DOCSLIB.ORG

Aristotle's Revision of Platonic Erōs and Philia A

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Aristotle's Revision of Platonic Erōs and Philia A View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Texas A&M University EMBRACING THE HALF: ARISTOTLE’S REVISION OF PLATONIC ERŌS AND PHILIA A Thesis by EMIL SALIM Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS May 2006 Major Subject: Philosophy EMBRACING THE HALF: ARISTOTLE’S REVISION OF PLATONIC ERŌS AND PHILIA A Thesis by EMIL SALIM Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Approved by: Chair of Committee, Robin Smith Committee Members, Scott Austin Craig Kallendorf Head of Department, Robin Smith May 2006 Major Subject: Philosophy iii ABSTRACT Embracing the Half: Aristotle’s Revision of Platonic Erōs and Philia. (May 2006) Emil Salim, B.A., Universitas Tarumanagara, Indonesia; M.Div., Evangelical Reformed Theological Seminary, Indonesia Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Robin Smith In this thesis, I am investigating the nature of e[rwV (erōs) and filiva (philia) in Plato and Aristotle. I have confined this project to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (EN) and Metaphysics, with a background discussion of Plato’s Symposium and Phaedrus. I will argue for the following claims. First, Plato’s Symposium poses a dilemma with respect to the object and nature of e[rwV. The dilemma is that the objects of e[rwV must be either particular individuals or the Beautiful itself. Second, Plato’s Phaedrus may be seen as Plato’s attempt to solve the dilemma by giving a synthesis: e[rwV is a virtuous maniva and should be directed to particular individuals en route to the Beautiful. However, another problem arises; viz., given Platonic metaphysics, it is difficult to see how the lovers can genuinely love one another in and of themselves when the ultimate object of love is the Form of Beauty. Third, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics sees e[rwV as an excess of filiva. !ErwV in human relationships must be avoided because it is seen as something bad and irrational, even though it is not a vice. The account of e[rwV and filiva in EN may be seen as Aristotle’s attempt to propose another kind of solution to the dilemma by escaping the horns, i.e., by deprioritizing e[rwV in favor of filiva with iv respect to achieving the virtuous life. Fourth, this negative view of e[rwV does not appear in Metaphysics L. In 1072b3-4, Aristotle writes that the Unmoved Mover moves all things as being loved (wJV ejrwvmenon). The best interpretation of the phrase wJV ejrwvmenon is that the Unmoved Mover moves all things by letting them follow their nature. There is a shift of emphasis in Aristotle’s philosophy from e[rwV to filiva, which brings another dilemma with respect to the objects of filiva, namely between filiva for particular individuals and filiva for the good. I will not try to solve the dilemma, but will try to circumscribe the issue. v for mom Pollai; qugatevreV ejkthvsanto plou:ton, pollai; ejpoivhsan dunatav, su; de; uJpevrkeisai kai; uJperh:raV pavsaV. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis is a communal project. I am deeply indebted to my virtuous friends in a foreign land, who have immensely helped me finish this philosophical work with their moral, spiritual, and intellectual support. My first thanks goes to Prof. Robin Smith, whom I will always admire and respect. He is the one who really opened my eyes to see the beauty of Aristotle’s philosophy. His encouragement, patience, kindness, and brilliance are simply invaluable. He is also one of the people who made me decide to dedicate my life to the study of ancient philosophy. Another incredible person who has been extremely helpful is Prof. Scott Austin. I would like to thank him for generously sharing his excellent scholarship with me. My interactions with him have led me to a deeper understanding