This paper examines the origins of ancient political thinking from 750 to 348 B.C. The analysis of authors who had been discussing political questions over this period shows that ancient political thinking can be classified into three discourses: political thought, political theory, and political philosophy. The purpose of this paper is to define the characteristics of each discourse and to illustrate them with specific historical examples which show how these discourses interacted with the Greek political experiences and how political thought (...) transformed into a theory and philosophy. (shrink)

The present article offers an introductory vision to the political philosophy of science. The political philosophy of science is a new field of study where the philosophy of science and political philosophy converge. We will see the main contents of this field. We will also note that it depends on the construction of a model of rationality where science and politics can meet each other. Finally, the article tries to outline such a model of rationality. In order to do so, (...) we will review the relationship between Karl Popper’s scientific and political philosophy. I suggest to read Popper’s critical rationalism in terms of a kind of prudential rationality. (shrink)

This paper examines Herodotus¿ use of words of the ananke family in order to determine which external or internal constraints the historian represents as affecting the causality of events. M. Ostwald¿s Anangke in Thucydides (1988) provides a foundation for examining the more restricted application of these terms in Herodotus (85 occurrences vs. 161 in Thucydides). In Herodotus, divine necessity (absent in Thucydides) refers to the predictable results of human wrongdoings more often than to a force constraining human choices. This represents (...) an especially ambiguous Herodotean category, however, and is expressed by a wider range of terms than those with ananke -stems. The analysis of natural ananke yields more clear-cut results. (1) In Herodotus (and not in Thucydides) ananke often qualifies an aggressive compulsion applied by a personal agent. (2) Victims of this despotic ananke are partially excused, but those who resist it earn Herodotus¿ praise. (3) Most importantly, Herodotus (unlike Thucydides) never in turn applies ananke words to circumstances that motivate imperialistic actions, especially starting a war. (4) Whereas in Thucydides agents are ¿compelled¿ to act also by fear and other internal impulses, the only psychological factor to which Herodotus applies ananke words (and this time mostly in a positive sense) is moral obligation. Herodotus¿ concept of ananke is moralistic, and consistent with his unwillingness to justify imperialism, his practice of assigning responsibility, and his high regard for nomos, on the one hand, and freedom on the other. The narrator¿s involvement in these principles is reflected in Herodotus¿ use of ananke terms in self-referential statements of the type ¿I am compelled/not compelled to say x.¿ These statements represent the narrator as the opposite of an imperial subject and analogous to the most admirable of his characters on the receiving end of compulsion. He is a free agent, who disregards political pressure and is exclusively compelled by the rules that apply to him as researcher and truthful recorder. (shrink)

In this article, I analyze the role the household ( oikos) plays in Isocrates through an exegesis of the author's letters to his erstwhile student and current monarch of Salamis of Cyprus, Nicocles. The monarch's household has a threefold role in the relationship between the elite ruler and his subjects. First, as the locus of his ancestors and their achievements, it offers competitors to Nicocles to be surpassed and a known standard for his subjects to judge their ruler. Second, as (...) the source of the monarch's public outlay, the household is a means by which Nicocles can appear magnificent; at the same time, however, he should be wary lest his subjects judge him ostentatious. Third, Nicocles invites his subjects to judge his conjugal behavior, offering it as evidence of his moderation. I conclude my argument with a challenge to an interpretation of the relationship between the few and the many as a contract; rather, this relationship is better characterized through the metaphor of service ( therapeia) drawn from the household. Isocratean political thought treats private and public domains as continuous with one another, regarding participation in political institutions as neither necessary nor sufficient to achieving good political judgment. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis response to Analogical Investigations concentrates on the legacy of Lloyd's polarity and analogy, other theories of metaphor, and relations between theories of metaphor and theories of nature.

The most striking advances in the knowledge of human anatomy and physiology that the world had ever known—or was to know until the seventeenth century A.D.—took place in Hellenistic Alexandria. The city was founded in 331 B.C. by Alexander the Great. After the tatter's death in 323 B.C. and the subsequent dissolution of his empire, it became the capital of one of his generals, Ptolemy, son of Lagus, who established the Ptolemaic dynasty there. The first Ptolemy, subsequently named Soter , (...) and his son Ptolemy Philadelphus , became immensely enriched by their exploitation of Egypt and raised the city to a position of great wealth and magnificence. Anxious to enhance both their own reputation and the prestige of the kingdom, they sought to rival the cultural and scientific achievements not only of other Hellenistic rulers but even of Athens herself. Their patronage of the arts and sciences, coupled with their establishment of the Museum , together with the Library, made the city the centre of Hellenistic culture. Philosophers, mathematicians, astronomers, artists, poets and physicians were all encouraged to come and work there. (shrink)