Thucydides

9. Kagan, Thucydides (23 Mar 2015)

by kurto

Critically reviews

    The History of the Peloponnesian War

to assess the validity of Thucydides’ account, with the broader goal of illuminating the Greek’s contribution to the discipline of history. Thucydides favored Pericles (as a worthy leader of Athens) and Nicias (as the general who tried to dissuade the hubristic public for invading Sicily), while scorning Cleon (as lucky at Sphacteria and for rejecting Sparta’s peace offer in 425). These views would have been contrary to popular understanding, therefore Thucydides is revisionist. Kagan also shows holes in Thucydides’ work, such as glossing the Megarian Decree. Thucydides fundamentally sought to get the story right, however, and in so doing established history as of men for men — eschewing divine intervention as explanatory — so that future generations would be able to learn from past affairs. Further, in focusing on politics, war, and statecraft, he narrowed Herodotus’ consideration of society and culture (seen today in Annalisme) and thus connected history to political philosophy, the pursuit of the best life for the whole of the citizenry. Superb conclusion.

23. Strauss, The City and Man (22 Dec 2015)

by kurto

Modern political philosophy has become ideology, a phenomenon at the center of the crisis of the West, which is uncertain of its purpose. The modern treatment, which conceives of itself as political science, seeks to separate facts from values, and so cannot accommodate the pursuit of what ought to be, only what is. The classical treatment, best encapsulated in Aristotle’s

    Politics

because it originates the study of moral virtue, is the original and best approach to the ‘common sense’ understanding of political things. In three essays that chronologically work backward, from Aristotle to Plato’s

    Republic

to Thucydides, Strauss elucidates conceptions and problems of the best regime before turning to actual study of political history. In this way, Strauss makes the distinction between what is ‘first for us’ against what is ‘first in nature’, connecting history to philosophy without subsuming one inside the other. Philosophy is the ascendancy of events qua history. The search for the common-sense understanding of the city and man’s role as a good citizen and a good person leads the philosopher back to question: what is the nature of god? To be re-read.