This edited book explores the relationship between political expertise, which is defined as scientific statesmanship or governance, and political leadership throughout the history of ideas. An outstanding group of experts study and analyze the ideas of significant philosophers, such as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, Kant, Burke, Comte, and Weber, among others. The contributors aim to interpret these thinkers' approaches to scientific statesmanship, deepening our understanding of the idea itself and decoding its theoretical complexities.

In the Gorgias, Plato explores the relationship between statesmanship and rhetoric. Socrates argues that the true statesman uses the true rhetoric in the attempt to make others better through speeches. In the conversation with Gorgias, Socrates forces him to see the potentially disastrous consequences of teaching a kind of rhetoric that is morally neutral, which suggests the need for an uncompromisingly true or just rhetoric. In the exchange with Polus, Socrates attempts the just reformation of rhetoric into true rhetoric (...) to counter the unjust rhetoric of Polus. In his discussion with Callicles, Socrates uses the true rhetoric to try to moderate him, but his failure reveals the limits of true statesmanship. By examining these three exchanges, I shed light on a unique and neglected paradox of the Gorgias. As clearly as the dialogue articulates what constitutes a true statesman, it challenges his own practice. Socrates, as the true statesman possessing the true rhetoric, is powerless to achieve his goals. However, a potential way to expand the success of the true statesman can be seen by going back to the discourse between Socrates and Gorgias and forging an alliance between them. (shrink)

With its connotations of superior moral integrity, exceptional leadership qualities and expertise in the science of government, the modern ideal of statesmanship is most commonly traced back to the ancient Greek concept of πολιτικός and the work of Plato and Aristotle in particular. Through an analysis of a large corpus of modern English translations of political works, built as part of the AHRC Genealogies of Knowledge project, this case-study aims to explore patterns that are specific to this translated discourse, (...) with a view to understanding the crucial role played by translators in shaping its development and reception in society. It ultimately seeks to argue that the model of statesmanship presented in translations from ancient Greek is just as much a product of the receiving culture as it is inherited from the classical world. (shrink)

Worries about “the rhetorical presidency” ultimately concern the danger of presidential demagoguery. As such, they echo an important theme of the Founders, who erected several barriers to the emergence of the president as demagogue in chief. In the ancient sources on which the Founders partly drew, the worry was the popular or pseudo‐popular leader who seizes on widespread envies, fears, or hopes in the service of his political career—in contrast to the statesman, who pursues the public good and is, therefore, (...) less interested in how to gain office than in how to use it. Later iterations emphasized the “superstitious,” “prejudiced,” or ideological nature of demagogic appeals. When Woodrow Wilson proposed that the president should seize the public‐policy initiative in the name of the people, he sought to insulate the presidency from charges of demagoguery by arguing that no leader who spoke falsely on behalf of the people could expect to win the office. True adepts of the “progress” of public opinion, hence of the public good, are non‐demagogic by definition. Although one is hard pressed to find an American president who can unambiguously be called demagogic, one does find demagoguery among presidential candidates, especially during their campaigns for party nomination. (shrink)

In Visions of Statesmanship: A Statesman's Imagination and Autonomy, I provide a critical examination of the figure of the statesman as it has been presented in the philosophical reflections of three key thinkers: Plato, Yannis Markrygiannis, and Cornelius Castoriadis.

Behemoth is traditionally read as supporting Hobbes's science from the treatises, but it also goes beyond the strict limitations of Hobbes's science. Understanding how Hobbes expands his approach requires that we examine how A's confidence in institutional reform is met by B's cynicism. Hobbes shifts from an analysis of general inclinations to an analysis of the particular strategies that skilful sovereigns use to acquire and maintain peace. The result is a theory of the state that relies less on> institutional arrangement, (...) and more on effective statesmanship, than we typically see when considering Hobbes's treatises alone. (shrink)

