Pub Date : 2022-01-06DOI: 10.1163/20512996-12340361
Adam Woodcox
This paper provides a sustained investigation into ancient teichopolitics – the politics of constructing walls – and the question of whether the best city should be surrounded by walls. Plato’s Laws adopts the Spartan view that walls have a negative effect on national character and argues that they should be ‘left lying asleep and undisturbed in the ground’ (Leg. 6.778d). Aristotle’s Politics puts forward a series of objections to Plato and adopts the more pragmatic view that walls are necessary. Although both philosophers debate the status of walls and foreigners within the best city, they fail to draw the thoroughly modern connection between teichopolitics and immigration.
{"title":"Platonic and Aristotelian Teichopolitics","authors":"Adam Woodcox","doi":"10.1163/20512996-12340361","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340361","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper provides a sustained investigation into ancient teichopolitics – the politics of constructing walls – and the question of whether the best city should be surrounded by walls. Plato’s Laws adopts the Spartan view that walls have a negative effect on national character and argues that they should be ‘left lying asleep and undisturbed in the ground’ (Leg. 6.778d). Aristotle’s Politics puts forward a series of objections to Plato and adopts the more pragmatic view that walls are necessary. Although both philosophers debate the status of walls and foreigners within the best city, they fail to draw the thoroughly modern connection between teichopolitics and immigration.","PeriodicalId":43237,"journal":{"name":"POLIS","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73646091","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-06DOI: 10.1163/20512996-12340362
E. Harris
{"title":"Law and Economic Growth in Ancient Athens","authors":"E. Harris","doi":"10.1163/20512996-12340362","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340362","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43237,"journal":{"name":"POLIS","volume":"128 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72540865","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-06DOI: 10.1163/20512996-12340357
Antoine Pageau-St-Hilaire
This paper examines the role of love in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia. I argue that an essential aspect of Cyrus’ knowledgeable rule is a specific understanding of eros and a corresponding strategy to cope with the power of love. Specifically, I contend that by exploiting a common Greek distinction between the beloved and the lover, he articulates the view that lovers are subjects or even slaves to their beloved who deceive themselves into thinking that their attraction and the ensuing behaviors are voluntary. Accordingly, Cyrus attempts to avoid falling in love and to rule as a universally beloved leader. Reflecting on the implications of this solution, I finally suggest that Xenophon wishes to show the limits of Cyrus’ solution.
{"title":"Cyrus’ Beehive: Ruling Eros and with Eros in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia","authors":"Antoine Pageau-St-Hilaire","doi":"10.1163/20512996-12340357","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340357","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the role of love in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia. I argue that an essential aspect of Cyrus’ knowledgeable rule is a specific understanding of eros and a corresponding strategy to cope with the power of love. Specifically, I contend that by exploiting a common Greek distinction between the beloved and the lover, he articulates the view that lovers are subjects or even slaves to their beloved who deceive themselves into thinking that their attraction and the ensuing behaviors are voluntary. Accordingly, Cyrus attempts to avoid falling in love and to rule as a universally beloved leader. Reflecting on the implications of this solution, I finally suggest that Xenophon wishes to show the limits of Cyrus’ solution.","PeriodicalId":43237,"journal":{"name":"POLIS","volume":"49 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90460538","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-06DOI: 10.1163/20512996-12340360
T. Silva
Plato’s characterization of the philosopher often emerges as a way to respond to popular conceptions and representations of the intellectual in Athenian society. In book 6 of the Republic in particular, he articulates his greatest defense of the philosopher against two major charges – that of being vicious and useless. Voicing what appears to be a commonly held view among Athenians, this representation of the philosopher is raised by Adeimantus as an objection to Socrates’ proposal of a philosopher-king. Surprisingly, rather than dismissing the allegations as false, Socrates admits ‘that what they say is true’ (Resp. 6.487d10) and incorporates these criticisms into his argument. This paper proposes that the popular depiction of the philosopher as odd, vicious and idle plays a significant role in Plato’s own characterization of the philosopher, illustrating how Plato diagnoses the philosopher’s alienation from public affairs in a manner that defines and legitimates his own ideas of philosophy.
