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Of Rule and Office

Plato's Ideas of the Political
  • Melissa Lane and Melissa Lane
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2023
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About this book

A constitutionalist reading of Plato’s political thought

Plato famously defends the rule of knowledge. Knowledge, for him, is of the good. But what is rule? In this study, Melissa Lane reveals how political office and rule were woven together in Greek vocabulary and practices that both connected and distinguished between rule in general and office as a constitutionally limited kind of rule in particular. In doing so, Lane shows Plato to have been deeply concerned with the roles and relationships between rulers and ruled. Adopting a longstanding Greek expectation that a ruler should serve the good of the ruled, Plato’s major political dialogues—the Republic, the Statesman, and Laws—explore how different kinds of rule might best serve that good. With this book, Lane offers the first account of the clearly marked vocabulary of offices at the heart of all three of these dialogues, explaining how such offices fit within the broader organization and theorizing of rule.

Lane argues that taking Plato’s interest in rule and office seriously reveals tyranny as ultimately a kind of anarchy, lacking the order as well as the purpose of rule. When we think of tyranny in this way, we see how Plato invokes rule and office as underpinning freedom and friendship as political values, and how Greek slavery shaped Plato’s account of freedom. Reading Plato both in the Greek context and in dialogue with contemporary thinkers, Lane argues that rule and office belong at the center of Platonic, Greek, and contemporary political thought.

Author / Editor information

Melissa Lane is the Class of 1943 Professor of Politics and a faculty member of the Program in Classical Philosophy at Princeton University. She is also the 50th Professor of Rhetoric at Gresham College. Her books include Eco-Republic: What the Ancients Can Teach Us about Ethics, Virtue, and Sustainable Living and The Birth of Politics: Eight Greek and Roman Political Ideas and Why They Matter (both Princeton) and Method and Politics in Plato’s “Statesman.”

Reviews

"It is not often that one comes across a book that changes how one sees or understands something in the world. . . . Melissa Lane’s Of Rule and Office: Plato’s Ideas of the Political represents such a rare achievement. . . . [I]t changes the way we read and understand Plato’s political thought, uncovering a whole new feature of some of the most well-studied texts in the history of Western philosophy."---Avshalom M. Schwartz, Political Science Quarterly --- "Excellent. . . . In this monumental study, Lane offers a sophisticated and insightful reinterpretation of Plato’s political thinking."---Daniel Vazquez, Greece & Rome --- "A delight to read."---Patrick Rioridan, The Heythrop Journal --- "Written with extraordinary scrupulousness. . . . With [Of Rule and Office], Plato’s ideas of the political are put firmly on the map."---Christopher Rowe, Mind --- "A major contribution to our faltering efforts to understand the challenges of politics across the world."---John Dunn, History of European Ideas --- "An original contribution to Platonic scholarship. . . . [Of Rule and Office] is a book worth reading, and in full."---Geoff Bakewell, Bryn Mawr Classical Review --- "[A] meticulous new analysis of Plato’s constitutionalism. . . . With the appearance of Melissa Lane’s authoritative Of Rule and Office, debate over the evolution of Plato’s discussion of the vulnerabilities of political office and the various ways in which rule and office might be understood must be nearly at an end."---Andrew David Irvine, Times Literary Supplement --- "Winner of the Journal of the History of Philosophy Book Prize"

Topics

  • Publicly Available

    Frontmatter

    i
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  • Publicly Available

    Contents

    vii
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    Preface

    ix
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  • Publicly Available

    Abbreviations

    xi
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  • Part I Introduction
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    Chapter one. Overview why rule and office? why Plato?

    3
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    Chapter two. Rule and Office: figures, vocabularies, stances

    42
  • Part II Reconfigurations of Rule and Office
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    Chapter three. Rule and the Limits of Office (Laws)

    87
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    Chapter four. Rethinking the Role of Ruler and the Place of Office (Statesman)

    115
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    Chapter five. Defining the Telos of Rule (Republic, Book 1)

    140
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    Chapter six. Guarding as Serving the conundrum of wages in a Kallipolis (republic, books 1–5)

    172
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    Chapter seven. Philosophers Reigning rulers and officeholders in a Kallipolis (republic, books 5–7)

    213
  • Part III Degenerations of Rule and Office
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    Chapter eight. The Macro Narrative flawed constitutions within cities (republic, book 8)

    249
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    Chapter nine. The Micro Narrative flawed constitutions within souls (republic, books 8–9)

    318
  • Part IV Thematizations of Rule and Office
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    Chapter ten. Against Tyranny Plato on freedom, friendship, and the place of law

    353
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    Chapter eleven. Against Anarchy the horizon of platonic rule

    381
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    Acknowledgments

    411
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    Glossary of selected Greek terms

    417
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    Bibliography

    419
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    Index

    439
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    A note on the type

    463

Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
June 30, 2023
eBook ISBN:
9780691237855
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691237855
eBook ISBN: 9780691237855
Keywords for this book
Rule; Plato; Role; Laws; Constitution; Officeholders; Offices; Socrates; Dialogue; Greek; Power; Republic; Statesman; Guardians; Democratic; Constitutional; Wages; Nature; Taxis; Athenian; Narrative; Grube; Kallipolis; Freedom; Reeve; Expertise; Tyrant; Education; Contrast; Citizens; Visitor; Relationship; Verb; Arche; Platonic; Soul; Principle; Thrasymachus; Tyrannical; Tyranny; Speech; Macro; Epitactic; Broadly; Century; Virtue; Translation; Democracy; Timocratic; Argument; Language; Legal; Micro; Philosophers; Knowledge; Noun; Oligarchic; Cities; Money; Civic; Kings; Glaucon; Function; Archein; Slavery; Accountable; Obedience; Broader; Plural; Kai
Audience(s) for this book
For a non-specialist adult audience
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