The Virtue of Thucydides’ Brasidas

Datos Bibliográficos

ID10185338
AutoresTimothy W Burns (Skidmore College, autor de correspondencia), Timothy Burns (0000-0001-9515-5088)
Año2011
Volumen73
Número2
Páginas508-523
Fecha de publicación2011-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Journal of Politics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0022-3816 • E-ISSN: 1468-2508
EditorialUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/s0022381611000065
OpenAlexW2097165408
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas17

In his account of the 27-year Peloponnesian War, Thucydides makes virtue the theme of his presentation of the most outstanding Spartan, Brasidas. That presentation can guide us to an understanding of moral virtue in all its richness and complexity. We learn from a careful analysis of Brasidas’ deeds and speeches, and of Thucydides’ assessment of him, that Brasidas’ virtue, remarkable as it is, is problematic. Thucydides’ account of it may move us, in fact, to abandon our own attachment to this kind of virtue, as we find ourselves in need of a more consistent kind of virtue, one that becomes visible above all in the first speech of the Syracusan Hermocrates. The conversion to this kind of virtue constitutes Thucydides’ grounding of the life guided by reason

Art · Epistemic virtue · Epistemology · Literature · Presentation (obstetrics · Theme (computing · Virtue · Computer Science · Free Will and Agency · Law in Society and Culture · Philosophy · War, Ethics, and Justification