This paper explores the theory of ‘Thoughtful Intelligence’. This theory proposes that the capacity to realize the impact of one’s statements and actions on the continued existence, dignity, and development of other people and nations is ‘Thoughtful Intelligence’. I show that the 4 unique thoughtful features (self point of reference, human point of reference, nature point of reference, and creator point of reference) result in a ‘Thoughtful’ leadership role. Applying this to climate change management enables one to characterize and visualize (...) the forthcoming flow of Thoughtful Intelligence. A Delphi-focused method helped identify 7 dynamics of thoughtful climate statesmanship, including carbon neutrality, offsetting carbon in neighboring countries, fighting climate change, integrity of social well-being, preserving environment and culture, caring use of limited resources, and gross national happiness. A Delphi-exploratory method was used to clarify thoughtful climate statesmanship. The consensual 95% results documented that the best thoughtful climate statesmanship belonged to Bhutan. The documentation of thoughtful climate statesmanship is strengthening the literature on statesmanship. Summit leaders, scientists, and people in business globally can benefit from this study. (shrink)

Compiled by the foremost scholar of the holocaust in Hungary, this volume contains close to 1500 fully annotated bibliographical entries relating to the history of Hungarian Jewry in general and the Holocaust period in particular. Grouped under 42 main subject headings, the entries are arranged alphabetically and provide author, name, and geographic indexes.

The _Statesman _is a difficult and puzzling Platonic dialogue. In _A Stranger's Knowledge_ Marquez argues that Plato abandons here the classic idea, prominent in the _Republic_, that the philosopher, _qua_ philosopher, is qualified to rule. Instead, the dialogue presents the statesman as _different _from the philosopher, the possessor of a specialist expertise that cannot be reduced to philosophy. The expertise is of how to make a city resilient against internal and external conflict in light of the imperfect sociality of human (...) beings and the poverty of their reason. This expertise, however, cannot be produced on demand: one cannot train statesmen like one might train carpenters. Worse, it cannot be made acceptable to the citizens, or operate in ways that are not deeply destructive to the city’s stability. Even as the political community requires his knowledge for its preservation, the genuine statesman must remain a stranger to the city. Marquez shows how this impasse is the key to understanding the ambiguous reevaluation of the rule of law that is the most striking feature of the political philosophy of the _Statesman_. The law appears here as a mere approximation of the expertise of the inevitably absent statesman, dim images and static snapshots of the clear and dynamic expertise required to steer the ship of state across the storms of the political world. Yet such laws, even when they are not created by genuine statesmen, can often provide the city with a limited form of cognitive capital that enables it to preserve itself in the long run, so long as citizens, and especially leaders, retain a “philosophical” attitude towards them. It is only when rulers know that they do not know better than the laws what is just or good that the city can be preserved. The dialogue is thus, in a sense, the vindication of the philosopher-king in the absence of genuine political knowledge. (shrink)

Although America’s founders may have been inspired by the political thought of ancient Greece and Rome, the United States is more often characterized by its devotion to the pursuit of commerce. Some have even said that a modern commercial republic such as the United States unavoidably lowers its moral horizon to little more than a concern with securing peace and prosperity so that commerce can flourish. Michael Chan reconsiders this view of America through close readings of Aristotle and Alexander Hamilton, (...) showing that America at its founding was neither as modern nor as low as we have been led to believe. He challenges the virtue/commerce divide that dominates modern thought by demonstrating that the prevailing views of Aristotle and Hamilton on commerce reflect misleading half-truths. Chan first examines Aristotle’s views of economics as presented in the _Politics_, arguing that Aristotle was not as hostile to commerce as is commonly believed. He points out the philosopher’s belief in the value of commercial acquisition in the interest of supplying citizens with the “equipment of virtue,” citing Aristotle’s praise of commercial Carthage over agrarian but much-esteemed Sparta. Chan then turns to a detailed account of the political economy of Hamilton, a proponent of an advanced industrial republic modeled on Great Britain. While many take Hamilton’s advocacy of public credit, a national bank, and manufacturing as evidence of his rejection of classical republican thought in favor of modernity, Chan contends that Hamilton embraced a classically inspired economic statesmanship that transcended a concern with merely securing peace and prosperity. Leading the reader through the complexities of Hamilton’s thought, Chan shows that he intended commerce to pursue the wider classical goals of forming the character of citizens, establishing harmony and justice, and pursuing national greatness. Rather than attempting to brand Hamilton an Aristotelian, Chan seeks to incorporate into the study of Hamilton’s political economy what Aristotle himself regarded as the statesman’s characteristic virtue, prudence. By reflecting on Hamilton in the context of Aristotle’s own reflections on commerce, Chan casts him in a new light that cuts across the ongoing debate about liberal versus classical republican elements of the American founding. His cogent analysis also raises important questions regarding the American system as it is being challenged by conflicting worldviews. _Aristotle and Hamilton on Commerce and Statesmanship _makes a significant contribution to our understanding of both Hamiltonian thought and the moral worthiness of democratic capitalism. (shrink)

