PSCI 220 Political Philosophy -- Introduction
Pre-Socratic Athens
 Ontology
o We are Athenians. Everyone else are barbarians.
o Human beings are torn between nature/ desire and politics/ freedom
 The Good = a virtuosity, an external appearance of greatness or beauty
o The Good is defined by tradition.
o Freedom= freedom from nature= the actions of virtuous Athenians-eudaimonia
 Soldiery- to appear bravely in front of the Polis
 Democracy- to appear in the assembly with beautiful speech
isogoria (equal speech), isonomia (equality before law)
 Gymnastics- to display Athletic prowess and a beautiful body
 Civic piety- to display generosity/pageantry in the religious rituals/festivals of the polis
 Restrained/ ritualized consumption- to display refinement without extravagance or
effeminacy
 Regime
o Assembly (all citizens make laws, paid attendance)
o Courts (large jury trials, paid attendance)
o Administration by lot
o Military service
o Redistribution of wealth through military spending, paid democracy, and religious festivals.
 Epistemology
o Correct behavior or virtuoso performance, no notion of truth
o Correct actions of Athenians specified by poets (Homer, Simonides, Hesiod)
Sophists
(As portrayed by Plato. Plato’s teacher Socrates was executed for being a Sophist. Plato is trying to define a new
position: neither traditionalist nor sophist).
 Ontology
o We are individuals that corporately make up polises.
o The truth beneath appearances: Human beings seek power for the satisfaction of individual
desires.
 The Good
o Justice is the advantage of the stronger. We call the Good anything that leads to the satisfaction of
our desires.
o Virtue=power to satisfy desires to seem good, while really just satisfying desires
 Regime
o Education in rhetoric by sophists (teachers)
 Virtue can be taught
 Rhetorical devices illustrate the errors in tradition
 Tradition artificially constrains the actions of bold men
o Rule by the bold or wise, not democracy
 Epistemology
o Instrumentalist- the true is whatever leads to the satisfaction of desire.
Cultural Crisis of Pre-Socratic Athens
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Peloponnesian War, 431BCE- 404 BCE
o
Athens defeated by Sparta (monarchy, all citizens trained soldiers from adolescence)
Challenge of Persian Culture
o
Monotheism, Absolutism, Aristocratic culture, Oligarchies (30 tyrants)
Sophism
Socrates, death in 399 at the hands of the restored democracy
o
Finitude of man, divinity of truth
o
Humility allows us to listen to our daemon, the voice of god inside us
o
The daemon, truth already exists inside us, and needs to be brought to consciousness
o
Knowledge=virtue, True knowledge will bring greater virtue than tradition or habit
Plato
 Ontology
o The being of human beings (their souls/actions/communities) should
reflect/imitate/represent the transcendent truth of being written into the structure of the
universe by god. This structure is the Forms/ Ideas, the ideal essences beneath
appearances that are reall real, true being.
o Souls with 3 parts: appetite, thumos (spiritedness), reason

The Good
o The good is a techne, a knowledge or idea beneath or above appearances
(e.g. the good of a doctor is knowledge of medicine)
o Knowledge is virtue (if you know the truth then you will act virtuously).
o If virtue comes from knowledge, then virtue is internal, a characteristic of the soul, rather
than a characteristic of external actions (i.e. virtue not virtuosity).
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Regime/ Institutional Design
o Philosopher Kings- the wisest rule, not democracy
o Specialization (everyone does the job they are naturally suited for, especially soldiers).
o “the ethical regime of images” (Rancière) The soul/art/polis/etc. must imitate the
universal order of Ideas/ Forms. Human appearances must imitate the Forms, not
“merely” appear, simulate or dissimulate.
o Censorship of petry/music/culture.
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Epistemology
o Truth is knowledge of the internal character or being of a thing.
 independent of what we desire it to be,
 independent of whether or not it satisfies our desires,
 independent of what tradition or authority says.
o The truth or Form of all things is their abstract concept, which exists outside our world,
which allows the things in the world to be, and of which the things in our world are but
shadows.
o Monism- All Forms are emanations from the One Form of the Good (God).
o Apperception of the Forms through humility, dialogue, and dialectic
o The “principle of the mean”: true arts know the mean or measure necessary to achieve a
certain good (this mean is analogous to knowledge or imitation of a form). The mean
mediates between the abstract knowledge and the particular case or application.