Politeiai and Reputation in Plato's Thought release_5pb6iffznjgv5hggj4mlovjlf4

Abstract

Despite the fact that reputation is a feature of Plato's work and context, scholars have scarcely addressed the place of reputation in Plato's thought. Herein I ask: 'what is reputation (doxa) for Plato?' and provide an answer by turning to the political orders (politeiai) described in the Republic, Laws, and Menexenus. In Chapter 1 I demonstrate the horizontal relationships of mutual dependence between rulers and ruled in the politeia of the Republic. It is in the epistemic configuration of the ruled where the economy of reputation is sourced and distributed. I argue that, first, the text explicitly engages with and seeks to correct the common opinions about justice and its relationship to political power and, second, that the philosopher must care about how philosophy appears to the city at large. I end with a consideration of how the Republic attempts to rehabilitate the reputation of philosophy. The images of the cave, the ship, and the bride show how and why philosophy's bad reputation is contingent rather than necessary. In Chapter 2 I establish the role of reputation in the circumstances described and enacted in the founding of Magnesia, the politeia of the Laws. Through its exhortation to the incoming Dorian colonists to pursue a reputation for virtue, the law code exercises normative force over the disposition of human nature to excessive self-love and also transforms the colonists into Magnesian citizens. The legislator, voiced by the Athenian Stranger who is the principal interlocutor in the dialogue, urges each individual to appear as they are, and reinvents the undesirable features of Dorian constitutions. If this politeia is to come about, its founder and interlocutor in the dialogue, Cleinias the Cnossian, must become a Magnesian; the Athenian must succeed in exhorting the ambivalent Cleinias to seek a good reputation among the future Magnesians. In Chapter 3 I turn to how Magnesia is maintained. This politeia suffers from, and has to cope with, the pathologies of agonism [...]
In text/plain format

Archived Files and Locations