Details

Subject(s)

• Democracy [Browse]
• Plato—Political and social views [Browse]

Series

• Philosophia antiqua ; v. 143. [More in this series]
• Philosophia antiqua, 0079-1687 ; volume 143 [More in this series]

Summary note

In 'Plato on Democracy and Political techne' Sørensen argues that the question of democracy's 'epistemic potential' was one that Plato took more seriously than is usually assumed. While he famously rejected democracy on the basis of its inherent inability to accommodate political expertise ('techne'), he did not think that this failure on democracy's part was necessarily inevitable but a concept that required further examination. Sorensen shows that in a number of his most important dialogues ('Republic, Gorgias, Statesman, Protagoras, Theaetetus'), Plato was ready to take up the question of democracy's epistemic potential and to enter into strikingly technical and sophisticated discussions of what both rule by 'techne' and rule by the people would have to look like in order for the two things to be compatible.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Contents

• Acknowledgements
• Note on editions, translations and abbreviations
• Introduction
• Thrasymachus' challenge : political sociology and expert rule in republic 1
• Thrasymachus' political account of justice
• Rulers in the strict sense
• Real existing expert rulers
• Democratic expert rule?
• Towards an epistemic analysis of democracy
• Scientific politics and the power of the people : rhetoric and technē in the Gorgias
• Why is rhetoric not scientific?
• Who rules who?
• Rhetoric as Kolakeia
• Democracy and technē
• Scientific politics and the power of the people
• Democracy as imitator : expertise and democratic conservatism in the statesman
• Lawfulness and imitation
• Expertise and its discontents
• Democratic expertise
• The laws and democratic ideology
• Statesmanship and the ancestral laws
• Athenian measurement : democracy and expert authority in the protagoras
• The Athenian premise
• Protagoras' 'Great Speech'
• Protagoras' social pragmatism
• Problems with appearance
• Towards the Theaetetus
• Self-refuting wisdom : turning the tables on protagoras in the Theaetetus
• Minding the gap
• Prelude to the self-refutation argument (169d3-17oa5)
• Protagoras' defense (166c9-167d5)
• Who is the measure?
• The self-refutation argument (170a3-171c7)
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Index locorum
• General index.

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ISBN

• 9789004312005 ((hardback ; : alk. paper))
• 9004312005 ((hardback ; : alk. paper))

LCCN

2016029413

OCLC

951955845

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