scholarly journals THE MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC COMMENTARY ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC: IBN RUSHD’S PERSPECTIVE ON THE POSITION AND POTENTIAL OF WOMEN

Islamology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Tineke Melkebeek
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Scholarly Literature ◽  
Arabic Translation ◽  
Ibn Rushd ◽  
The Republic ◽  
City State ◽  
The City

This paper investigates the twelfth-century commentary on Plato’s Republic by the Andalusian Muslim philosopher Ibn Rushd (Averroes). Ibn Rushd is considered to be the only Muslim philosopher who commented on the Republic. Written around 375 BC, Plato’s Republic discusses the order and character of a just city-state and contains revolutionary ideas on the position and qualities of women, which remained contested also in Ibn Rushd’s time. This Muslim philosopher is primarily known as the most esteemed commentator of Aristotle. However, for the lack of an Arabic translation of Aristotle’s Politics, Ibn Rushd commented on the political theory of Aristotle’s teacher, i.e. Plato’s Republic, instead. In his commentary, Ibn Rushd juxtaposes examples from Plato’s context and those from contemporary Muslim societies. Notably, when he diverges from the text, he does not drift off toward more patriarchal, Aristotelian interpretations. On the contrary, he argues that women are capable of being rulers and philosophers, that their true competencies remain unknown as long as they are deprived of education, and that this situation is detrimental to the flourishing of the city. This article aims to critically analyse Ibn Rushd’s statements on the position of women, as well as their reception in scholarly literature. 

scholarly journals The Most Serene Republic of Venice. The Republican Venetian court in the 15th and 16th century

2015 ◽  
pp. 123
Author(s):  
Hannes Chronst ◽  
Lisa-Marie Gabriel
Keyword(s):  
16Th Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Courtly Culture ◽  
The Republic ◽  
City State ◽  
The City

The following proseminar-paper works on the question whether there was a monarchic court and an equivalent courtly culture in Renaissance Venice despite its Republican constitution. The seafaring nation disposed of several aristocratic institutions which dealt with the political everyday business of the Republic, but strikingly the doge still appeared as an official leader. In this context, the following analysis focuses on the geostrategic and historical conditions, the economics of the city state as well as the Venetian constitution and the representational function of the doge and his wife, the dogaressa, in a plurality of cultural ceremonial acts in order to depict the evolution of the Most Serene Republic of Venice of the 15th and 16th century.

scholarly journals Preachers, Sermons, and State Authorities in late Baroque Dubrovnik

Slovene ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 648-677
Author(s):  
Relja Seferović
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Local Church ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Orders ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Government ◽  
City State ◽  
The City

In order to keep its traditional neutrality in foreign policy and to preserve inner stability after the disastrous earthquake of 1667, the state authorities of the Republic of Dubrovnik controlled the entire public life in this city-state, which was clamped between Ottoman and Venetian possessions on the coast of the south Adriatic. They managed to impose their will on archbishops of the local Church in various aspects of religious life, including the election of public preachers in the city cathedral. Treated as simple officials in service of the government, these clerics (mostly members of various religious orders who came from Italy) played their role according to their employers’ desires, with only formal concern for their flock. However, sermons by their local counterparts, who preached mostly in smaller city churches, left a deeper mark in this highly conservative Catholic milieu. An analysis of their experiences and preserved texts of their sermons offers a new perception of the political, social, linguistic, and even theological culture of late Baroque Dubrovnik, a city whose importance remained incomparable within the Slavonic world in the Mediterranean.

From Hospitality to Hostility: Ibadan and Strangers, 1830–1904

1985 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toyin Falola
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Open Door ◽  
Equal Opportunities ◽  
Open Door Policy ◽  
Political Crises ◽  
City State ◽  
The City

The view that Ibadan society in the nineteenth century did not discriminate against strangers, irrespective of their origins in Yorubaland, is now firmly entrenched in the literature. To be sure, Ibadan, a new nineteenth-century Yoruba city-state, founded as a consequence of the political crises of the early decades of the century, did maintain an ‘open door’ policy to strangers, many of whom went there as adventurers, craftsmen and traders, hoping to acquire wealth and fame. This article, however, controverts the view that Ibadan society gave the strangers and the indigenes equal opportunities to wealth and power. It argues that all the key political offices went only to the Oyo-Ibadan group which dominated the city-state. Strangers were also not allowed to participate fully in the leading heights of the economy, with the result that most of the wealthy citizens were also of Oyo-Yoruba origin.In the 1890s discrimination against strangers was such that a number of moves were made to expel them. However, the British, who imposed colonial rule on Ibadan in 1893, were against the expulsion of strangers.