In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville famously called for 'a new political science' that could address the problems and possibilities of a 'world itself quite new.' For Tocqueville, the democratic world needed not just a new political science, but also new arts of statesmanship and leadership. In this volume, editors Brian Danoff and L. Joseph Hebert, Jr. have brought together a diverse set of essays which reveal that Tocqueville's understanding of democratic statesmanship remains highly relevant today.

This paper argues that the mode of statesmanship recommended in Utopia provides the framework for the Epigrams. While Utopia demonstrates the need for artful indirection by exposing the vices of a man too proud to adopt it, the Epigrams exhibit More's preparation for and practice of a tactfully philosophic statesmanship.

This book focuses on the political thought of American statesmen. These statesmen have had consistent and comprehensive views of the good of the country and their actions have been informed by those views. The editors argue that political life in America has been punctuated by three great crises in its history-the crisis of the Founding, the crisis of the House Divided, and the crisis of the Great Depression. The Second World War was a crisis not just for America but for (...) the whole of Western Civiliation and, in the wake of that war, a new crisis arose which came to be called the "Cold War." Just when that gave the appearance of being resolved, the world reached a new juncture, a new crisis, which Samuel P. Huntington dubbed the "clash of civiliations." The statesmen having political responsibility in confronting the first three crises in America's history came as close to philosophic grasp of the problems of liberal democracy as one could demand from those embroiled in the active resolution of events. Their reflection of political philosophy in the full sense informed their actions. Since we cannot confidently explain the future, Aristotle warned us to call no man happy while he still lives. Thus the book, in its third edition, keeps to its settled pattern of dealing with settled matters. The preface to the third edition confronts the three later crises and, to the extent consistent with truth, attempts to relate them to the first three. Morton J. Frisch was professor emeritus of political science at Northern Illinois University. He was the author or editor of several books, including Selected Writings and Speeches of Alexander Hamilton; Alexander Hamilton and the Political Order; and Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Contribution of the New Deal to American Political Thought and Practice. Richard G. Stevens retired from National Defense University as professor of political science in 1994. Since then he has taught as an adjunct professor of government at American University. He is co-editor with Matthew J. Franck of Sober as a Judge: The Supreme Court and Republican Liberty, and the author of The American Constitution and Its Provenance; Reason and History in Judicial Judgment: Felix Frankfurter and Due Process; and Political Philosophy: An Introduction. (shrink)

Most scholars suggest that Plato's academy served as a training ground for future statesmen in order that philosophy might influence politics. Yet scholars deny that later Platonic academies maintained this same political focus. It is assumed that they transformed into monastic asylums, allowing philosophers to escape worldly affairs. This article challenges the conventional reading through an interpretation of a commentary on Plato's Gorgias, written by an Alexandrian Neoplatonist who upholds his predecessor's political focus. He argues that the philosopher must be (...) concerned with the health of regimes and should accomplish this task by teaching statesmen, who can either advise those in power or pursue their own political ambitions. (shrink)

