Module description
How should power be understood and distributed within a city or a state, kingdom or empire? Is there a place in politics for truths, wisdom and expertise? What is the nature of political authority? In what wider framework of ideas should questions of solidarity, deference and obligation be understood? How do political theory and political practice relate to one another?
In this module, we will explore these and similar questions in relation to a diverse range of thinkers and texts – some very well known, other less often studied – from the fourth century BC to the second century AD. Beginning with Aristotle’s classic analysis of the essential nature and key benefits of the city state, composed on the eve of its eclipse as the prime political unit, we will move on to consider the debates that arose with the ‘Hellenistic’ schools of thought – Stoicism, Epicureanism, Cynicism Neo-Pythagoreanism and Middle Platonism – and continued to hold the field under the Roman Empire. Seneca, Plutarch and Dio Chrysostom will be the main thinkers to be discussed, for their ideas on politics at both imperial and local level; but we will also look at the differing kinds of rejection of formal politics offered by Cynic and Epicurean thinking. A final session will consider the issue of harmony and civic solidarity, and question the relevance of ancient theorizing on this topic to the modern world.
This module forms the second part of two related but independent modules (see 6AACTL76: Ideas of Power and the Power of Ideas: Ancient Political Philosophy I). Students interested in acquiring a fuller picture of ancient political philosophy are encouraged to take both modules, but it is possible to take one module without the other (and students will not be disadvantaged by doing so).
Teaching pattern
10 x 2-hour seminar (weekly)
Suggested reading list
Suggested introductory reading
This is suggested reading and purchase of these books is not mandatory.
- Arruzza, C. (ed.) (2016), Philosophy and Political Power in Antiquity. Studies in moral philosophy, 10. Leiden.
- Balot, R.K. (ed.) (2009), A Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought. Malden.
- Kraut, R. (2002), Aristotle: political philosophy. Oxford and New York.
- Laks, A., and M. Schofield (eds) (1995), Justice and Generosity: studies in Hellenistic social and political philosophy. Cambridge.
- Lane, M. (2014), Greek and Roman Political Ideas. Harmondsworth.
- Rowe, C., and Schofield, M. (2000), The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought. Cambridge.
- Salkever, S. (ed.) (2009), The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek Political Thought. Cambridge.
- Schofield, M. (1999), The Stoic Idea of the City. Chicago.
- Trapp, M. (2007), Philosophy in the Roman Empire: Ethics, Politics and Society, Aldershot