Philosophy and Political Power in Antiquity is a collection of essays examining ancient philosophers' reflections on the connection between political power and philosophy. The ancient Greeks both invented political philosophy and were the first to conceptualize the implicit tension between political activity and the contemplative life as found in ideal political institutions and under conditions of repressive rule. These essays examine discussions of these issues within a wide variety of the major schools of antiquity from both interpretive and analytical perspectives. While providing novel approaches to ancient philosophical texts, this volume attests to the importance of political reflection, deliberation, and resistance for ancient thought, and to the enduring strength and relevance of these reflections for contemporary debates within political philosophy.

Conventional wisdom suggests that the Platonist philosophers of Late Antiquity, from Plotinus (third century) to the sixth-century schools in Athens and Alexandria, neglected the political dimension of their Platonic heritage in their concentration on an otherworldly life. Dominic O'Meara presents a revelatory reappraisal of these thinkers, arguing that their otherworldliness involved rather than excluded political ideas, and he proposes for the first time a reconstruction of theirpolitical philosophy, their conception of the function, structure, and contents of political science, and its relation to political virtue and to the divinization of soul and state.Among the topics discussed by O'Meara are: philosopher-kings and queens; political goals and levels of reform: law, constitutions, justice, and penology; the political function of religion; and the limits of political science and action. He also explores various reactions to these political ideas in the works of Christian and Islamic writers, in particular Eusebius, Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius, and al-Farabi.Filling a major gap in our understanding, Platonopolis will be of substantial interest to scholars and students of ancient philosophy, classicists, and historians of political thought.

This 2005 book is a critical examination of Michel Foucault's relation to ancient Greek thought, in particular his famous analysis of Greek history of sexuality. Wolfgang Detel offers an understanding of Foucault's theories of power and knowledge based on modern analytical theories of science and concepts of power. He offers a complex reading of the texts which Foucault discusses, covering topics such as Aristotle's ethics and theory of sex, Hippocratic dietetics, the earliest treatises on economics, and Plato's theory of love. The result is a philosophically rich and probing critique of Foucault's later writings, and a persuasive account of the relation between ethics, power and knowledge in classical antiquity. His book will have a wide appeal to readers interested in Foucault and in Greek thought and culture.

It was Nietzsche who first identified the similarities between the radical sophistry of antiquity and the contemporary relativism that has come to characterize modern thought. The anti-foundationalism of contemporary thought can be said to have been born with the Sophists, and, of all the Sophists who have come down to us, Protagoras is the most famous and challenging of them. Robert Bartlett s masterful book is the first to examine Plato s Protagoras and Theaetetus together to uncover what lies at the heart of Protagoras teaching, both its moral and political components and its theoretical and epistemological groundings. His superb exegesis of these two dialogues allows one to see more clearly the power of radical relativism: its strengths and its deficiencies. Bartlett notes that political philosophy has been supplanted in the modern era either by the study of the history of political philosophy or by relativism. Although "Understanding Political Philosophy and Sophistry" can certainly be taken as an example of the former, it is much more than that. It seeks to uncover what Socrates, in responding to that teaching, begins to reveal of his own understanding and characteristic activity. It helps us begin to understand, in other words, the phenomenon of philosophy, not just as a system of thought, but as Socrates lived it."

What is political philosophy? A philosophical study of political ideas such as authority, freedom, justice and democracy? An inquiry into the best form of government? An attempt to rationally justify forms of authority? Johanna Oksana asks exactly these questions as she opens this brilliant new guide to political philosophy. Rather than attempting to provide the reader with a definite answer, the book invites readers to recognize many of the issues encountered in everyday life as political, the outcome of human practices that incorporate power relations, social norms and obligations. It suggests that political philosophy should be understood as an open-ended, critical project that to some extent concerns everyone. The book employs an original structure which will be a huge help to both students and general readers seeking to understand the topic. Each chapter, which moves chronologically from antiquity to the twentieth century, focuses on selected classic texts in political philosophy, which are briefly introduced and analysed. The texts then function as a springboard for a discussion of central contemporary issues in political philosophy.

"First published in the United Kingdom as: Greek and Roman political ideas: a Pelican introduction, by the Penquin Group, Penguin Books ... London"--T.p. verso.

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 continued relevance of ancient Greece to political theory and practice today.