primarily of Plato’s works. But more than that, he role-modeled how to be a wonderful human being. To my outside reader Prof. Craig Kallendorf I am very thankful for his keen insights and continuous support. Also, allow me to thank other professors who have given their priceless time to read and comment on the earlier drafts of this thesis: Prof. Linda Radzik, Prof. Gary Varner, Prof. Hugh McCann, and Prof. Daniel Farnham. I would like to thank my fellow philosophy graduate students at Texas A&M who have been amazing philosophical partners and friends in relation to this project: Stephen Campbell, Helga Kocurek, Troy Deters, and Greg Bergeron. To Mark Bernier, who has been my Leibnizian counterpart, I am very grateful for his genuine friendship. vii I would like to thank Prof. Kelly Clark at Calvin College. He is the one who gave me the opportunity to study in the States. Through all these times he has been extremely supportive of my philosophical enterprise. It is because of him that I have been able to experience the joy of studying philosophy. I would like to express my gratitude to my sponsors in Indonesia, Mrs. Artine Utomo and Prof. Yakub Susabda. They have been very thoughtful and have been great mentors to me. Lastly, I would like to thank Annie Holloway who is always praying and helping me edit my papers. I feel very blessed. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ……………………………………………………………………. iii DEDICATION …………………………………………………………………. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ……………………………………………………... vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ………………………………………………………. viii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………….. 1 II ON LOVING THIS OR THAT BEAUTY: !ERWS AND FILIA IN PLATO’S SYMPOSIUM ……………………………... 5 1. Phaedrus: e[rwV as the elevator of filiva …………………….. 7 2. Pausanias: filiva as the outcome of e[rwV ……………………. 10 3. Eryximachus: filiva as the result of e[rwV ……………………. 14 4. Aristophanes: filiva as e[rwV for wholeness …………………. 16 5. Agathon: filiva as the creation of e[rwV ……………………... 20 6. Socrates and Diotima: e[rwV as the filiva for wisdom ………... 23 7. The Speech of Alcibiades as a Gateway to Plato’s Phaedrus .. 29 III WHOSE MADNESS? WHICH LOVE?: !ERWS AND FILIA IN PLATO’S PHAEDRUS ……………………………………….. 36 1. Lysias: filiva is superior to e[rwV ……………………………. 37 2. The First Speech of Socrates: A Confirmation of Lysias’s View ………………………………………………………….. 41 3. The Second Speech of Socrates: A Denial of Lysias’s View ... 42 4. The Dialectic of Love ………………………………………... 47 ix CHAPTER Page IV VIEWS OF ARISTOTLE’S IDEA OF !ERWS AND FILIA …... 59 1. Martha Nussbaum ……………………………………………. 60 2. Juha Sihvola ………………………………………………….. 65 3. Gabriel Richardson Lear ……………………………………... 68 V O DEAREST FRIEND, SHALT THOU MINE LOVER BE?: !ERWS AS AN EXCESS OF FILIA IN ARISTOTLE’S NICOMACHEAN ETHICS ……………………………………….. 74 1. Of “Extreme” ………………………………………………… 76 2. Love as an Excess of Friendship ……………………………... 79 2.1. Erotic Love as a Bad Excess ……………………………. 85 2.2. Erotic Love and the Features of Friendship …………….. 93 3. Three Implications …………………………………………… 96 4. A New Dilemma? …………………………………………….. 98 VI ON BEING LOVED: MOTION AND THE UNMOVED MOVER IN ARISTOTLE’S METAPHYSICS L ………………... 104 1. Some Background Notes ……………………………………... 106 2. The Nature of Motion ……………………………………....... 108 3. The Nature of the Unmoved Mover ………………………….. 115 4. On Being Loved ……………………………………................ 125 5. Aristotle’s Revision of Platonic e[rwV ………………………... 132 VII CONCLUSION …………………………………………………... 136 1. On e[rwV ………………………………………………………. 136 2. On filiva ……………………………………………………… 137 3. On the Relationship Between e[rwV and filiva ……………….. 138 4. The Unanswered Question …………………………………… 139 REFERENCES …………………………………………………………………. 