POL200Y1 Lecture : lec notes
Document Summary
Thucydides as historian + theorist: diagnosis of the present war, causes of war: political action + national character, justifying imperialism, spartan war council, pericles war speech, pericles" funeral oration. Thucydides as historian: he attempted to draw theories from specific and concrete conditions, hence to understand/read him as a theorist we must understand his political theories, e. g. his theories on the relationship between democratic ideals and emerging. He saw the world as a world of suffering, conflict and injustice condition of the bodypolitik. Even the greatest leaders cannot fully escape from the ideological pressures thucydides places upon them: he attempts to diagnose the issues as a physician, for him, the salient features of human nature are fully disclosed in human history. Hence for him it is impossible to understand the human being without reference to human history. This is why he chooses a moment (pelo war) of extraordinary stress; with this, he will journey to the core of the issue.
