Transcript 01citizen-body

located bodies
an argument –
we find ourselves in connections
through articulations of people and things
in particular circumstances (location/context matters)
– for distributed bodies
ten located bodies
this will be my particular take on our course bodies in place – presenting ten
different kinds of located body
it will be by no means an exhaustive list
they will not be exclusive categories but will overlap and complement
the ten are suggestive rather than definitive
located bodies – one
the citizen body
Socrates in Athens - the classical polis
the dialogue – Crito
Crito wants to get Socrates out of Athens
Socrates answers with an argument about the state and its citizens
about the constitution of the state and order
and about the constitution of the good life
the polis
Socrates discusses duty and the obligations of the individual to the collective
some terms he uses
hoi Athenaioi – the Athenians – fellow politai
hoi polloi – the many, the majority, the mob
he polis – the state
to koinon – the commonwealth
hoi nomoi – laws
homologia – the (social) contract
consider Crito 50a
the alternative to his citizen identity
Thessaly – dislocation
some terms applied to Thessaly
metoikein – to live as an alien
(no) homologia – no social contract
ataxia – disorder (cf kosmos)
akolasia – license and incontinence
Socrates would be out of place and laughable
Athens – hoi Athenaioi
Socrates and Plato are discoursing in the city of Athens
the urban state
a public sphere for an elite citizen body
spaces for a leisured class to meet, talk, take decisions
a physical setting for an oral and literate culture
where democracy happened
the ekklesia – the assembly
the boule – the council
the importance of public speaking, leadership, argument, rhetoric
democratic imperialism
the Athenian Empire
class conflict – old aristocracy, new citizen mobility, citizens and others
old patterns of patronage and leadership giving way
war – with Sparta, Korinth and Syracuse – and defeat
the sophists
Socrates was identified with this group of intellectuals and teachers who serviced
the desire on the part of the citizen body to learn and practice public discourse
some names – Gorgias, Protogoras, Euthydemos
developing an intellectual discourse pertinent to these urban and political spaces
Plato despised them (seeing Socrates as pursuing not the skill of discourse per se
but its object – questions of right and wrong)
sophistry and dialectics
the importance of peitho – persuasion
sometimes caricatured as the skill of arguing any case – whatever the truth or
consequences
sometimes associated with an aversion to popular will – seen as ignorant and
manipulated by the skilled speaker (this sometimes given as the reason for the
downfall of Athenian democracy)
the sophists
part of an intellectual shift to making people the center of thought and debate
through some classics oppositions such as
nomos and phusis – convention and reality
might and right
located bodies – one
the citizen body
where is it located?
in such urban, urbane
and political spaces
riddled with contradiction and tension
the spaces and the community
constitute each other
Athens is the Athenians
just as the physical community
is the citizen
Socrates relates himself to this
polis of constituted politai