Event Detail
|
Tue Apr 5, 2011 Classics Conference Room, 7205 Dwinelle 5–7 PM |
Working Group in Ancient Philosophy Hayden Ausland (University of Montana) The Decline of Political Virtue in Plato’s Republic Books 8-9 |
The political teaching of the Republic is rooted in the Republic’s own teaching on what were later canonized as the cardinal virtues. An apparently unnoticed aspect of this is that Socrates’ account of four inferior political regimes in Republic 8-9 is best read not as reflecting either historical experience or a theoretical unfolding of a tripartite psyche, but as a study of the political consequences of the serial loss of personal wisdom, bravery, temperance, and justice.