141 VITA …………………………………………………………………………… 144 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This is a thesis project on the place of e[rwV in Aristotle’s philosophy, which is a field that has not truly been investigated in Aristotelian scholarship. I see a possibility to construct a comprehensive account of Aristotle’s idea of e[rwV not only based on his ethical works, but also by utilizing other areas in his corpus, such as the metaphysical and biological works. However, given the breadth and depth of the subject, I have confined this project to his Nicomachean Ethics (EN) and Metaphysics, with a background discussion of Plato’s Symposium and Phaedrus. In this thesis, I am arguing for the following points. First, Plato’s Symposium poses a dilemma with respect to the object and nature of e[rwV, as concluded in the speech of Alcibiades. The dilemma is that the object of e[rwV must be either (i) particular individuals (as represented in the speech of Aristophanes), or (ii) the Beautiful itself (as represented in the speech of Socrates and Diotima). Option (i) is problematic because e[rwV is neither eternal nor rational even though it is human. Option (ii) is problematic because the object is not human even though it is eternal and rational. It is also problematic because abandoning particular beauties disables one from climbing the scala amoris at all. Basically I am agreeing with Nussbaum’s interpretation here that in the middle dialogues, Plato’s view on the objects of e[rwV is ___________ This thesis follows The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. 2 mutually exclusive: we must choose between loving particular individuals and loving wisdom. Furthermore, Plato’s view on non-rational elements in the middle dialogues is negative: they are free of and even opposed to cognitive service to human life. With respect to filiva, there are three views in the Symposium on its relationship with e[rwV: filiva as the counterpart of e[rwV, filiva as the product of e[rwV, and filiva as identical with e[rwV. Both e[rwV and filiva are indispensable in a virtuous life. Second, Plato’s Phaedrus may be seen as Plato’s attempt to solve the dilemma by giving a synthesis: e[rwV is a virtuous maniva and should be directed to particular individuals en route to the Beautiful.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Aristotle on Love and Friendship
    ARISTOTLE ON LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP DAVID KONSTAN Philia is exceptional among ancient Greek value terms for the number of still unre- solved, or at least intensely debated, questions that go to the heart of its very nature.1 Does it mean “friendship”, as it is most commonly rendered in discussions of Aris- totle, or rather “love”, as seems more appropriate in some contexts? Whether it is love, friendship, or something else, is it an emotion, a virtue, or a disposition? The same penumbra of ambiguity surrounds the related term philos, often rendered as “friend” but held by some to include kin and other relations, and even to refer chiefly to them. Thus, Elizabeth Belfiore affirms that “the noun philos surely has the same range as philia, and both refer primarily, if not exclusively, to relationships among close blood kin” (2000: 20). In respect to the affective character of philia, Michael Peachin (2001: 135 n. 2) describes “the standard modern view of Roman friendship” as one “that tends to reduce significantly the emotional aspect of the relationship among the Ro- mans, and to make of it a rather pragmatic business”, and he holds the same to be true of Greek friendship or philia. Scholars at the other extreme maintain that ancient friendship was based essentially on affection. As Peachin remarks (ibid., p. 7), “D. Konstan [1997] has recently argued against the majority opinion and has tried to inject more (modern-style?) emotion into ancient amicitia”. Some critics, in turn, have sought a compromise between the two positions, according to which ancient friend- ship involved both an affective component and the expectation of practical services.
