POLC70H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Thumos, Glaucon, Well-Order
Document Summary
Agenda-setting work in political theory: he offers the first systematic answers to our three questions (on pol. Original greek title: politeia- meaning well-ordered or well-governed city/constitution. (an ideal city) Roman philosopher, cicero, translates title into latin, as de re publica ( on the public thing ) hence the modern english title. Politeia and respublica historically have positive connotations meaning constitutional government or lawful government to contrast with an lawless government . It did not describe any state in existence- it implied that existing political forms were somehow defective, degenerate, and unjust especially. Plato s goal is to design an ideal city which embodies the idea of justice (one that does not exist completely even though there are similarities b/w his ideal state and other city-states in greece such as sparta) Dialogue form: example of the elenchus or the socratic/ elenctic method. Socrates is not trying to educate the other characters/ participants of this dialogue, but to the reader.