{"title":"Odd, Idle, and Vicious: Plato’s Use of Public Opinion in His Characterization of the Philosopher in Republic VI","authors":"T. Silva","doi":"10.1163/20512996-12340360","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340360","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Plato’s characterization of the philosopher often emerges as a way to respond to popular conceptions and representations of the intellectual in Athenian society. In book 6 of the Republic in particular, he articulates his greatest defense of the philosopher against two major charges – that of being vicious and useless. Voicing what appears to be a commonly held view among Athenians, this representation of the philosopher is raised by Adeimantus as an objection to Socrates’ proposal of a philosopher-king. Surprisingly, rather than dismissing the allegations as false, Socrates admits ‘that what they say is true’ (Resp. 6.487d10) and incorporates these criticisms into his argument. This paper proposes that the popular depiction of the philosopher as odd, vicious and idle plays a significant role in Plato’s own characterization of the philosopher, illustrating how Plato diagnoses the philosopher’s alienation from public affairs in a manner that defines and legitimates his own ideas of philosophy.","PeriodicalId":43237,"journal":{"name":"POLIS","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78149888","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-09DOI: 10.1163/20512996-12340345
M. Schofield
The relation between the opening section of Plato’s Laws and Xenophon’s Constitution of the Lacedaemonians usually goes unnoticed. This paper draws attention to its importance for understanding Plato’s project in the dialogue. It has three sections. In the first, it will be shown that the view proposed by Plato’s Athenian visitor that Lycurgus made virtue in its entirety the goal of his statecraft was anticipated in Xenophon’s treatise. It has to be treated as an interpretation of the Spartan politeia, alternative to that advanced by Cleinias and Megillus, and accepted by (for example) Aristotle, which Plato could expect or at any rate hope to be taken seriously as such. In the second, the argument will focus on the contents of the legislative programme the Athenian says he had hoped to hear Cleinias ascribe to the Cretan and Spartan lawgivers. The case will be made that Plato can expect recognition by the reader (as by the Athenian’s interlocutors) that the programme is properly Spartan and Cretan by virtue of its echoes of the programme attributed to Lycurgus by Xenophon. Finally, the third section will argue that in making law primarily concerned with fostering the proper development, conduct, and treatment of human beings at every stage of the life cycle, above all by provision for sound customary practices (ἐπιτηδεύματα) and the like, Plato adopts the approach to law making taken by Xenophon’s Lycurgus.
{"title":"Plato, Xenophon, and the Laws of Lycurgus","authors":"M. Schofield","doi":"10.1163/20512996-12340345","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340345","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The relation between the opening section of Plato’s Laws and Xenophon’s Constitution of the Lacedaemonians usually goes unnoticed. This paper draws attention to its importance for understanding Plato’s project in the dialogue. It has three sections. In the first, it will be shown that the view proposed by Plato’s Athenian visitor that Lycurgus made virtue in its entirety the goal of his statecraft was anticipated in Xenophon’s treatise. It has to be treated as an interpretation of the Spartan politeia, alternative to that advanced by Cleinias and Megillus, and accepted by (for example) Aristotle, which Plato could expect or at any rate hope to be taken seriously as such. In the second, the argument will focus on the contents of the legislative programme the Athenian says he had hoped to hear Cleinias ascribe to the Cretan and Spartan lawgivers. The case will be made that Plato can expect recognition by the reader (as by the Athenian’s interlocutors) that the programme is properly Spartan and Cretan by virtue of its echoes of the programme attributed to Lycurgus by Xenophon. Finally, the third section will argue that in making law primarily concerned with fostering the proper development, conduct, and treatment of human beings at every stage of the life cycle, above all by provision for sound customary practices (ἐπιτηδεύματα) and the like, Plato adopts the approach to law making taken by Xenophon’s Lycurgus.","PeriodicalId":43237,"journal":{"name":"POLIS","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90739231","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-09DOI: 10.1163/20512996-12340352
V. Arena
This essay aims at identifying a tradition of lawgivers in the political culture of the late Republic. It focuses on the antiquarian tradition of the second half of the first century BC, which, it argues, should be considered part of the wider quest for legal normativism that takes place towards the end of the Republic. By reconstructing the intellectual debates on the nature of the consulship, which at the time was carried out through the means of etymological research, this essay shows that, when set within its proper philosophical framework, ancient etymological studies acted as a search for philosophical truth and, in the case of Varro, identify the early kings as the first Roman lawgivers. In turn, the language of political institutions and its etymologies, conceived along philosophical lines, could become a weapon in the constitutional battles of the late Republic.