    [Show full text]
  • Uyghur Dispossession, Culture Work and Terror Capitalism in a Chinese Global City Darren T. Byler a Dissertati
    Spirit Breaking: Uyghur Dispossession, Culture Work and Terror Capitalism in a Chinese Global City Darren T. Byler A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2018 Reading Committee: Sasha Su-Ling Welland, Chair Ann Anagnost Stevan Harrell Danny Hoffman Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Anthropology ©Copyright 2018 Darren T. Byler University of Washington Abstract Spirit Breaking: Uyghur Dispossession, Culture Work and Terror Capitalism in a Chinese Global City Darren T. Byler Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Sasha Su-Ling Welland, Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies This study argues that Uyghurs, a Turkic-Muslim group in contemporary Northwest China, and the city of Ürümchi have become the object of what the study names “terror capitalism.” This argument is supported by evidence of both the way state-directed economic investment and security infrastructures (pass-book systems, webs of technological surveillance, urban cleansing processes and mass internment camps) have shaped self-representation among Uyghur migrants and Han settlers in the city. It analyzes these human engineering and urban planning projects and the way their effects are contested in new media, film, television, photography and literature. It finds that this form of capitalist production utilizes the discourse of terror to justify state investment in a wide array of policing and social engineering systems that employs millions of state security workers. The project also presents a theoretical model for understanding how Uyghurs use cultural production to both build and refuse the development of this new economic formation and accompanying forms of gendered, ethno-racial violence.
    [Show full text]
  • The Stoics and the Practical: a Roman Reply to Aristotle
    DePaul University Via Sapientiae College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences 8-2013 The Stoics and the practical: a Roman reply to Aristotle Robin Weiss DePaul University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/etd Recommended Citation Weiss, Robin, "The Stoics and the practical: a Roman reply to Aristotle" (2013). College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations. 143. https://via.library.depaul.edu/etd/143 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at Via Sapientiae. It has been accepted for inclusion in College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Via Sapientiae. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE STOICS AND THE PRACTICAL: A ROMAN REPLY TO ARISTOTLE A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August, 2013 BY Robin Weiss Department of Philosophy College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences DePaul University Chicago, IL - TABLE OF CONTENTS - Introduction……………………..............................................................................................................p.i Chapter One: Practical Knowledge and its Others Technê and Natural Philosophy…………………………….....……..……………………………….....p. 1 Virtue and technical expertise conflated – subsequently distinguished in Plato – ethical knowledge contrasted with that of nature in
    [Show full text]
  • Gregory Vlastos
    Gregory Vlastos: A Preliminary Inventory of His Papers at the Harry Ransom Center Descriptive Summary Creator: Vlastos, Gregory, 1907-1991 Title: Gregory Vlastos Papers Dates: circa 1930s-1991 Extent: 100 document boxes (42.00 linear feet) Abstract: The papers of philosopher Gregory Vlastos, a scholar of ancient Greek philosophy who spent most of his career studying the thought of Plato and Socrates, document his studies, his writings, and his career as an educator at several American universities. Call Number: Manuscript Collection MS-4361 Language: English, with Ancient Greek, French, German, Italian, Latin, Modern Greek, and Spanish Access: Open for research Administrative Information Acquisition: Gifts, 1993-2010 (G9070, G9134, G9163, G9225, G9252, G9628, G9979, G9982, G10214, G10288, G11877, 10-03-014-G) Processed by: Hope Rider, 2006; updated by Joan Sibley, 2016 Repository: The University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom Center Vlastos, Gregory, 1907-1991 Manuscript Collection MS-4361 Scope and Contents The papers of philosopher Gregory Vlastos (1907-1991), a scholar of ancient Greek philosophy who spent most of his career studying the thought of Plato and Socrates, document his studies, his writings, and his career as an educator at several American universities, especially Cornell, Princeton, and The University of California at Berkeley. The papers are arranged in six series: I. Correspondence and Offprint Files, II. Study, Lecture, and Teaching Files, III. Works, IV. Works by Others, V. Miscellaneous, and VI. Offprints Removed from Manuscripts. The Correspondence and Offprint Files (35 boxes) in Series I. represent Vlastos' extensive correspondence with other philosophers, classicists, former students, academics, and others. The files are arranged alphabetically by correspondent name, and generally include not only letters received, but copies of Vlastos' responses.
