Transcript Order in Nature and Society

Political
thought
before
Plato
Dictionary Entry
• Piety :dutiful respect or regard for parents,
homeland.
• Wont :custom; habit; practice.
• Jostle: to bump, push, shove, brush against, or
elbow roughly or rudely.
Introduction
• Athenian public life fell(3rd ¼ of the 5th century
B.C.)/Political Phil.came afther the downfall Athens
to Sparta.
• city-states were experimenting with various forms of
political organization including Monarchy,
Democracy and Aristrocracy.
Ideas cannot be properly traced,but they´re
important (bases of…)
Popular Political
•Discussion
Athenians were immersed in politics.(public
concerns and affairs)
• Traces of comparative government.
*Athens *Sparta *Persia
In the 5th century BC, Sparta and Athens were
reluctant allies against the Persians, but after the
foreign threat was over, they soon became rivals.
Greek traveled and had new material to compare.
• Herodotus wrote about the merits of monarchy ,
aristocracy and democracy.
Monarchy---tyrany
Democracy---mob-rule
Aristrocracy---government by the best men
Conclusion=nothing can be better than the rule of one best
man.
• Disinteresed curiosity about foreign countries was not
the main motive for political thought, but the quick
change of the Athenian government
• Intense discussion on the causes of this changes
(economic , democracy) “Democracy is a mechanism for
exploting the rich and putting money into the pockets of
the poor.”
Democracy in Athens
• Athenian democracy is today considered by many to
have been a form of direct democracy, originally it
had two distinguishing features: firstly the allotment
(selection by lot) of ordinary citizens to government
offices and courts,and secondarily the assembly of
all the citizens. All the male Athenian citizens were
eligible to speak and vote in the Assembly, which set
the laws of the city-state, but neither political rights,
nor citizenship, were granted to women or slaves
• Athenian public was familiar with the most radical
programs of social change.
Aristophanes made a comedy about the idea of women´s
rights and abolition of marriage.Utopian ideas of radical
democracy.
Order in Nature and
•Society
Active thought and discussion of political and social
questions preceded explicit political theory.
• Isolated political ideas were common knowledge
before Plato tried to incorporate them to phylosophy.
• Certain general conceptions (not only political but
forming an intelectual point of view)within which political
thought would develop stated as phylosophical
principles.
• They are important because they determine direction that
later theories would take.
• Greek fundamental thought ;state was the harmony
of life shared in common by all it´s members.
• Pythagorean phylosophy refered to harmony or
proportion as the basic principle in music , medicine
,physics and politics.
At first the idea of harmony was applied indifferently as
physical or ethical principle.
The first development on this principle took place in
natural phylosophy.(details were to be explained on
the hypothesis.
Roots of atomic theory; unchanging atoms in various
combinations
At about the middle of the century there was a swing
from physical sciences to humanistic studies:
economic growth ,urbanity, higher educational level.
This change was consummated by Socrates and the
Dialogs of Plato.
Protagoras… _
• “The proper study of mankind is man”
• He failed setting the object of the new
humanism.
• He succeeded by giving a new interest
and a new direction to humanism.
• Physical explanation.-
The discovery of simple and unchanging
realities to the modification of which they
might attribute the changes that
eveywhere appear upon the face of
Greeks of the 5th
Century.• What more natural, then, than that they should find in custom
and convention the analogue of fleeting appearances and the
appearances could be reduced to regularity?
• Law of nature
• Political and ethical philosophy continued along the ancient line
already struck out by the philosophy of nature.
• If men discover how to be “natural” will they still be faithful to
their families and loyal to their states?
• Skeptics declared in utter weariness that one thing is as natural
as another and thar use and wont are literally “
Nature and Convention
• There is ample evidence that this great disscussion
about nature vs convention was spread wide among
the Athenians of the 5th Century.
• Antigone of Sophocles
• A duty to human law and duty to the law of
God.
• Identification of nature with the law of God
and the contrast of convention with the
truly right was destined to become almost
• Euripides
• The critical Athenian of the 5th century
was quite awre that his society had its
seamy side and the citric was prepared to
appeal to natural right and justice as
against the adventious distinctions of
convention.
• Antiphon
• He asserted flatly that all law is merely
conventionl and hence contrary to nature.
• Nature for him was simply egoism or selfinterest.
Socrates
• All posibilities were equally indebted to him.
• He carried into his humanism the rational tradition of the older
physical phylosophy.
• The discovery of a calid general rule of action is not impossible,
and imparting it by means of education is not impractible.
• Is certainly an elaboration of Socrate’s conviction that virtue,
poitical virtue not excluded, is knowledge.
Bibliography
• City State and World state in Greek and Roman
political Theory.
• Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle
• Life in Ancient Athens: The Social and Public Life
of a Classical Athenian from Day to Day