scholarly journals "If I Were Not Alexander..." An Examination of the Political Philosophy of Plutarch’s Alexander-Caesar

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Richard Buckley-Gorman
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Resistance ◽  
Parallel Lives ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Way

<p>This thesis examines Plutarch’s Alexander-Caesar. Plutarch’s depiction of Alexander has been long recognised as encompassing many defects, including an overactive thumos and a decline in character as the narrative progresses. In this thesis I examine the way in which Plutarch depicts Alexander’s degeneration, and argue that the defects of Alexander form a discussion on the ethics of kingship. I then examine the implications of pairing the Alexander with the Caesar; I examine how some of the themes of the Alexander are reflected in the Caesar. I argue that the status of Caesar as both a figure from the Republican past and the man who established the Empire gave the pair a unique immediacy to Plutarch’s time. I then examine the argument, made by some, that it is possible to discern in the Parallel Lives a statement of cultural resistance to the Roman Empire. I argue that the affirmative Hellenism which pervades the Lives reflects not so much a cultural resistance to the Roman Empire, but a concern that the Hellenic values that Plutarch valorised should be dominant within the Roman Empire.</p>

scholarly journals "If I Were Not Alexander..." An Examination of the Political Philosophy of Plutarch’s Alexander-Caesar

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Richard Buckley-Gorman
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Resistance ◽  
Parallel Lives ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Way

<p>This thesis examines Plutarch’s Alexander-Caesar. Plutarch’s depiction of Alexander has been long recognised as encompassing many defects, including an overactive thumos and a decline in character as the narrative progresses. In this thesis I examine the way in which Plutarch depicts Alexander’s degeneration, and argue that the defects of Alexander form a discussion on the ethics of kingship. I then examine the implications of pairing the Alexander with the Caesar; I examine how some of the themes of the Alexander are reflected in the Caesar. I argue that the status of Caesar as both a figure from the Republican past and the man who established the Empire gave the pair a unique immediacy to Plutarch’s time. I then examine the argument, made by some, that it is possible to discern in the Parallel Lives a statement of cultural resistance to the Roman Empire. I argue that the affirmative Hellenism which pervades the Lives reflects not so much a cultural resistance to the Roman Empire, but a concern that the Hellenic values that Plutarch valorised should be dominant within the Roman Empire.</p>

The Liberal/Democratic Divide

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheldon S. Wolin
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Way

This chapter explores John Rawls's notion of the political by asking what kind of politics it promotes or encourages. It does so by raising what is for Rawls a nonquestion of the status of democracy within his version of liberalism. And because his Political Liberalism is a work of political philosophy, it comments on its conception of that vocation and its relation to a democratic politics. Although that too may appear to be another non-Rawlsian question, it goes to the difference between liberalism and democracy and to the question of how it is possible to theorize democracy without resorting to anti-or undemocratic impositions; or, if it is possible, whether Rawlsian constructivism and its sovereign theorist are the way to do it.

Liberdade e Direitos Humanos no Pensamento de Richard Price

2005 ◽  
Vol 13 (25) ◽  
pp. 119-145
Author(s):  
José Gomes André ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Expression ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Way

This paper is concerned with the political philosophy of Richard Price, analysing the way this author has developed the concept of liberty and the problem of human rights. The theme of liberty will be interpreted in a double perspective: a) in a private dimension, that sets liberty in the inner side of the individual; b) in a public dimension, that places it in the domain of a manifest action of the individual. We will try to show how this double outlook of liberty is conceived under the optics of a necessary complementarity, since liberty, which is primarily understood as a feature of the subject taken as an individual, acquires only a full meaning when she becomes efective in a comunitary field, as a social and political expression. The concept of human rights will appear located in this analysis, being defined simultaneously as condition and expression of the human dignity and happiness, at the same time natural attributes of an individual that should be cultivated and public effectiveness that contributes to the development of society.

The Scholastic and Conciliar Roots of Samuel Rutherford’s Political Philosophy

2020 ◽  
pp. 208-226
Author(s):  
Simon J. G. Burton
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Way

Samuel Rutherford’s Lex Rex remains a source of perennial fascination for historians of political thought. Written in 1644 in the heat of the Civil Wars it constitutes an intellectual and theological justification of the entire Covenanting movement and a landmark in the development of Protestant political theory. Rutherford’s argument in the Lex Rex was deeply indebted to scholastic and Conciliarist sources, and this chapter examines the way he deployed these, especially the political philosophy of John Mair and Jacques Almain, in order to construct a covenantal model of kingship undergirded by an interwoven framework of individual and communal rights. In doing so it shows the ongoing influence of the Conciliarist tradition on Scottish political discourse and also highlights unexpected connections between Rutherford’s Covenanting and his Augustinian and Scotistic theology of grace and freedom.

