PLSC 361 - Classical Political Thought Fall 2017 Midterm Review

PLSC 361 - Classical Political Thought Fall 2017 Midterm Review

The exam will begin with multiple choice questions and 1 or 2 short Identifications (give definition, a few examples/characteristic, & significance).

There will be 2 written response questions. 1.5 – 2 pp. in small blue book. You’ll have a choice of 4. One will be a question asking for the 3 parts of the Ideal City & Ideal Soul, and an account of the 4 Virtues in the Ideal City & Ideal Soul.) The items marked with ** below will be included in the choices.

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Points for Review:

Basic Chronology of 5th Century Greece, including importance to Greeks of Athenian victory over Persia in the Battle of Salamis (480 BCE), followed by the emergence of the “Golden Age” of democratic Athens during Pericles rule (461-429).

Decline of Athenian democracy during the Peloponnesian War (431 – 404 BCE), culminating in death of Socrates in 399 BCE.

- New conception of the political in 5th Century Athens including Ancient Liberty

- Ancient liberty vs. Modern liberty

Both are clearly addressed in the “Athenian Political Experience” lecture notes!

End of Theocracy (Much of the epic poetry that formed the basis for early Greek morality & religious understanding (such as Homer’s Iliad & Odyssey was written in the 8th Century BCE or earlier)

Emergence of Material Science (Pre-Socratics) in the 6th Century (500s)

Emergence of Humanism in the 5th Century (400s)

-  Sophocles & Greek Drama/Tragedy: Confront the wrenching challenge of learning how to separate the religious sphere of divine, natural laws (physis) from the new humanist 5th Century world of human-made laws, human agency, & customs (nomos)

-  The Sophist Protagoras announces that “man is the measure of all things”

-  Recall that the once ritualistic, fully religious Dionysian festivals evolved to become democratic spaces for humanistic reflection and democratic deliberation in 5th Century Athens.

Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and Antigone: Main themes stressed in class:

- central features & characteristics of Greek tragedy (such as the fall of an heroic

figure; hamartia of the fallen hero; cathartic quality of tragedy, etc.)

- role of tragedy & drama in 5th Century democratic Athens

- understanding of the main characters and their relevance & importance (esp. Creon, Oedipus, Antigone, Haemon, Ismene, Polyneices, Eteocles

- tension between physis & nomos in each tragedy

- contending interpretations of Antigone’s character & political agency

The Sophists

• Advantageous aspects of Sophists during new humanistic age in democratic Athens
• Taught math, household management, grammar, the art of persuasion & convincing (necessary skills in a democracy)
• Disadvantages & problematic aspects of Sophists (in Socrates’ & Plato’s view)
• Relativism
• Denial that there can be an account of “Truth”
• Willingness to quickly change policies whenever necessary (eg. Creon) or answers (eg. Thrasymachus))
• Confusion of opinion/belief (Doxa) with wisdom/understanding (Sophia)
• Plato & Socrates critiques of Sophists in Republic (esp. Book VI, p. 251 – 253)

Socrates’s Methods: “What Is It Question”; Elenchus; Importance of Dialog (or Dialectic); Argument by Analogy.

Plato’s Republic:

• Book 1: Thrasymachus’s accounts of Justice and Socrates’ response (refutation)
• Socrates’s Methods (see above) on display in his response to Thrasymachus
• Books 2, 3: Account of Justice given by Glaucon (similar to social contract)
• Glaucon’s & Adeimentus’ Counterfactual in Book II: Why do they give it?

• **The Myth of the Metals (as a founding myth & as a “noble lie”)
• Briefly explain how fable’s tells of first generation spills out from the earth as a 3 Part caste system
• Why does Socrates think this noble lie is needed? What purposes does it serve? Does he think it will eventually come to be accepted as conventional wisdom?
• Be able to give at least one or two other examples in history

·  **3 Parts of the City & 4 Cardinal Virtues

·  The Three parts of the City

·  The Three parts of the Soul

·  Definitions & brief explanation of the 4 cardinal virtues in the State &in the Soul

o  Wisdom & Courage – can be brief & you can point to relevant parts of the city & soul

o  Temperance/Moderation & Justice – will need some discussion & explanation, as you cannot find either of them in any one part of the city or soul. See Tuesday, Nov 1 recap on webpage for the page numbers of key passages!

• **Distinction between Doxa & Sophia & the 4 types of Knowledge discussed Nov 9 & 14). (Book V, line 243 thru end of Book VII, p. 265).

• Doxa vs. Sophia. Discussed in class Nov 9 & 14 and in Review Session. See Lecture Notes for Republic Part III, especially Analogy of the Divided Line in Book VI and/or Allegory of the Cave (Book VII p. 262-265 only).
• **Book VI criticisms of Sophists, who are focused on Doxa, unaware of Sophia. See pp. 251 - 253.

§  Give examples or sketch from Allegory of the Cave or Analogy of the Divided Line

• On the midterm, distinguish DOXA from SOPHIA as indicated above. For each of the 4 modes of Cognition in italics, just list the 4. (DOXA: 1-Imaging/Naming; 2-Belief/Opinion vs. SOPHIA: 3-Thought; 4-Understanding). Don’t need to explain each of the 4. We’ll do that later.

Book VII after p. 265 will not be on the exam (Nor Book VIII nor Book IX).

Bonus Question: (Socrates repeats this over & over. At some point it sticks in your mind. So we should benefit in a bonus multiple choice question).

o  Key characteristics of philosophers & philosopher-kings (“Ease in learning, a good memory, courage, and high-mindedness belong to the philosophic nature” Book V, p. 252, left)