Suchergebnisse

Contemporary democratic theories that draw on Socrates for inspiration have addressed his method of investigation too narrowly because there has been insufficient attention to the need for authority, which Socrates also identifies. Because his appeals to authority initially appear antidemocratic, we cannot overlook this aspect of his thought. I describe a virtue, civic competence, which is the excellence of citizens who critically engage with the norms of the community, but who also recognise that authority is politically necessary. Deliberation requires elenctic-like scrutiny, but also a willingness to accept some arguments as authoritative. My overarching claim is that failure to exhibit such character traits can appear in more than one form, a point neglected in recent literature, and that not all such forms are antidemocratic. Civic competence is susceptible to corruptions that may never result in citizenship that is simply undemocratic. I define two corruptions of civic competence: 'disagonism' and 'eristicism'. The former treats disagreement as signalling either confusion or wickedness and deliberation as a process of clarifying and tidying discourse. The latter treats disagreement as ineliminable and deliberation as gaming with words in order to defeat an opponent in argument.

This paper presents a political reading of the Phaedrus. It is argued that the dialogue's speeches on love describe types of political leadership and that, using the Socratic account of the statesman as someone who promotes moral improvement, political relations are not bound by institutions. Political relations become those in which one person affects the moral development of another and, thus, political 'space' is between people, not in specific locations. As a result, this new kind of forum must affect the way we think of critical Socratic citizenship. Specifically, it introduces a more extensive understanding of critical engagement and incorporates an imperative to be self-critical through interaction with others.

Most commentators on Aristotle's theory of natural slavery locate the source of slavishness in an intellectual deficiency that Aristotle describes. This paper sets out to show that Aristotle's natural slaves are not intellectually deficient in the way normally assumed, but are lacking an emotional faculty, thymos, which Aristotle connects to actual enslavement through its power to generate a love of freedom. It is also argued that Aristotle's understanding of slavishness entails a risk for a democratic regime, such as Classical Athens, since such a system has highly inclusive criteria for membership in the political association. Commentators have also failed to connect natural slavery to Aristotle's ethical thought and to note the theory's practical relevance to the goal of living a good human life.

Bentley reviews 'Corrupting Youth: Political Education, Democratic Culture, and Political Theory' by J. Peter Euben.

Frontmatter -- contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Deliberative Democracy and the Rhetorical Turn -- Contributors -- 1 Rhetoric and the Roots of Democratic Politics -- 2 Democratic Deliberation and the Historian's Trade: The Case of Thucydides -- 3 Deliberation versus Decision: Platonism in Contemporary Democratic Theory -- 4 Rhetorical Democracy -- 5 Cicero and the Ethics of Deliberative Rhetoric -- 6 Disarming, Simple, and Sweet: Augustine's Republican Rhetoric -- 7 The Road to Heaven Is Paved with Pious Deceptions: Medieval Speech Ethics and Deliberative Democracy -- 8 Deliberative Democracy and the Public Sphere: Answer or Anachronism? -- 9 Auditory Democracy: Separation of Powers and the Locations of Listening -- 10 Reading J. S. Mill's The Subjection of Women as a Text of Deliberative Rhetoric -- 11 Criteria of Rationality for Evaluating Democratic Public Rhetoric -- Contributors -- Index