Plato on democracy and political techne / by Anders Dahl Sorensen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sorensen, Anders Dahl, 1982- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Plato--Political and social views.

Plato.

Democracy.

Political and social views.

Physical Description:

x, 196 pages ;c24 cm

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2016]

Summary:

In 'Plato on Democracy and Political techne' Sørensen argues that the question of democracy's 'epistemic potential' was one that Plato took more seriously than is usually assumed. While he famously rejected democracy on the basis of its inherent inability to accommodate political expertise ('techne'), he did not think that this failure on democracy's part was necessarily inevitable but a concept that required further examination. Sorensen shows that in a number of his most important dialogues ('Republic, Gorgias, Statesman, Protagoras, Theaetetus'), Plato was ready to take up the question of democracy's epistemic potential and to enter into strikingly technical and sophisticated discussions of what both rule by 'techne' and rule by the people would have to look like in order for the two things to be compatible.

Contents:

1 Thrasymachus' Challenge: Political Sociology and Expert Rule in Republic 1 12

Thrasymachus' Political Account of Justice 14

Rulers in the Strict Sense 18

Real Existing Expert Rulers 22

Democratic Expert Rule? 28

Towards an Epistemic Analysis of Democracy 31

2 Scientific Politics and the Power of the People: Rhetoric and techne in the Gorgias 35

Why is Rhetoric not Scientific? 36

Who Rules Who? 42

Rhetoric as kolakeia 46

Democracy and techne 52

Scientific Politics and the Power of the People 58

3 Democracy as Imitator: Expertise and Democratic Conservatism in the Statesman 63

Lawfulness and Imitation 64

Expertise and Its Discontents 70

Democratic Expertise 81

The Laws and Democratic Ideology 86

Statesmanship and the Ancestral Laws 90

4 Athenian Measurement: Democracy and Expert Authority in the Protagoras 100

The Athenian Premise 102

Protagoras' 'Great Speech' 109

Protagoras' Social Pragmatism 119

Problems with Appearance 124

Towards the Theaetetus 131

5 Self-Refuting Wisdom: Turning the Tables on Protagoras in the Theaetetus 133

Minding the Gap 134

Prelude to the Self-Refutation Argument (169d3-170a5) 137

Protagoras' Defense (166c9-167d5) 144

Who is the Measure? 155

The Self-Refutation Argument (170a3-171c7) 160.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Sorensen, Anders Dahl, 1982- author. Plato on democracy and political techne

ISBN:

9789004312005

9004312005

OCLC:

951955845