An ethical curriculum depends on the ability to impart skill with knowledge for making the best use of the learning processes. It can further advance only when one explores different value dimensions with additional goals in education than mere technical goal with an appropriate curriculum. An ethical curriculum provides character formation for the well-being of an individual which is even more important than cultivation of intellect. However, the present education system offers no provision to gain experience in social virtues while (...) studying, as a result of which even the well-qualified are not being readily accepted as serious social citizens. A curriculum with ethics will be able to address and advise various social diversities in a holistic manner and also elevate a society with values to greater heights. So, the main aim of ethical education is to provide statesmanship and academic heroism to create a good society for holistic thinkers. Various methods and techniques have been designed for ethical curriculum and faculty development with clear oracle and action to act as a nursery towards total personality development of an individual for emerging education. (shrink)

Plato's paradigm for statesmanship in the Statesman, the weaving of temperate and courageous properties, provides the contemporary business ethics theorist with an aid for determining certain problems and solutions with regard to business leadership. The history of American business values manifests the destructive, and especially unethical, effects of deviating from this paradigm by over-emphasizing one or the other of the above types of qualities. However, with the aid of Plato's model for leadership in the Statesman and suggestions from Peters (...) and Waterman's In Search of Excellence, progress can be made towards constructing an adequate model for corporate leadership, especially from an ethical standpoint. (shrink)

Saving the City provides a detailed analysis of the attempts of ancient writers and thinkers, from Homer to Cicero, to construct and recommend political ideals of statesmanship and ruling, of the political community and of how it should be founded in justice. Also, Malcolm Schofield debates to what extent the Greeks and Romans deal with the same issues as modern political thinkers.

This paper assesses the historical meaning and contemporary significance of Aristotle’s educational ideas. It begins with a broad characterization of the project of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, which he calls “political science” (hê politikê epistêmê), and the central place of education in his vision of statesmanship. It proceeds through a series of topics fundamental to his educational ideas, culminating in the account of education in Politics VIII. A concluding section appraises the uses to which Aristotelian ideas are currently (...) put in philosophy of education, identifying some confusions in the influential literature of “practices.”. (shrink)

What kind of polity is justified by classic Confucian values? Adopting an interpretive approach, this paper explores the idea of leadership democracy being expressive of classic Confucian values by first introducing the models of leadership democracy associated with Weber and Schumpeter and second connecting Confucian elitist values to them. I argue that leadership democracy best realizes the Confucian emphasis on the people as the source of legitimacy and the ruler as the engine of good governance. The Confucian idea of people-rootedness (...) is borne out by citizens behaving as democratic plebeians who are empowered to choose their leader but devoid of moral and intellectual capabilities for collective decision-making. The Confucian idea of rulership is expressed by democratic leaders displaying competent statesmanship and compensating for intra-elite tensions within the Confucian tradition. (shrink)

I discuss the characters Don Quixote and Sancho Panza and their relationship in order to understand better the place of idealistictheory and realistic practice in business ethics. The realism of Sancho Panza is required to make the idealism of Don Quixote effective.Indeed, the interaction and development of these characters can serve as a model for both the effective communication between andblending of the idealistic moral theoretician and the practical businessperson. Specifically, I argue that a quixotified Sancho Panza,as a combination of (...) theoretical idealism and practical realism, is necessary for managerial statesmanship. I first consider the positionthat this concept is unrealistic. In the final section, however, I show that a number of leadership and business theorists believe thatmanagerial statesmanship requires a quixotified Sancho Panza. I also consider the question, what helps to make a quixotic vision forbusiness ethical, and what is its content? (shrink)

There are three major themes in the dialogue thought to be Plato’s Statesman: the nature of statesmanship, the difference between perfect and less than perfect regimes and the method of division. In this paper I focus on the first two themes. I argue, first, that the dialogue makes a plausible case for what it takes to be a wise statesman. In doing so, I play down the importance of the second theme: the difference between regimes. In fact, I consider (...) this discussion to be deeply flawed and even irrelevant to the argument of the first. My main purpose is to provide a critical analysis of the political theory articulated in the dialogue. My analysis is made plausible by abandoning the traditional view that the Statesman was written Plato in its entirety as a unified whole. In my view, a close reading of the text supports the hypothesis that it is, at best, semi-authentic; namely, that it is most likely a collage of fragments written at different times by Plato and other members of the Academy. (shrink)

