Herodotus and the Origins of Political Philosophy the Beginnings of Western Thought from the Viewpoint of Its Impending End

Herodotus and the Origins of Political Philosophy The Beginnings of Western Thought from the Viewpoint of its Impending End A doctoral thesis by O. H. Linderborg Dissertation presented at Uppsala University to be publicly examined in Engelska Parken, 7-0042, Thunbergsvägen 3H, Uppsala, Monday, 3 September 2018 at 14:00 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The examination will be conducted in English. Faculty examiner: Docent Elton Barker (Open University). Abstract Linderborg, O. H. 2018. Herodotus and the Origins of Political Philosophy. The Beginnings of Western Thought from the Viewpoint of its Impending End. 224 pp. Uppsala: Department of Linguistics and Philology, Uppsala University. ISBN 978-91-506-2703-9. This investigation proposes a historical theory of the origins of political philosophy. It is assumed that political philosophy was made possible by a new form of political thinking commencing with the inauguration of the first direct democracies in Ancient Greece. The pristine turn from elite rule to rule of the people – or to δημοκρατία, a term coined after the event – brought with it the first ever political theory, wherein fundamentally different societal orders, or different principles of societal rule, could be argumentatively compared. The inauguration of this alternative-envisioning “secular” political theory is equaled with the beginnings of classical political theory and explained as the outcome of the conjoining of a new form of constitutionalized political thought (cratistic thinking) and a new emphasis brought to the inner consistency of normative reasoning (‘internal critique’). The original form of political philosophy, Classical Political Philosophy, originated when a political thought launched, wherein non-divinely sanctioned visions of transcendence of the prevailing rule, as well as of the full range of alternatives disclosed by Classical Political Theory, first began to be envisioned. Each of the hypotheses forming the theory – the hypotheses concerning the Ancient Greek beginnings of a “secular”-autonomous political rationale, political theory and political philosophy – is weighed against central evidence provided by the Histories of Herodotus. The passages thus given new interpretations are the Deioces episode in Book I, the Constitutional Debate in Book III and Xerxes’ War Councils in Book VII. Aside from the Herodotean evidence, a range of other relevant Greek literary sources from the archaic and classical ages – e.g. passages from Homer, Hesiod, several pre-Socratic thinkers, Plato and Aristotle – are duly taken into consideration. Included is also a reading of the Mytilenean Debate of Thucydides’ Book III, which shows how the political thought of the classical democracies worked in practice. Finally, the placing of the historical theory against a background of contemporary relevance provides an alternative to all text-oriented approaches not reckoning with the possibility of reaching historically plausible knowledge of real-world events and processes. Keywords: Herodotus, Herodotean studies, origins of political philosophy, origins of political theory, early history of political thought, beginnings of Western civilization, contemporary social analysis, Sino-Hellenic studies Otto H. Linderborg, Department of Linguistics and Philology, Box 635, Uppsala University, SE-75126 Uppsala, Sweden. © Otto H. Linderborg 2018 ISBN 978-91-506-2703-9 urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-350646 (http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-350646) Acknowledgments This thesis is mainly intended to add knowledge to the fields of Classical philology and history of political thought, but the nature of this investigation is present-oriented. The context of contemporary relevance that the historical theory defended here has been placed in is based on the works of a collection of writers in the fields of social analysis and economic theory. These are works that have appeared during the last decade and that deal with the perceived decay of our present world system, the system of industrial capitalism in its so-called neoliberal phase. Therewith, it should be understood that my research has the additional motive of giving new perspectives also with regard to questions related to the societal crisis inherent in our own time and place. The justification for using a study focusing on ancient texts and ancient societal systems in order to expound on questions of contemporary relevance is the following. Although researchers in historical subjects may never distort their sources to make them conform to their theories without turning their works into false accounts, it is still the case that the researcher’s own worldview and own preoccupations determine which questions he or she pose to the sources. This study deals with questions of progressions within the An- cient Greek cultural sphere leading to the development