Chapter 2: The Ancients Flashcards
Political Theory is both ___ and ___.
Prescriptive and analytical.
Prescriptive:
Prescribing how societies and political bodies should be structured and how they should function.
Analytical:
Analysing how and why our political relations function the way they do.
Three key points in political philosophy:
There is no winner.
Building Canon of Knowledge.
Accepting that we need to change the way we think according to changing circumstances of our own political environment.
Canon of Knowledge
Building on past and present knowledge. Amalgamating knowledge, not replacing it.
Western political thought originated in ___.
Greece.
___ Wars influenced Plato and Aristotle.
Peloponnesian.
More specifically, the execution of ___ influenced Plato’s ideas.
Socrates.
During the trial and execution of his teacher, Plato came to realize that:
The ignorant were allowed to rule over the masses and run the government.
Before the wars, there were ___ democracies in the Greek city-states.
Direct.
Direct democracies meant that anyone who was a ___ could vote.
Citizen.
What was the problem with the system of direct democracy in ancient Greece?
The definition of citizen was extremely limited, excluding women, foreigners, and slaves.
Plato supported/questioned direct democracy
Questioned
Plato proposed social and political justice through a state organized to individuals’ ___ and ___.
Capabilities and personalities.
Plato’s new idea of system of governance can be identified as prescriptive/analytic.
Prescriptive.
Governments before Plato’s ideas were run on the basis of virtues such as strength and courage. However, Plato proposed that…
Governments should be run by intellectuals who engaged in philosophical thought and contemplative reason.
Aristotle was considered to be a philosopher of the ___.
Possible.
Aristotle was not as focused on the idea of an ideal state: rather, he looked for ways to make it ___ and ___.
Practical and possible.
