"In this work, one of Latin America's most renowned legal philosophers conducts a comprehensive survey of the ancient Greek understanding of the law, drawing on texts by poets (Hesiod), philosophers (Anaximander), playwrights (Aeschylus and Sophocles), and historians (Herodotus and Thucydides). The book ends with a finely detailed analysis of the relationship between language and reality in Aristotle, and the emergence of the notion of the system and its subsequent introduction into Roman law. The author's in-depth study of all these aspects makes this volume an essential reference for philosophers, jurists, and historians"--
1 Introduction: The Economics of Friendship -- 1 Friendship: Money Can't Buy It? -- 2 Φιλια -- 3 An Economic Mentality -- 4 Apparatus and Argument -- 2 Grace under Pressure: The Anatomy of χάρις -- The Argument -- 1 Three Cases of Isomorphism -- 2 χάρις and Successful Interaction -- 3 Perception and /méconnaissance -- 4 Conflicts and Cynicism -- 5 Concluding Remarks -- 3 The Most Ancient of Obligations: The Nature of Filial Duty -- 1 The Parent-Child Bond: A Paradigm-Case -- 2 The Debtor Paradigm of Obligation -- 3 The Gratitude Theory -- 4 The Gratitude Theory Analysed -- 5 Tensions in the Script: The Possibility of χάρις -- 6 Concluding Remarks -- 4 A Debtor Paradigm of Obligation: Principles of Moral Accounting -- 1 Moral Bookkeeping -- 2 Morality as Paying Debts -- 3 Debts, Gifts and Morality -- 4 Concluding Remarks: The Ledger under Taboo -- 5 Pricing the Invaluable: Socrates and the Proper Use of Friends -- The Argument -- 1 Framing Socratic Conversation -- 2 False Friends, Part One: Utility, Ancient and Modern -- 3 False Friends Part Two: Economics, Ancient and Modern -- 4 Education and the Logic of Wage-Earning -- 5 Concluding Remarks: The Givenness of the Good -- 6 Active Partnership: Socrates and the Art of Seduction -- The Argument -- 1 Amazing Grace: Looking as a Reciprocal Endeavour -- 2 The Hunter Hunted: Role Reversals and the Paradox of the Hetaera -- 3 Desire Management -- 4 The Secrets of Love Magic -- 5 The Socratic Principle: Pay It Forward -- 6 Concluding Remarks: Language Games at the Market Frontier -- 7 Relational Economics: Aristotle on Value and Equivalence -- 1 Aristotle Discovers the Economy? -- 2 Equivalence -- 3 Value and Values -- 4 The Politics of Need -- 5 Concluding Remarks -- Epilogue: Hostile Worlds -- Bibliography -- Index.
Emiliano J. Buis examines the sources of classical Greece to challenge both the state-centeredness of mainstream international legal history and the omnipresence of war and excessive violence in ancient times. Making ample use of epigraphic as well as literary, rhetorical, and historiographical sources, the book offers the first widespread account of the narrative foundations of the (il)legality of warfare in the classical Hellenic world. In a clear yet sophisticated manner, Buis convincingly proves that the traditionally neglected study of the performance of ancient Greek poleis can contribute to a better historical understanding of those principles of international law underlying the practices and applicable rules on the use of force and the conduct of hostilities