This article revisits the account of magnanimity offered by Thomas Aquinas, in his Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle and especially in his Summa Theologiae. Recent scholarship has viewed Aquinas' magnanimity as essentially Aristotle's, complemented by the addition of charity and humility to the classical moral horizon. By contrast, I read Aquinas as offering a subtle yet far-reaching critique of important aspects of Aristotelian magnanimity, a critique with roots in Aquinas' theology, yet also comprising a significant philosophic reappraisal of (...) Aristotle's account of human excellence. Against contentions that Aquinas' ethical revisionism is antithetical to civic common sense, the requirements of statesmanship, and the rational foundations of social science, I argue that Aquinas' theory is politically salutary and theoretically enlightening. Moreover, I suggest that recent dissident reflection on twentieth-century totalitarian experience underscores both the humanity and the nobility of a humility-informed magnanimity, such as that advocated by Thomas Aquinas. (shrink)

In Plato’sStatesman, the Eleatic Stranger leads Socrates the Younger and their audience through an analysis of the statesman in the service of the interlocutors’ becoming “more capable in dialectic regarding all things” (285d7). In this way, the dialectical exercise in the text is both intrinsically and instrumentally valuable, as it yields a philosophically rigorous account of statesmanship and exhibits a method of dialectical inquiry. After the series of bifurcatory divisions in theSophistand earlyStatesman, the Stranger changes to a non-bifurcatory method (...) of dividing to account for the statesman, but does not explain the reason for this change. I argue that the change is prepared by the elements discussed in the digression from 277a2 to 287b2. Here the Stranger makes use of four concepts that are crucial for understanding this change: the notion ofparadigm, the paradigms ofcareandthe weaver, and the notion ofdue measure. I claim that the notion of paradigm clarifies the nature of dialectical inquiry, care and weaving act as paradigms appropriate to dialectical practice, and an account of due measure offers insight into the constitutive ratios that govern the structuring of kinds pursued through dialectical inquiry. I suggest that the non-bifurcatory method is intended to articulate knowledge in the strictest sense, or knowledge of the forms, presenting a method of inquiry into being and its structure that will foster the turning of the soul from things to forms that Socrates describes in theRepublic. (shrink)

Plato’s Sophist and Statesman stand out from many other Platonic dialogues by at least two features. First, they do not raise a ti esti question about a single virtue or feature of something, but raise the questions what sophist, statesman, and philosopher are, how they differ from each other, and what worth each should be accorded. Second, a visitor from Elea, rather than Socrates, seeks to addressed these questions and does so by employing what is commonly referred to as the (...) method of collection and division. Some scholars have argued that this so-called method is value neutral and therefore unable to address the question how philosophy differs from sophistry and statesmanship according to worth. This article contends that the procedures of collection and division does not preclude the visitor from taking considerations of worth into account, but rather helps establish an objective basis for settling the main questions of the dialogue. (shrink)

Plato, the great philosopher of Athens, was born in 427 BCE. In early manhood an admirer of Socrates, he later founded the famous school of philosophy in the grove Academus. Much else recorded of his life is uncertain; that he left Athens for a time after Socrates' execution is probable; that later he went to Cyrene, Egypt, and Sicily is possible; that he was wealthy is likely; that he was critical of 'advanced' democracy is obvious. He lived to be 80 (...) years old. Linguistic tests including those of computer science still try to establish the order of his extant philosophical dialogues, written in splendid prose and revealing Socrates' mind fused with Plato's thought. In Laches, Charmides, and Lysis, Socrates and others discuss separate ethical conceptions. Protagoras, Ion, and Meno discuss whether righteousness can be taught. In Gorgias, Socrates is estranged from his city's thought, and his fate is impending. The Apology, Crito, Euthyphro, and the unforgettable Phaedo relate the trial and death of Socrates and propound the immortality of the soul. In the famous Symposium and Phaedrus, written when Socrates was still alive, we find the origin and meaning of love. Cratylus discusses the nature of language. The great masterpiece in ten books, the Republic, concerns righteousness. Of the six so-called dialectical dialogues Euthydemus deals with philosophy; metaphysical Parmenides is about general concepts and absolute being; Theaetetus reasons about the theory of knowledge. Of its sequels, Sophist deals with not-being; Politicus with good and bad statesmanship and governments; Philebus with what is good. The Timaeus seeks the origin of the visible universe out of abstract geometrical elements. The unfinished Critias treats of lost Atlantis. Unfinished also is Plato's last work of the twelve books of Laws, a critical discussion of principles of law which Plato thought the Greeks might accept. The Loeb Classical Library edition of Plato is in twelve volumes. (shrink)

