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Democracy in Republic: Plato’s Contestation

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National and Kapodistrian University of Athens - Department of English Language and Literature   

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Democracy in Republic: Plato’s Contestation (EN)
Cacoullos, Ann R.
info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Peer-reviewed Article (EN)
2016-05-01
Plato has been read as a virulent opponent of democracy, a common interpretation that, among other things, either ignores or dismisses his perceptive account of the ways democracy can be a mistaken political culture. In Books 8-9 where he designs other cities that are less than his ideal city, Plato tries to show how the whole manner of living and esteeming of a ruling class pervert the preferences and decision-making of everyone living in the city. Attention to this account can reveal Plato not so much rejecting but contesting the democracy he designs-in-theory. In the city he models, freedom and equality are misdirected, its own political culture ultimately betrays itself. I argue that, for Plato, democracy’s failure is due largely though not exclusively to a remnant of oligarchy that remains within it —the underhanded and excessive pursuit of money— which undermine the freedom and equality that define its political culture. (EN)
Plato (EN)
democracy (EN)
Republic (EN)
Synthesis
English
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (EN)
1791-5155
Synthesis: an Anglophone Journal of Comparative Literary Studies; No. 9 (2016): Living through the Interregnum; 35-49 (EN)
Copyright (c) 2016 Ann R. Cacoullos (EN)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens - Department of English Language and Literature
Synthesis
Articles



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