This page intentionally left blank ANCIENT GREEK POLITICAL THOUGHT IN PRACTICE (original) (raw)
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A Study on the Origin and Impact of Select Greek Political Philosophy and its Current Relevance
Abstract Discourses since the time of Socrates (470 B.C.) the Greek Philosopher to the political speech of US President Barrack Hussein Obama’s inaugural address in 2009 have certain qualities in common. But the most important of it all; it changed the course of history with respect to creating an huge impact to not only the minds of an individual but to the common mass in general. It changed the perception of how people looked at things differently edging beyond as to what appears to be a normal occurrence in men and women’s daily lives. Often, political speeches provide a ray of hope by connecting to the many who are in constant need of a direction towards which one can either travel or alter its course depending on the circumstances, which warrant in the first place. Political stalwarts accompanied by their strategists often carefully construct their speeches over a period of time. The choice of words to be used in speeches often evokes the emotional consciousness of the common mass. Which in turn creates ripples cutting across boundaries from wherein the original speech was originally to be delivered. Access to political speeches has become an easy access for both political aficionados and the common mass with the dawn of Information and Space Age. This paper attempts to trace the evolution of political oration, parleys on the lives and the influence of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, intends to study on the principles of local analogy discovered in them and fundamentally tries to resolve as to how they are influential in either ensuring the wellbeing of an individual or be ravaged by it. Keywords: Greek, Political Philosophy, Socrates, Plato, Aristotl
Greek Political Thought in Ancient History
Polis, 2016
Greek historians of the fifth and fourth centuries bce also intended their works to be political commentaries. This paper concentrates on the work of Thucydides, and his interest in fifth-century ideas of constitutionalism. Honing in on the political ‘opposites’, democracy and oligarchy, this paper argues that Thucydides collapses these categories, to show not only that they are unstable, but that, built upon the same political vocabulary, they naturally lead towards his new idea of the measured blending of the few and the many in a mixed constitution, which creates political stability and a positive political experience for the community. In this sense, Thucydides’ text, which uses historical narrative as a vehicle for political commentary, needs to be understood within the framework of historical contextualism, but also as a ‘possession for all time’.
Ancient Greek Political Thought in Practice
2009
Ancient Greece was a place of tremendous political experiment and innovation, and it was here too that the first serious political thinkers emerged. Using carefully selected case-studies, in this book Professor Cartledge investigates the dynamic interaction between ancient Greek political thought and practice from early historic times to the early Roman Empire. Of concern throughout are three major issues: first, the relationship of political thought and practice; second, the relevance of class and status to explaining political behaviour and thinking; third, democracy - its invention, development and expansion, and extinction, prior to its recent resuscitation and even apotheosis. In addition, monarchy in various forms and at different periods and the peculiar political structures of Sparta are treated in detail over a chronological range extending from Homer to Plutarch. The book provides an introduction to the topic for all students and non-specialists who appreciate the continue...
Reflections on the Philosophy of the Greek Classical School of Thought
2004
This paper provides an analysis of the philosophy which the Greek Classical School comprising of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle propounded. The aim of the analysis is to ascertain the nature and effect of the contribution made by these three 'philosophic fathers' to the development of jurisprudential thought.
Philosophy and Political Power in Antiquity
2016
The Influence of the Sophists on Greek Politics 9 Giovanni Giorgini 2 Philosophical Dogs and Tyrannical Wolves in Plato's Republic 41 Cinzia Arruzza 3 What's the Good of Knowing the Forms? 67 Chris Bobonich 4 Individual Competence and Collective Deliberation in Aristotle's Politics 94 Christoph Horn 5 Diogenes the Comic, or How to Tell the Truth in the Face of a Tyrant 114 Dmitri Nikulin 6 Dio of Prusa and the Roman Stoics on How to Speak the Truth to Oneself and to Power 134 Gretchen Reydams-Schils 7 Stoic Utopia Reconsidered: Pyrrhonism, Ethics, and Politics 148 Emidio Spinelli
2018
This investigation proposes a historical theory of the origins of political philosophy. It is assumed that political philosophy was made possible by a new form of political thinking commencing with the inauguration of the first direct democracies in Ancient Greece. The pristine turn from elite rule to rule of the people – or to δημοκρατία, a term coined after the event – brought with it the first ever political theory, wherein fundamentally different societal orders, or different principles of societal rule, could be argumentatively compared. The inauguration of this alternative-envisioning “secular” political theory is equaled with the beginnings of classical political theory and explained as the outcome of the conjoining of a new form of constitutionalized political thought (cratistic thinking) and a new emphasis brought to the inner consistency of normative reasoning (‘internal critique’). The original form of political philosophy, Classical Political Philosophy, originated when a political thought launched, wherein non-divinely sanctioned visions of transcendence of the prevailing rule, as well as of the full range of alternatives disclosed by Classical Political Theory, first began to be envisioned. Each of the hypotheses forming the theory – the hypotheses concerning the Ancient Greek beginnings of a “secular”-autonomous political rationale, political theory and political philosophy – is weighed against central evidence provided by the Histories of Herodotus. The passages thus given new interpretations are the Deioces episode in Book I, the Constitutional Debate in Book III and Xerxes’ War Councils in Book VII. Aside from the Herodotean evidence, a range of other relevant Greek literary sources from the archaic and classical ages – e.g. passages from Homer, Hesiod, several pre-Socratic thinkers, Plato and Aristotle – are duly taken into consideration. Included is also a reading of the Mytilenean Debate of Thucydides’ Book III, which shows how the political thought of the classical democracies worked in practice. Finally, the placing of the historical theory against a background of contemporary relevance provides an alternative to all text-oriented approaches not reckoning with the possibility of reaching historically plausible knowledge of real-world events and processes.