{"title":"Varro, the Name-Givers, and the Lawgivers: The Case of the Consuls","authors":"V. Arena","doi":"10.1163/20512996-12340352","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340352","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This essay aims at identifying a tradition of lawgivers in the political culture of the late Republic. It focuses on the antiquarian tradition of the second half of the first century BC, which, it argues, should be considered part of the wider quest for legal normativism that takes place towards the end of the Republic. By reconstructing the intellectual debates on the nature of the consulship, which at the time was carried out through the means of etymological research, this essay shows that, when set within its proper philosophical framework, ancient etymological studies acted as a search for philosophical truth and, in the case of Varro, identify the early kings as the first Roman lawgivers. In turn, the language of political institutions and its etymologies, conceived along philosophical lines, could become a weapon in the constitutional battles of the late Republic.","PeriodicalId":43237,"journal":{"name":"POLIS","volume":"81 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79320362","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-09DOI: 10.1163/20512996-12340350
K. Vogt
The Stoics identify the law with the active principle, which is corporeal, pervades the universe, individuates each part of the world, and causes all its movements. At the same time, the law is normative for all reasoners. The very same law shapes the movements of the cosmos and governs our actions. With this reconstruction of Stoic law, I depart from existing scholarship on whether Stoic law is a set of rules. The question of whether ethics involves a set of rules is rich and fascinating. In the 1970s and 80s, the observation that ancient ethics might do without rules was part of philosophy’s rediscovery of virtue ethics. This debate, however, neglects that Stoic law is a corporeal principle pervading the world. The key puzzle regarding Stoic law, I argue, is how it is possible that the very same law is a corporeal principle in the world and normative for us.
{"title":"The Stoic Conception of Law","authors":"K. Vogt","doi":"10.1163/20512996-12340350","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340350","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The Stoics identify the law with the active principle, which is corporeal, pervades the universe, individuates each part of the world, and causes all its movements. At the same time, the law is normative for all reasoners. The very same law shapes the movements of the cosmos and governs our actions. With this reconstruction of Stoic law, I depart from existing scholarship on whether Stoic law is a set of rules. The question of whether ethics involves a set of rules is rich and fascinating. In the 1970s and 80s, the observation that ancient ethics might do without rules was part of philosophy’s rediscovery of virtue ethics. This debate, however, neglects that Stoic law is a corporeal principle pervading the world. The key puzzle regarding Stoic law, I argue, is how it is possible that the very same law is a corporeal principle in the world and normative for us.","PeriodicalId":43237,"journal":{"name":"POLIS","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89960321","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-09DOI: 10.1163/20512996-12340343
A. Bonnemaison
In the Republic, philosophy is associated with lawfulness, while tyranny and other corrupted regimes and individuals are associated with various degrees of lawlessness. So why does Socrates explain that the curriculum addressed to the philosophers of the ideal city brings about a risk of lawlessness among the potential philosopher-rulers? This is due to a specific step of this curriculum, the practice of refutation, which causes an intellectual as well as moral distress that can lead to skepticism and in fine to lawlessness. Although this risk needs to be reduced to a minimum, it has to be taken because the philosophical natures should be able to survive all challenges in order to become genuine dialecticians. Therefore, philosophy can lead to lawlessness but even when it does not, it is nonetheless true that the requirements of philosophy take priority over lawfulness.
{"title":"Philosophical Curriculum and Lawlessness in the Republic","authors":"A. Bonnemaison","doi":"10.1163/20512996-12340343","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340343","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In the Republic, philosophy is associated with lawfulness, while tyranny and other corrupted regimes and individuals are associated with various degrees of lawlessness. So why does Socrates explain that the curriculum addressed to the philosophers of the ideal city brings about a risk of lawlessness among the potential philosopher-rulers? This is due to a specific step of this curriculum, the practice of refutation, which causes an intellectual as well as moral distress that can lead to skepticism and in fine to lawlessness. Although this risk needs to be reduced to a minimum, it has to be taken because the philosophical natures should be able to survive all challenges in order to become genuine dialecticians. Therefore, philosophy can lead to lawlessness but even when it does not, it is nonetheless true that the requirements of philosophy take priority over lawfulness.","PeriodicalId":43237,"journal":{"name":"POLIS","volume":"149 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82765630","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-09DOI: 10.1163/20512996-12340351
Stéphane Marchand
The aim of this paper is to determine how a Pyrrhonian (as she/he is described by Sextus Empiricus) considers the Law and can respond to Aristocles’ objection that a Pyrrhonian is unable to obey laws. First (1), we analyze the function of the Law in the 10th Mode of Aenesidemus, in order to show laws as a dogmatic source of value. But (2) Sextus shows also that the Sceptic can live in a human society by following laws and customs, according to so-called ‘sceptical conformism’. In the light of Pyrrhonian Hypotyposes (Pyr.) 1.23–24 and Against the Mathematicians (Math.) 11.162–164, I discuss the validity of the label ‘conformism’ in order to understand the nature of the political effect of the suspension of judgement. (3) The real nature of the political position of Pyrrhonian Scepticism – that lack of commitment does not mean indifference to politics but rather a criticism of fanaticism and praise for political cautiousness – appears by comparison with the Scepticism of the New Academy.
