History of Political Thought

October 8th

Greek Political Thought

Archaic period
!Classical period - 500 B.C. - 323 B.C.
Hellenistic period

Most Greeks did not live in the polis, but in villages and other forms of
organisation - the polis was the exception.
Poleis: Syracuse, Corinth, Athens, Sparta, Thebes.

The city-state (the polis) is not a uniquely Greek experience. Before Greeks:
Babylon. After: Venice.
Greek city-states:
-rather small. Athens and Syracuse were exceptions.
-harsh qualifications for citizenship.
-direct participation of citizens in politics: direct democracy.
-body of citizens = ecclesia.
-participation as a duty. i.e.: archers as a "police force" with red ropes in order to
prevent citizens from leaving the public assembly.
-idioti (?) = people who declined participating in city politics.

Issue for the philosophers: comparing city states.

Main topic: analysing transformation which occured inside the polis (mainly
Athens) - because of the struggle of power, since philosophers were
representants of the aristocracy.

Two basic species of political regimes:

Good/Lawful/Legitimate/public interest oriented governing/virtuous/purpose of
the state: to make citizens happy/Happy
Bad/Unlawful/Illegitimate/personal interest oriented governing/corrupt/faulty in
the purpose to make citizens happy/Unhappy

Rules Good Bad

-rule of one Monarchy (M) Tyranny (T)
-rule of few Aristocracy (A) Oligarchy (O)
-rule of many (all?) Democracy
(also Anarchy, Ochlocracy - rule of the mob)

Monarchy
Aristocracy
Oligarchy
Democracy
Tyranny

Democracy was a bad regime, it didn't work sometimes, thus being both good
and bad.
Monarchy was considered to be the best regime, while tyranny was considered
to be the worst.
Some regimes mixed (Aristotle's Politics) - Theory of the mixed regime.
Aristocracy decays into oligarchy, which decays into democracy, which decays
into tyranny (possibly) => regimes form a sort of cycle.
Herodot III - 80-82 (!)

Aristotle, Plato, Xenophon

Xenophon - recollection of Socrates (memorabilia)

HIERO - http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/1/7/1175/1175.txt (TO READ)
-"once a tyrant, always a tyrant"
-the analysis of a regime is narrowed down to the analysis of a man (i.e. tyrant)
and ultimately to a lifestyle.

Plato - Republic
-the human soul is a mixture of three elements:
the rational part (on top) - rational desires
pride, desire of recognition, honour
material desire - lower part: animal-like desire (violence, sex)
-certain classes of people are characterised by different levels of desires
-the hierarchy of politics mirrors the hierarchy of the human soul: monarchy -
rational desire; aristocracy (timocracy) - recognition desire; oligarchy &
democracy - material desire;
-analysis of democracy: it is ambivalent, because, according to Plato, democracy
is the best regime among the bad regimes and is the worst regime among the
good regimes.
-even animals participate in the general subversion of democracy.
-democracy is inherently unstable and can degenerate into tyranny.
Republic - 550 (TO READ!), esp. democracy and tyranny.

TO READ: Aristotle's Politics