    [Show full text]
  • Beyond Eros: Friendship in the Phaedrus
    DRAFT Beyond eros: Friendship in the Phaedrus Plato is often held to be the first great theoriser of love in the Western tradition, and yet his account has been taken to be a resounding failure by many, if not most, modern scholars working on this topic. Criticisms have been articulated forcefully by Vlastos whose seminal paper „The Individual as an Object of love‟ charged Plato with „cold-hearted egoism‟; his account, he argued, disdained persons in favour of abstract, conceptual, objects – the so-called Platonic Forms, and advocates a „spiritualized egocentrism…scarcely aware of kindness, tenderness, compassion, concern for the freedom, respect for the integrity of the beloved, as essential ingredients of the highest type of interpersonal love‟ (Vlastos (1981/2000: 642)). The evidence is roughly as follows. In the Symposium Plato argues that the highest form of eros, roughly, „passionate desire‟ is love for Forms, and beautiful bodies and souls are to be used „as steps‟ towards this end. The Lysis appears to be the only exploration of friendship (philia), and this is an inconclusive work. At best, it is held, the lack of an account of love and friendship for persons compares unfavourably with Aristotle‟s detailed account of philia, which occupies two books of his Ethics and is, arguably, central to his account of human flourishing; at worst, this omission supports the view of Plato as „a cold-hearted egoist‟ who disdained persons in favour of abstract objects. If Plato thought philosophy could answer the question how should one live, in one crucial area of his thought the life worth living is not, apparently, a life worth choosing; as Aristotle made explicit, no one would choose to live without friends.
    [Show full text]
  • On Perfect Friendship: an Outline and a Guide to Aristotle's Philosophy of Friendship
    Colby College Digital Commons @ Colby Honors Theses Student Research 2010 On Perfect Friendship: An Outline and a Guide to Aristotle's Philosophy of Friendship Kristen Psaty Colby College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/honorstheses Part of the Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, Feminist Philosophy Commons, History of Philosophy Commons, and the Other Philosophy Commons Colby College theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed or downloaded from this site for the purposes of research and scholarship. Reproduction or distribution for commercial purposes is prohibited without written permission of the author. Recommended Citation Psaty, Kristen, "On Perfect Friendship: An Outline and a Guide to Aristotle's Philosophy of Friendship" (2010). Honors Theses. Paper 589. https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/honorstheses/589 This Honors Thesis (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Research at Digital Commons @ Colby. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Colby. ON PERFECT FRIENDSHIP: An Outline and a Guide to Aristotle’s Philosophy of Friendship By Kristen Psaty Honors Thesis Philosophy Department © 2010 1 For Megan The one who brings out the best in me. To Kyle My other self . & to the ∆ΠΠ 2 “This has always been a man's world, and none of the reasons that have been offered in explanation have seemed adequate.” -Simone de Beauvoir Special Thanks to Lydia Moland, Valerie Dionne, Holly Moore and Thanks also to readers Amy Holmen and Elise Breed. 3 Table of Contents INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………. 6 CHAPTER I. ……………………………………………………. 13 An Introduction to Aristotle on Friendship CHAPTER II.
    [Show full text]
  • Herbert and Elinor Nootbaar Institute on Law, Religion and Ethics Annual Conference Love and Law Proposal Title: “Why Agape I
    Herbert and Elinor Nootbaar Institute on Law, Religion and Ethics Annual Conference Love and Law Proposal Title: “Why Agape is Not More ‘Christian’ than Eros and Philia” Abstract: By drawing on various works in Christian theology and moral philosophy, this paper examines the Christian ethicist’s dangerously elevated view of agape. As Stephen Post observes, the tendency in Christian circles has been to “identify all family ties with nepotism, all erotic desire with sin, all self-love with unbound egocentrism, or all friendship with mercenary instrumentalism.” The result is nothing more than an impoverished love ethic. In fact, contrary to common perception, the biblical authors do not share our narrow preoccupation with agape. Rather, it speaks with a consistent appreciation of eros and philia as well. And if we look at what many believe to be the ultimate revelation of God – the Christ event – we see that the love expressed here is not exclusively agapic in nature. It would be a tragic mistake, then, to view eros and philia as inferior forms of love. Moreover, I argue that while agape rightly prizes benevolence and a person’s regard for another person, its true power lies in its mutuality. In other words, one’s obligations, affections, and faithfulness to another, not to mention the “concrete decencies” we expect from one another, are simply inseparable from the benevolent core of agape. As such, it is not only a mistake to privilege agape over eros and philia; it is just as wrong to see agape as purely distinct from eros and philia. The reality is that self- love and other-regarding love have to work together.