本文的目的是确定皮罗学派(正如塞克斯图斯·恩里克所描述的那样)如何看待法律，以及如何回应亚里士多德关于皮罗学派无法服从法律的反对意见。首先(1)，我们分析了法律在埃涅塞德谟第十模式中的功能，以表明法律是一种教条式的价值来源。但(二)塞克斯都也指出，怀疑论者可以按照所谓的“怀疑的顺从主义”，按照法律和习俗，在人类社会中生活。根据皮罗尼假说(pyrronian Hypotyposes, Pyr.) 1.23-24和Against the Mathematicians (Math.) 11.162-164，我讨论了“顺从”这个标签的有效性，以便理解暂停判断的政治效果的本质。(3)与新学院的怀疑主义相比，皮洛尼尔怀疑主义的政治立场的真正性质，即缺乏承诺并不意味着对政治漠不关心，而是对狂热的批评和对政治谨慎的赞扬。
{"title":"Pyrrhonism and the Value of Law","authors":"Stéphane Marchand","doi":"10.1163/20512996-12340351","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340351","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The aim of this paper is to determine how a Pyrrhonian (as she/he is described by Sextus Empiricus) considers the Law and can respond to Aristocles’ objection that a Pyrrhonian is unable to obey laws. First (1), we analyze the function of the Law in the 10th Mode of Aenesidemus, in order to show laws as a dogmatic source of value. But (2) Sextus shows also that the Sceptic can live in a human society by following laws and customs, according to so-called ‘sceptical conformism’. In the light of Pyrrhonian Hypotyposes (Pyr.) 1.23–24 and Against the Mathematicians (Math.) 11.162–164, I discuss the validity of the label ‘conformism’ in order to understand the nature of the political effect of the suspension of judgement. (3) The real nature of the political position of Pyrrhonian Scepticism – that lack of commitment does not mean indifference to politics but rather a criticism of fanaticism and praise for political cautiousness – appears by comparison with the Scepticism of the New Academy.","PeriodicalId":43237,"journal":{"name":"POLIS","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88779133","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-09DOI: 10.1163/20512996-12340347
René de Nicolay
Plato’s pronouncements about political freedom in the Laws have sparked renewed interest in the literature. The present paper takes a new angle on that vexed question. It focusses on Plato’s account of the birth of unlawful freedom, or ‘theatrocracy’, at the end of book 3. By studying the transition from moderate to excessive freedom, it wishes to shed light on what sets the two apart. The paper provides a causal analysis of the key passage (700a3–701c2), suggesting four compatible and complementary explanations for the process it describes. The first is presented as the main one, but it is made more likely by the addition of the three others.
{"title":"The Birth of Unlawful Freedom in Plato’s Laws 3","authors":"René de Nicolay","doi":"10.1163/20512996-12340347","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340347","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Plato’s pronouncements about political freedom in the Laws have sparked renewed interest in the literature. The present paper takes a new angle on that vexed question. It focusses on Plato’s account of the birth of unlawful freedom, or ‘theatrocracy’, at the end of book 3. By studying the transition from moderate to excessive freedom, it wishes to shed light on what sets the two apart. The paper provides a causal analysis of the key passage (700a3–701c2), suggesting four compatible and complementary explanations for the process it describes. The first is presented as the main one, but it is made more likely by the addition of the three others.","PeriodicalId":43237,"journal":{"name":"POLIS","volume":"58 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74490476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：