POLS 2900 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Body Politic, Cephalus, Polemarchus
4 Oct 2017
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Document Summary
A play with a setting, dramatic action, characters. Socrates - central character - philosophies by talking, infamous for conversations about wisdom, would ask questions - people like plato, a student of socrates, recorded dialogues. Socrates would have people contradict themselves - the socratic elenchus - a kind of dialogue/exchange of views seen on display in the republic. Was found guilty and sentenced to death. Plato"s brothers - like plato, were aristocrats. Athens was a democracy - had social classes, aristocratic families formed upper social class, and ordinary/common folk forming the demos who held full political rights. Women, slaves, non-greeks, foreigners (mitics) - did not get to participate in politics, were not citizens of athens. While athens was a democracy at the time of the republic, the aristocrats would often get the upper hand, making it an aristocracy/oligarchy and excluded the demos. Period following the republic dialogue - where a tyranny was established - 30 tyrants taking charge.