    [Show full text]
  • The Concept of Solidarity in Anarchist Thought
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Loughborough University Institutional Repository The Concept of Solidarity in Anarchist Thought by John Nightingale A Doctoral Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy Loughborough University September 2015 © John Nightingale 2015 Abstract This thesis makes an original contribution to knowledge by presenting an analysis of anarchist conceptions of solidarity. Whilst recent academic literature has conceptualised solidarity from a range of perspectives, anarchist interpretations have largely been marginalised or ignored. This neglect is unjustified, for thinkers of the anarchist tradition have often emphasised solidarity as a key principle, and have offered original and instructive accounts of this important but contested political concept. In a global era which has seen the role of the nation state significantly reduced, anarchism, which consists in a fundamental critique and rejection of hierarchical state-like institutions, can provide a rich source of theory on the meaning and significance of solidarity. The work consists in detailed analyses of the concepts of solidarity of four prominent anarchist thinkers: Michael Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, Murray Bookchin and Noam Chomsky. The analytic investigation is led by Michael Freeden’s methodology of ‘ideological morphology’, whereby ideologies are viewed as peculiar configurations of political concepts, which are themselves constituted by sub-conceptual idea- components. Working within this framework, the analysis seeks to ascertain the way in which each thinker attaches particular meanings to the concept of solidarity, and to locate solidarity within their wider ideological system. Subsequently, the thesis offers a representative profile of an ‘anarchist concept’ of solidarity, which is characterised by notions of universal inclusion, collective responsibility and the social production of individuality.
    [Show full text]
  • ABSTRACT Augustinian Auden: the Influence of Augustine of Hippo on W. H. Auden Stephen J. Schuler, Ph.D. Mentor: Richard Rankin
    ABSTRACT Augustinian Auden: The Influence of Augustine of Hippo on W. H. Auden Stephen J. Schuler, Ph.D. Mentor: Richard Rankin Russell, Ph.D. It is widely acknowledged that W. H. Auden became a Christian in about 1940, but relatively little critical attention has been paid to Auden‟s theology, much less to the particular theological sources of Auden‟s faith. Auden read widely in theology, and one of his earliest and most important theological influences on his poetry and prose is Saint Augustine of Hippo. This dissertation explains the Augustinian origin of several crucial but often misunderstood features of Auden‟s work. They are, briefly, the nature of evil as privation of good; the affirmation of all existence, and especially the physical world and the human body, as intrinsically good; the difficult aspiration to the fusion of eros and agape in the concept of Christian charity; and the status of poetry as subject to both aesthetic and moral criteria. Auden had already been attracted to similar ideas in Lawrence, Blake, Freud, and Marx, but those thinkers‟ common insistence on the importance of physical existence took on new significance with Auden‟s acceptance of the Incarnation as an historical reality. For both Auden and Augustine, the Incarnation was proof that the physical world is redeemable. Auden recognized that if neither the physical world nor the human body are intrinsically evil, then the physical desires of the body, such as eros, the self-interested survival instinct, cannot in themselves be intrinsically evil. The conflict between eros and agape, or altruistic love, is not a Manichean struggle of darkness against light, but a struggle for appropriate placement in a hierarchy of values, and Auden derived several ideas about Christian charity from Augustine.