The Death of Christ and Political Theory

Worldview ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 18-22
Author(s):  
James V. Schall
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Western Civilization ◽  
Greek City ◽  
The Republic ◽  
City State

The just man who is thought unjust will be scourged, racked, bound-will have his eyes burnt out; and, at last, after suffering every kind of evil, he will be impaled.—Glaucon, The Republic, No. 361Quod scripsi, scripsi—What I have written, I have written.—Pontius Pilate (John 19:22)Political theory is by all accounts a discipline peculiar to Western civilization. It has its origin in the Greek city-state, particularly in Plato's account of the death of Socrates. In The Republic Plato went on to ask whether the just man could live in even the best state. Socrates, we know, fought in the Peloponnesian Wars and died by virtue of a public trial in 399 B.C. By his own testimony he died obedient to the laws of the civil community in which he chose to live his life, thereby condemning the unjust use of Athenian law and stigmatizing forever those 281 hapless jurists who voted for his guilt. Moreover, Socrates died calmly because he believed in the immortality of his own soul and because he was by no means sure that an already aging man would not be much better off in the Isles of the Blessed.

scholarly journals The Membership of the Jewish Refugees from Poland in Political Organizations in Wartime Shanghai (1941–1942)

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 33-64
Author(s):  
Olga Barbasiewicz ◽  
Agnieszka Pawnik
Keyword(s):  
Social Groups ◽  
The Political ◽  
Pacific War ◽  
Political Organizations ◽  
Vast Number ◽  
Jewish Refugees ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The City

When in the early 1940s a vast number of war refugees – mainly Jews, reached (via Japan) Shanghai, they got stuck in the city due to the eruptionof the Pacific War. While being mostly Polish citizens, they depended on the diplomatic care of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Tokyo, led by the Ambassador Tadeusz Romer and after its closure – the Polish Consulate in Shanghai, where the ambassador was moved. The diplomats became engaged in the organisation of refugee groups, livelihoods and visas necessary for their evacuation. The aim of this article is to characterise the political and social groups of Polish citizens, who benefited from the Polish consulate’s help and were therefore registered in the diplomatic records.

scholarly journals A POLÍTICA DE CARIDADE, ASSISTÊNCIA E PROTEÇÃO À INFÂNCIA DESVALIDA EM BELÉM DO PARÁ: DO IMPÉRIO À REPÚBLICA

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
Laura Maria Silva Araújo Alves
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Protection Policy ◽  
Childhood Care ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The City

<p>O objetivo deste artigo é trazer a lume a política de caridade, assistência e proteção à infância desvalida em Belém do Pará, do período que se estende do Império à República. No século XIX, a infância deveria ser assistida na capital do Pará em decorrência da política idealizada e implementada pela elite paraense. Assim, a infância que precisava ser assistida era designada de “órfã” e “exposta”. A primeira, dizia respeito, também, à criança que tinha perdido um dos pais, e a segunda, chamada, também, “enjeitada” ou “desvalida”, correspondia à criança que alguém não quis cuidar ou receber. Este artigo está divido em três partes. Na primeira, situo a cidade de Belém do Pará, em termos políticos, econômicos e sociais, no cenário do Brasil República, em interface com a infância. Na segunda parte, destaco as políticas assistenciais e filantrópicas no atendimento à infância no Pará e o ideário higienista. E, por fim, na terceira, trago à cena algumas instituições que foram criadas em Belém do Pará, no período do Império à República, para abrigar a criança órfã e desvalida.</p><p> </p><p><strong>ABSTRACT</strong></p><p>The objective of this article is to bring to light the charity, assistance and protection policy for disfavored childhood in Belém-PA, from the period of the Empire to the Brazilian Republic. In the 19th century, children should be assisted in the capital of the state of  Pará as a result of the political idealization implemented by this state’s elite. Therefore, the ones who needed to be assisted were designated as “orphans” or “exposed”. The former ones, not exclusively, were the children who had lost one of their parents; the latter ones, also referred to as “rejected” or “disfavored”, corresponded to the children none would look after or welcome. This article is divided into three parts. In the first, the city of  Belém is situated in political, economic and social terms, interfaced with childhood, in the scenario of the Brazilian Republic. In the second, the assistance and philanthropic policies for childhood care, as well as the hygienist ideas, are highlighted. Finally, institutions created to shelter orphan and disfavored children in Belém, from the period of the Empire to the Republic, are brought to centre stage.</p><p><strong>Keywords: </strong>Grão Pará. Childhood. Disfavored Children. Hygienism. Welfarism. Philantropy.</p>

scholarly journals On the Concepts of the “Family” and the “Household” in the Political Theory of Jean Bodin