of political thought into political theory and philosophy proper. In connection with this investigation, the questions asked therefore naturally take the form of a set of concep- tual assumptions rising from the researcher’s presuppositions of which kinds of progressions the investigated societies may have witnessed. To truthfully determine if these progressions really occurred in the Ancient Greek cultural sphere is the object of this investigation. However, that it is exactly these assumed progressions and not some others that form the centre of interest fol- lows from the researcher’s own understanding of which aspects of ancient moral and political thought could still be of major interest today – i.e., in the real-world context of what one now often finds described as our “present pre- dicament.” I am happy to mention the number of people in Uppsala who have assisted me greatly in my research. Of these people, my project leader, Johan Tralau, has been the most important background figure for my whole investigation. With regard to the question of the origins of political philosophy, it was Tra- lau’s idea to turn the focus decisively to the historical developments detectable in arguments and argumentative techniques surrounding normative questions. I found this suggestion so attractive that I chose to write my doctoral thesis under his supervision and as part of his project. If my own theory to some extent departs from Tralau’s original idea of equalling the origins of political philosophy with the development of normative arguments of an internally crit- ical kind, this is so mainly because of one reason. If the beginnings of political philosophy were to be equalled with progressions in normative critique, this would downplay the world-historical impact of the fundamental societal re- settling taking the form of the first completed turnover in the principle of rule, which was witnessed for the first time in the Ancient Greek world. This turnover was realized with the creation of the first full-scale direct democracies, and ultimately it was this event that made possible the amounting of internal critique in the Graeco-Roman cultural sphere as well. Of others involved in Classical studies at Uppsala, I would like to espe- cially thank the following people for contributing to my work. Fredrik Six- tensson, who is in the midst of writing his thesis on early Greek developments in central political and military terminology, has been of great help in my attempts to specify some of the breaks in constitutional terminology that occurred because of the breakthrough of δημοκρατία. Eric Cullhed, who entered as my supervisor at a late stage of the writing process, has challenged me to add more close readings of my Greek sources, and I think these additions have been important for the argument of my thesis. Patrik Klingborg and Axel Frejman, working in the field of Classical archaeology, have shown me the real Ancient Greek world on our trips together in Caria (modern-day Turkey) and the Peloponnese. Both of them have also assisted me in my attempts to form an adequate picture of early Archaic and Mycenaean Greek history, and I hope that I, in my turn, have been able to assist them correctly with the que- ries they have had of Greek passages in the sources they work with. Tuomo Nuorluoto, who is working on a doctoral thesis on Roman female names in the field of onomastics, has been a welcome reminiscence of my home country in a foreign land. Of people working in the field of Herodotean studies abroad, one person deserves special notice. Rosalind Thomas, who welcomed me as an academic visitor at Oxford for some weeks in the early spring of 2016, has been a great inspiration for my work in that she has shown how directly connected the in- vestigations of Herodotus truly were to the wider intellectual milieu of his time. I will not mention any friends outside of academia, since I am afraid that I may forget some important person. Of family members, I would above all like to thank my mother Lena Linderborg (1958-2015) for never-ending uncondi- tional love. I would also like to thank my father Henrik Linderborg for being a rock and always being there for me whatever I have tried to do – whether that would be a 90-kilometer cross-country ski race or writing a thesis. Onyin- yechi Duru has been with me during the last year of this writing process, and has given me the inner and outer calm I so badly needed to be able to finish my work. My sister Ellen Linderborg deserves special honour and recognition. When I had run out of money, and Swedish academia and Swedish society had shown me their most excluding face, she was willing to borrow from the funds she had inherited from our mother. Without her, I could never have fin- ished this thesis. I can only take it, then, that she must have recognized the “same womb” community that only me and her can belong to now.1 Last but not least, I would like to thank Christian Meier for giving me the political.

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