata classe dirigente del domani. La paideia politica ciceroniana si fondava sull’elaborazione di un linguaggio etico e politico a connotazione universalistica, con l’obiettivo di formare una nuova classe politica che si sarebbe sempre più dovuta confrontare con lo spazio geopolitico “globale” aperto dall’imperialismo romano. In un tale contesto viene elaborato da Cicerone il concetto politico di societas hominum, di società degli esseri umani. Lo studio che qui presentiamo ha l’obiettivo di contestualizzare sul piano storico e filosofico-politico tale concetto, approfondendone le funzioni, gli aspetti ideali nonché ideologici di cui si connota all’interno della riflessione politica di Cicerone.

This is an uncorrected pre-proof version.

Cicero's general interest in Dicaearchus’ ethical and political thought can be detected in his letters to Atticus and De legibus. One can also infer from De divinatione that Dicaearchus was a source for Cicero’s De republica. At present, however, we do not possess a clear and detailed picture of Dicaearchus’ influence on Cicero’s own ethical and political thought. Scholars have been hindered by a lack of explicit evidence concerning the nature of Dicaearchus’ philosophical arguments as well as Cicero’s failure to mention Dicaearchus by name in the extant parts of De republica. In this paper I argue that, despite these obstacles, we can construct a positive account of the nature and extent of Dicaearchus’ influence that offers new insights into key aspects of Cicero’s philosophical thought and practice.

This paper proposes to present a basic outline of Proclus’ political philosophy, which is essentially based on an interpretation and development of Plato’s Republic, outlined in his Commentaries on the Republic,  including the summary of said work in Plato’s Timaeus, which he has commented on in his Commentaries on the Timaeus.

Treatise XVII of the Commentaries on the Republic, dealing with Aristotle’s objections to the aspects of the central books of the Republic from book II of the Politics, will be used as a starting point because it is a relatively straightforward exposition grounded in the original Platonic and Aristotelian texts.  This paper will not be examining Aristotle’s arguments against Plato per se, but will rather try to examine the specifically Proclean views that emerge from the Platonic/Aristotelian debate and use those as a launching-point for further exploration of Proclus’ political philosophy.

Nel suo Panegirico, Plinio insiste in più passaggi sul ruolo del princeps come exemplar: tale topos si riconnette all'esaltazione di Traiano come optimus princeps; nello sgtesso tempo, costituisce una implicita esaltazione di un ruolo monarchico per Traiano, come mostra il confronto con il pensiero politico greco di IV secolo a.C. (Platone, Senofonte, Isocrate).

Filosofi(a) e politica (?) Breve storia di un rapporto controverso La filosofia è domandare, è la questione che scuote, che mette in discussione. Certo, non possiamo pensare che nella domanda si esaurisca, ma indubbiamente la posizione della domanda (possibilmente di quella "adeguata") è il lavoro primario di ogni filosofare. Quando -con il Discorso sulle scienze e le arti -Rousseau tentava di rispondere al tema del concorso bandito dall'Accademia di Digione per l'anno 1750, ossia se il rinascimento delle scienze e delle arti avesse contribuito alla purificazione dei costumi, esordiva domandando e domandandosi: «il rinascimento delle scienze e delle arti ha contribuito alla purificazione o alla corruzione dei costumi?» (corsivo mio).

The constitutional projects described by Plato, especially in the Laws, plainly show that drawing lots may play a fundamental political role, more fundamental in Plato’s view than using it to designate political officers, as ancient democracy does. Plato draws on the Greek culture of chance, a culture that endows drawing lots with the double virtue of divine sanction and establishing equality of shares between equals. The theory of the two forms of equality (based either on equal or proportional shares) allows Plato to marginalize sortition in the process of designating political office: selecting leaders should be based on merit (proportional equality). Drawing equal shares of land, on the other hand, lays the common ground for the city of the Laws. Moreover, having to consider the city as a sum of individuals who are at the receiving end of equal share distributions leads Plato to frame its mathematical structure and power of mobilization.

Ever since the early scholarly works on the Etruscans, a social order with rigid class divisions and sharp separation between ruling elites and largely subjugated, dependent strata of the population has been assumed for them. The lecture examines the development of this modern topos from the 19th century – starting with classical works on the Etruscans such as those by Karl Otfried Müller and George Dennis – through important stages of the 20th century, as represented among others by the studies of the French etruscologist Jacques Heurgon, to the present day. By doing so, especially the motivations and arguments for such an assumption will be clearly worked out and critically questioned in their actual meaning. It becomes apparent that originally, above all, the various ideas about the „origins“ of the Etruscans and their supposed immigration played an important role, flanked by a few and short passages in ancient Graeco-Roman literature, which are, however, problematic as sources.
In order to detach the discussion of the (undoubtedly) hierarchical structures of Etruscan societies from these less productive contexts, some further considerations based on the epigraphic and archaeological material of Etruria will be briefly presented in conclusion.