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 130-148
Author(s):  
Gulnara Bayazitova
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ancient Rome ◽  
The Public ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Jean Bodin ◽  
The Family ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Republic

The article examines the tradition of formation of the concepts “family” (famille) and “household” (ménage) in the political theory of the French lawyer, Jean Bodin. The article looks into different editions of Six Books of the Commonwealthto explore the connotations of the key concepts and the meaning that Bodin ascribed to them. As secondary sources, Bodin uses the works by Xenophon, Aristotle, Apuleus, and Marcus Junianus Justin, as well as the Corpus Juris Civilis. Bodin examines three different traditions, those of Ancient Greece, Ancient Hebrew, and Ancient Rome. Each of these traditions has its own history of the concepts of the “family” and of the “household”. Bodin refers to ancient traditions for polemics, but eventually offers his own understanding, not only of the concepts of “famille” and “ménage”, but also of the term «République», defined as the Republic, a term that (with some reservations) refers to the modern notion of state. The very fact that these concepts are being used signifies the division of the political space into the spheres of the private and the public. Furthermore, the concepts of the “family” and of the “household” are key to understand the essence of sovereignty as the supreme authority in the Republic. The author concludes that the difference between Bodin’s concepts of the “family” and the “household” lies not only in the possession of property and its legal manifestation, but also in the fact that the “household” is seen by Bodin as the basis of the Republic, the first step in the system of subordination to the authority.

Comedy in Callipolis: Animal Imagery in the Republic

1978 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 888-901 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arlene W. Saxonhouse
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Society ◽  
Animal Imagery ◽  
Animal Images ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The City ◽  
The Ideal

The political society founded by Socrates in the Republic has been seen by many as Plato's conception of the ideal political community, his Callipolis. However, a study of the language used by Socrates as he builds his perfect city reveals an unusually heavy concentration of animal images. This language seems to undercut the ostensible perfection of Socrates' city and illustrates rather its connections to the comic world of Aristophanes, whose comedy the Birds offers the model according to which the Republic is built. It is suggested that the city of the Republic is comic and ugly, indicating the limitations of politics rather than its potentialities. The Republic argues for the need to reorient the concept of justice away from social life and towards the individual. Ultimately, the Republic suggests that the notion of social justice is laughable and fit for the comic Stage.

The Political Theory of the American Revolution

1953 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-108
Author(s):  
Clinton Rossiter
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Moral Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
General Sense ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Higher Law ◽  
The Revolution

The American Revolution was an event of particular interest to political theorists. Although it produced no thinkers to stand with Aristotle or even Locke and no book to be compared with The Republic or even The Prince, it was a high point in the long and fascinating career of the school of natural law. For this reason, the political theory of the Revolution deserves a more precise rendition than it has hitherto received. My purpose in this article is to do just that: to outline the theory of the Revolution for the benefit of political theorists and intellectual historians. Rather than quote from scattered sources, I shall attempt to express the general sense of the leaders of the Revolution. If one able Revolutionist had set himself consciously to express the political consensus of his time, to cast the principles of 1776 in a pattern for later ages to inspect and ponder, this might well have been the outline he would have chosen to follow—this was the political theory of the American Revolution:The political and social world is governed by laws as certain and universal as those that govern the physical world. Whether these laws are direct commands of God, necessities of nature, or simply inescapable lessons of history makes very little practical difference. In any or all of these cases, men are guided and restricted by a moral order that they can defy but not alter. Revelation, reason, and experience, means through which men come to understand these laws, point out at least four instances in which they are applicable to the affairs of men. The higher law, or law of nature, is all of these things:

scholarly journals Sophia – the Personification of Divine Wisdom in the Culture of Novgorod the Great from 13th to 15th Century

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 13-26
Author(s):  
Zofia Brzozowska
Keyword(s):  
Old Russian ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
State Construction ◽  
Hagia Sophia ◽  
Attributes Of God ◽  
The Republic ◽  
City State ◽  
The City ◽  
The Temple

The idea of Sophia – the personified Wisdom of God served as a symbol of independence and identity of the republic in the political culture of Novgorod the Great. In Old Russian chronicles and other narrative sources which can be connected with Novgorod, one may find statements showing that – in the eyes of the Novgorodians themselves – Wisdom was not only one of the main attributes of God, but also a separate character, a kind of divine being, who could be interpreted as patronesses and supernatural protector of the city-state. Construction of the temple of Hagia Sophia in Novgorod is usually dated to 1045–1050. In the source material one can find information that Novgorodian Sophia church was undoubtedly the most significant and important monument in the city. The theme of Wisdom of God is also a very prominent topic in Novgorodian historiography and literature. Moreover, the feminine personification of God’s Wisdom can also be found on the coins, emitted by the city-state from 1420.

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