Format:
xi, 461 Seiten ;
,
24 cm.
ISBN:
978-0-691-19215-4
Content:
"In this book, Melissa Lane argues that the concept of political office should be central to our understanding of Greek politics and political theory. Yet discussions of the Greeks tend to focus on courts and assemblies, or at most, on lottery as a means of selecting officeholders - without thinking about their powers of command or about how they were held accountable. Meanwhile, discussions of Plato's Republic and Statesman tend to ignore the profound extent to which his understanding of politics was articulated in terms of the vocabulary and practice of officeholding, on the one hand, and an interrogation of whether these were adequate to a full understanding of ruling, on the other. In The Origins of Political Office: Ancient Greek Ideas of Ruling and Being Ruled, based on the 2018 Carlyle Lectures at the University of Oxford, Melissa Lane explores public office as a principal building block of Greek political ideas that lies at the intersection of command and accountability. In this way, she argues, the normative conception of office was not a form of absolute rule, but rather always constrained by the ruled, who held them accountable through elections and various forms of review. In return, the ruled gave up some of their freedom by agreeing to obey their rulers. Lane weaves together the role played by this understanding of office in key historical moments, especially but not only in Athens, with its use and rethinking by the philosophers particularly Plato. She does so with novel attention to the absence and abuse of office in various dimensions: from anarchy to tyranny. The book offers a path-breaking interpretation of the relationship between office-holding and ruling, of the meaning of ruling and being ruled, and of the significance of office in political theory and practice both in ancient Greece and with reference to today"--
Note:
Cover -- Contents -- Preface -- Abbreviations -- Part I. Introduction -- Chapter 1. Overview: Why Rule and Office? Why Plato -- Chapter 2. Rule and Office: Figures, Vocabularies, Stances -- Part II. Reconfigurations of Rule and Office -- Chapter 3. Rule and the Limits of Office (Laws) -- Chapter 4. Rethinking the Role of Ruler and the Place of Office (Statesman) -- Chapter 5. Defining the Telos of Rule (Republic, Book 1) -- Chapter 6. Guarding as Serving: The Conundrum of Wages in a Kallipolis (Republic, Books 1-5)
,
Chapter 7. Philosophers Reigning: Rulers and Officeholders in a Kallipolis (Republic, Books 5-7) -- Part III. Degenerations of Rule and Office -- Chapter 8. The Macro Narrative: Flawed Constitutions within Cities (Republic, Book 8) -- Chapter 9. The Micro Narrative: Flawed Constitutions within Souls (Republic, Books 8-9) -- Part IV. Thematizations of Rule and Office -- Chapter 10. Against Tyranny: Plato on Freedom, Friendship, and the Place of Law -- Chapter 11. Against Anarchy: The Horizon of Platonic Rule -- Acknowledgments -- Glossary of Selected Greek Terms -- Bibliography -- Index
Additional Edition:
ebook version ISBN 978-0-691-23785-5
Language:
English
Subjects:
Philosophy
Author information:
Lane, Melissa S., 1966-,
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