Le Politique est généralement conçu comme un dialogue décousu et manquant d'unité, au mieux comme une succession de méthodes et de voies de recherche différentes (division dichotomique, mythe, paradigme) visant chacune à définir le politique. Le présent article vise au contraire à montrer que l'unité du dialogue est coextensive au développement d'une unique diaíresis, et ce en soulignant, à partir de ce que le texte dit lui-même, que le mythe, la méthode par paradigme et l'analyse des constitutions existantes ne sont (...) que des moyens permettant à la division de tracer le sentier qui mène au politique tel qu'il devrait être. L'ensemble des passages méthodologiques du dialogue permet ainsi d'expliquer comment le Politique explore les possibilités et souligne les limites de la méthode diairétique. Plato's Statesman is usually read as a tedious and carelessly written exercise in dialectic, or, more charitably, as a patchwork of loosely connected applications of different methods of definition of statesmanship (division, myth and paradigm). In this paper, I argue that this much disputed problem of the unity of the dialogue can be solved, provided one reads the whole dialogue as what it claims to be, i.e. the developpment of a single diaíresis. It can be shown that the Eleatic Visitor makes use of the myth, of the analysis of paradigms and of the treatment of non-ideal constitutions as means to following a single path, throughout the whole dialogue, that leads to the definition of statesmanship as it should be. The Statesman emerges as Plato's most profound reflection on the possibilities and the limits of the diairetic method. (shrink)

Ruling Passion is the only book-length study of tyranny, statesmanship, and civic virtue in three major Platonic dialogues, the Georgias, the Symposium, and the Republic. It is also the first extended interpretation of eros as the key to Plato's understanding of both the depths of human vice and the heights of human aspirations for virtue and happiness. Through his detailed commentary and eloquent insights on the three dialogues, Waller Newell demonstrates how, for Plato, tyranny is a misguided longing for (...) erotic satisfaction that can be corrected by the education of eros toward the proper objects of its pleasure: civic virtue and philosophy. (shrink)

