Beschreibung:
In Plato's political theory we discover the essence of politics, which provides the requisite lessons to understand political as it is and should be. As there is a Form of the Good, there is a Form of the Polis, discerned in Plato's philosophy and as real for us as it was for him.
This inquiry attempts to probe the essence of politics in-itself, something that has been singularly discerned by Plato in Republic, grounded in his theory of universal forms and gradually but fully developed through a consideration of the elements of the City in Speech. Those elements, and the ideal city itself as envisioned in Republic, are immanent within the Second Best City of the Laws, even though presented in a modified way. Plato's Statesman will also be discussed as a means to further illustrate Plato's commitment to the principles conveyed in Republic. This project rests on the premise that Plato's intelligible city is genuinely intended to convey Plato’s full understanding of the real essence of the polis, not simply the arena of political behavior and governance as we have come to know it, but the essence of what politics universally means and what a political community should objectively seek.
Chapter One Drawing Further Meaning from Cephalus and Polemarchus
Chapter Two Making Thrasymachus Blush
Chapter Three Sons of Ariston
Chapter Four The True City
Chapter Five The True City Embodied in the Guardians
Chapter Six Rough Seas
Chapter Seven Building a Theory from an Account
Chapter Eight The Second Best City
Chapter Nine The Form of the Polis in the Second Best City: The Visible
Chapter Ten The Form of the Polis in the Second Best City: The Invisible