The political and conception of the self – a Wittgensteinian approach to political thought/ Polityka bez podmiotu – wittgensteinowska perspektywa w myśli politycznej

2014 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Krzynówek-Arndt
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe paper proposes to examine the variety of ways political theorists understand the political importance of Wittgenstein’s thought. Any analysis of Wittgensteinian political philosophy start from different understanding of this philosophy of language and possible ends of philosophical activity. However, each attempt to interpret the significance of Wittgenstein’s work to political thought anticipates or is linked to a particular conception of the self, a particular conception of the human being that is not easy to reconcile with the Wittgenstein of Tractatus and the Wittgenstein of Philosophical Investigations. For that reasons any Wittgensteinian approach to political thought should make an attention to the way Wittgenstein discusses on the self, the “I”, the way we use the word “I”.

The Deferential English: A Comparative Critique

1971 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Kavanagh
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Cultures ◽  
Cultural Pattern ◽  
The Status ◽  
English Politics ◽  
The Way

ALL POLITICAL CULTURES ARE MIXED AND CHANGING. WHAT IS interesting in the English case, however, is the way in which a veritable army of scholars has seized on the deferential component. Other features in the overall cultural pattern have been neglected. This paper is devoted to an examination of the concept of deference as it is applied to English politics. In particular it will focus on the different meanings that the concept has assumed in the literature describing and analysing the popular political attitudes, and those aspects of the political system, including stability, which it has been used to explain. My concluding argument is that deference, as the concept is frequently applied to English political culture, has attained the status of a stereotype and that it is applied to such variegated and sometimes conflicting data that it has outlived its usefulness as a term in academic currency.

New Media in Kenya

2011 ◽  
pp. 40-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin C. Njoroge ◽  
Purity Kimani ◽  
Bernard J. Kikech
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Ethnic Differences ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
The People ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Way

The way the media processes, frames, and passes on information either to the government or to the people affects the function of the political system. This chapter discusses the interaction between new media and ethnicity in Kenya, Africa. The chapter investigates ways in which the new media reinforced issues relating to ethnicity prior to Kenya’s 2007 presidential election. In demonstrating the nexus between new media and ethnicity, the chapter argues that the upsurge of ethnic animosity was chiefly instigated by new media’s influence. Prior to the election, politicians had mobilized their supporters along ethnic lines, and created a tinderbox situation. Thus, there is need for the new media in Kenya to help the citizens to redefine the status of ethnic relationships through the recognition of ethnic differences and the re-discovery of equitable ways to accommodate them; after all, there is more strength than weaknesses in these differences.

Unearthing the political unconscious in the reporting of homelessness in Manchester

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-99
Author(s):  
Rachel Broady
Keyword(s):  
Status Quo ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Unconscious ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Way

Journalists in Manchester have reported on homelessness with the intention of highlighting a problem, persuading a charitable response and encouraging legislative intervention. They serve as the way for readers, who may not spend time among the homeless, to observe and understand. This article argues that the representation is restricted by the ideological arena in which journalists work. It posits that by utilizing Fredric Jameson’s interpretive horizons methodology, the political unconscious of copy can be unearthed to reveal the acceptance of the inevitability of homelessness, which has been internalized and reconfigured in stories about the topic. It argues that it is possible to reveal the strategies of containment unconsciously employed, which conceal the relationship between labour and value, and ultimately defend the status quo, despite the intentions of journalists and publications. It further posits that the systemic, societal causes of homelessness are ultimately unchallenged, with the experience unconsciously mediated by the journalists and shared with an audience treated as fellow observers.

Rape as a Weapon of War in Myanmar/Burma

2019 ◽  
pp. 266-284
Author(s):  
Annalise Oatman ◽  
Kate Majewski
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
Legal Culture ◽  
Minority Women ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ethnic Minority Women ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

This chapter examines the conflict in Myanmar and its historical development as an example of the way that rape is wielded as a weapon of war. It also provides a discussion of advocacy for the ethnic minority women of Myanmar at the grassroots, national, and international levels. It reviews statistics on conflict-related rape and theories regarding the social and political forces driving it. It examines the political history of Myanmar and the status of Myanmarese women. It also discusses the way that current conditions have set the stage for conflict-related rape in Myanmar and data on its prevalence. It discusses the extradition of the rapist of a 7-year-old girl, Myanmarese grassroots efforts to address this issue, and international proposals for reform. In addition, it discusses the way that the “legal culture” of a nation can get in the way of the enactment of international legislation.

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