The Socratic Way of Life is the first English-language book-length study of the philosopher Xenophon's masterwork. In it, Thomas L. Pangle shows that Xenophon depicts more authentically than does Plato the true teachings and way of life of the citizen philosopher Socrates, founder of political philosophy. In the first part of the book, Pangle analyzes Xenophon's defense of Socrates against the two charges of injustice upon which he was convicted by democratic Athens: impiety and corruption of the youth. In the (...) second part, Pangle analyzes Xenophon's account of how Socrates's life as a whole was just, in the sense of helping through his teaching a wide range of people. Socrates taught by never ceasing to raise, and to progress in answering, the fundamental and enduring civic questions: what is pious and impious, noble and ignoble, just and unjust, genuine statesmanship and genuine citizenship. Inspired by Hegel's and Nietzsche's assessments of Xenophon as the true voice of Socrates, The Socratic Way of Life establishes the Memorabilia as the groundwork of all subsequent political philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Isocrates' Use of doxaTakis PoulakosEven though Isocrates presents Antidosis as a thorough defense of his educational program, he says very little about it, choosing instead to offer lavish portraits of his own earlier writings, elaborate arguments in defense of his reputation, and painstaking attacks against his competitors. One of the few passages where he speaks directly and explicitly about his educational views concerns the type of teaching of which (...) he approved. "[T]eachers of philosophy," he remarks in an obvious reference to his own instruction, begin their students' training by acquainting them with "all the forms of discourse in which the mind expresses itself." Past this type of training, he goes on to say,when they have made them familiar and thoroughly conversant with these lessons, they set them at exercises, habituate them to work, and require them to combine in practice the particular things which they have learned, in order that they may grasp them more firmly and bring their theories into closer touch with the occasions for applying them —I say "theories," for no system of knowledge can possibly cover these occasions, since in all cases they elude our science. Yet those who most apply their minds to them and are able to discern the consequences which for the most part grow out of them, will most often meet these occasions in the right way. (184)The passage is important for a number of reasons. First, it makes clear that Isocrates conceives learning not so much in terms of possessing a specialized body of knowledge as in knowing how to apply principles to specific situations. Students will be educated in the art of logos, not only when they have become familiar with "all the forms of discourse,," but, more importantly, when they have learned how to apply principles of the art to practical situations. Second, the passage also makes clear that the proper site for applying the principles of the art of logos is the domain of politics. [End Page 61] Teachers of "philosophy" will guide students to apply their knowledge of the art of logos, not in every situation, but in those situations that deal with contingencies and that call for decisions about future courses of action, whose outcome is unknown and whose consequences are unforeseen. Along with many other sections throughout his writings, the passage above offers one more indication that Isocrates' educational program focuses principally on instruction in political or symbouleutic speaking, political discourse or logos politikos. Finally, as the passage states, the domain of situations addressed by his instruction is on the level of contingency and kairos, a domain belonging to the order of doxa, not the order of epistēmē. His teaching of political discourse relies on a method of adjusting opinions and conjectures to specific cases, on bringing doxa in closer proximity to kairos.The passage above, then, sets the conceptual stage for the type of civic education with which Isocrates associates his teaching throughout the Antidosis: the teaching of logos politicos, not for its own sake, but for the purpose of citizenship and statesmanship, an education in speaking well for the purposes of citizenship and statesmanship. By guiding students in how to apply rhetorical principles to practical situations, how to make choices about future courses of action with an eye to potential consequences, and how to adjust choices made to the demands of changing circumstances, he is in fact preparing students to participate in their city's deliberations as citizens. Should they rise to the occasion and be prepared to address the city's problems by submitting the judgments they formulate to the principles of contingency and timeliness, they may very well become leaders of the city one day, capable statesmen or celebrated citizens of the polis.But the passage also leaves several questions unanswered. To begin with, there is the question of the label "philosophy." Does Isocrates use the term philosophia to "denote his rhetoric" (Too 1995, 193) or to suggest an "implicit denial of rhetoric" (Cahn 1989, 134)? Is this label meant to be an act of "appropriating the term 'philosophy'" (Nehamas 1990, 5) or of positing "a contrasting definition of philosophy" (Timmerman 1998, 157)? Can the... (shrink)

Oedipus the tyrant and the limits of political rationalism -- Blind faith and enlightened statesmanship in Oedipus at colonus -- The pious heroism of Antigone -- Conclusion: Nietzsche, Plato, and Aristotle on philosophy and tragedy.

In his “Noesis and Logos in the Eleatic Trilogy, with a Focus on the Visitor’s Jokes at Statesman 266a-d,” Mitchell Miller explores the interplay of intuition and discourse in the Statesman. He prepares by considering the orienting provocations provided by Socrates’ refutations of the proposed definition of knowledge — namely, “true judgment and a logos” — in the closing pages of the Theaetetus, by the Eleatic Visitor’s obscure schematization at Sophist 253d-e of the kinds of eidetic field discerned by dialectic, (...) and by his discussion at Statesman 277a-278e of the use of paradigms. Miller then seeks to show how the Visitor’s odd medley of geometrical and Homeric jokes at Statesman 266a-d aims, in the language of the Seventh Letter, to “spark” an intuition of the nature of statesmanship, an intuition whose “self-nourishing” motivates the subsequent rejection of the initial definition of the statesman as shepherd of the human herd, the turn to the paradigm of the weaver, and the rejection of bifurcatory division in favor of the non-bifurcatory account of the kinds of art that function as the “limbs” of a well-formed city. (shrink)