    [Show full text]
  • MORAL ECONOMY: CLAIMS for the COMMON GOOD by Elizabeth D
    MORAL ECONOMY: CLAIMS FOR THE COMMON GOOD By Elizabeth D. Mauritz A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Philosophy – Doctor of Philosophy 2014 ABSTRACT MORAL ECONOMY: CLAIMS FOR THE COMMON GOOD By Elizabeth D. Mauritz The cases, issues, and theoretical convictions of the social science work on the concept ‘Moral Economy’ are explored to develop a full understanding of what divergent theories and accounts share in common and to gauge the philosophical relevance of Moral Economy. The work of E.P. Thompson, James Scott, William Booth, Thomas Arnold, and Daniel Little are featured along with contemporary cases of Moral Economy. Conceptual clarification is guided by the categorization of common qualities including the scope of application, whether it is used historically or normatively, relevant time frame, nature of the community, goals that motivate practitioners, and how people are epistemically situated in relation to the Moral Economy under consideration. Moral Economy is identified here as a community centered response, arising from a sense of common good, reinforced by custom or tradition, to an unjust appropriation or abuse of land, labor, human dignity, natural resources, or material goods; moreover, it is the regular behaviors producing social arrangements that promote just relations between unequal persons or groups within a community to achieve long-term social sustainability. I argue that the moral economists are right to insist that people regularly make collective claims and take action on behalf of their communities for reasons that are not primarily self-interested. Furthermore, I demonstrate that social ethics and political behavior are culturally and temporally contextual, i.e.
    [Show full text]
  • Pleonexia, Parasitic Greed, and Decline in Greek Thought from Thucydides to Polybius
    ABSTRACT Title of Document: HOW THINGS FALL APART: PLEONEXIA, PARASITIC GREED, AND DECLINE IN GREEK THOUGHT FROM THUCYDIDES TO POLYBIUS William D. Burghart, Doctor of Philosophy, 2015 Directed By: Professor Arthur M. Eckstein, Department of History This dissertation examines how Greek authors from the fifth to the second century BCE employed the concept of pleonexia to explain why cities lost power on the international stage and why they lost internal cohesion. First, it argues that Greek authors understood pleonexia to mean “the desire for more at the expense of another” as opposed simply “greed” as most modern authors translate it. Second, it contends that Greeks authors deployed the concept of pleonexia to describe situations that modern authors would describe as societal collapse—defined as the reduction of societal complexity, which can be measured through either the loss of material or immaterial means, e.g., land, wealth, political power, influence over others, political stability, or political autonomy. Greek authors used the language of pleonexia to characterize the motivation of an entity, either an individual within a community or a city or state, to act in a way that empowered the entity by taking or somehow depriving another similar entity of wealth, land, or power. In a city, pleonexia manifested as an individual seeking to gain power through discrediting, prosecuting, or eliminating rivals. In international affairs, it materialized as attempts of a power to gain more territory or influence over others. Acting on such an impulse led to conflict within cities and in the international arena. The inevitable result of such conflict was the pleonexic power losing more than it had had before.
    [Show full text]
  • CU Classics Graduate Handbook
    Graduate Handbook (CU Boulder, Classics) 1 Graduate Handbook University of Colorado Boulder Department of Classics Last updated: October 2018; minor corrections September 2020 Graduate Handbook (CU Boulder, Classics) 2 Contents Graduate Introduction .................................................................................................................... 4 M.A. Tracks.................................................................................................................................. 4 Ph.D. Track .................................................................................................................................. 4 Graduate Degrees in Classics .......................................................................................................... 5 Graduate Degrees and Requirements ........................................................................................ 5 Doctor of Philosophy in Classics ................................................................................................. 6 M.A. in Classics, with Concentration in Greek or Latin ............................................................... 8 M.A. in Classics, with Concentration in Classical Antiquity ........................................................ 9 M.A. in Classics, with Concentration in Classical Art and Archaeology .................................... 11 M.A. in Classics, with Concentration in the Teaching of Latin .................................................. 12 Ph.D. Requirements .....................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]