Sean Mcconnell
Biographic Data
| ID | 3874909 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sean Mcconnell |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sean |
| FAMILY NAME | Mcconnell |
| SIGNATURE | MCCONNELL S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Otago |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8206-0688 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 6 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
James E. G. Zetzel
Old Men in Cicero’s Political Philosophy
In his philosophical works Cicero addresses a number of questions concerning the role of old men in politics, most obviously in his dialogue De senectute of 44 bce . How best should the old participate in politics and the wider community – what, if anything, do the old have to offer that is special or unique? How should the generations fit together in the body politic, and should age be a factor in the structural organisation of states? Should th…
Power and Persuasion in Cicero's Philosophy
Extensively trained as a philosopher, Cicero was also a working politician with a keen awareness of the distance between pure intellectual endeavor and effective strategies of persuasion. This volume explores a series of interrelated problems in his works, from the use of emotion, self-correction, and even fiction in intellectual inquiry, to the motives of political agents and the morality of political arguments, to the means of justifying the us…
Cicero's ‘De Officiis'
Cicero's De Officiis, perhaps his most influential philosophical work, ranges over a wide variety of themes, from the role of the family in society to the question of whether our duties can conflict with one another, and from the moral significance of offence to the question of whether it is right to kill a dictator. This Critical Guide, the first collection of essays devoted to the work, is helpfully organised in thematic sections and aims to il…
The Model of Voting in Cicero’s Best State
In the proposed law-code in De legibus there is a law that votes are to be known by the best citizens (the optimates) but free to the common people (the plebs) (3.10). This law, Cicero claims, grants ‘the appearance of liberty’ (libertatis species), preserves the authority (auctoritas) of the optimates, and promotes harmony between the classes (3.39). The law and the precise meaning of libertatis species remain opaque even with the lengthy commen…
Power and Persuasion in Cicero's Philosophy
Cicero on the Emotions and the Soul
This chapter provides a critical account of Cicero’s discussion of the nature of the soul and the emotions in the Tusculan Disputations . The first two sections trace the key steps of Cicero’s argumentation as he critically evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of various competing views in the Greek philosophical tradition. Cicero ultimately purports to favor Plato’s position on the immortality of the soul and the Stoics’ cognitivist account of…
The Problem of Aristippus at Cicero, De officiis 1.148
The manuscripts of De officiis all record something strange at 1.148: Cicero says that the philosophers Socrates and Aristippus had exceptional licence to flout social custom and convention owing to their ‘great and divine good qualities’ ( magna et divina bona ). There are no worries about Socrates, but the example of Aristippus seems preposterous. This paper makes the following argument: (1) elsewhere Cicero defines divina bona in such a way to…
Lucretius on the Nature of Parental Love
This paper outlines the full details of Lucretius’ treatment of parental love. It shows that Lucretius is faithful to Epicurus’ notorious claim that parental love is not natural: in addition to orthodox Epicurean hedonist concerns, Lucretius asserts that children do not ‘belong to’ their parents by nature; as such, even though parental love is now ubiquitous and indeed a cultural norm, there is no basis for the naturalness of parental love. This …
Why is Latin spectrum a Bad Translation of Epicurus’ ΕΙΔΩΛΟΝ
Magnitudo Animi and Cosmic Politics in Cicero's De re Publica
This paper offers a fresh interpretation of the role played by the Dream of Scipio in Cicero's De re publica. It explores Cicero's key distinction between the cosmic and the local levels of statesmanship and the problems he sees with localism, and it details fully for the first time the importance that Cicero attached to the virtue of magnitudo animi (“greatness of soul”). The paper makes the case that in De re publica Cicero promotes his own inn…
Demetrius of Laconia and the Debate Between the Stoics and the Epicureans on the Nature of Parental Love
Epicurus denies that human beings have natural parental love for their children, and his account of the development of justice and human political community does not involve any natural affinity between human beings in general but rather a form of social contract. The Stoics to the contrary assert that parental love is natural; and, moreover, they maintain that natural parental love is the first principle of social οἰκείωσις, which provides the b…
Epicurean Education and the Rhetoric of Concern
There has been a large amount of scholarly controversy over the precise nature of the motivations at play in the Epicurean accounts of justice and friendship, and whether any form of altruism or other-concern is compatible with Epicurean hedonist ethics. This paper addresses this tension between self- and other-concern from a novel angle, by examining the motivations behind Epicurean educational practice. What emerges is a rather complex motivati…
Philosophical Life in Cicero's Letters
Cicero's letters are saturated with learned philosophical allusions and arguments. This innovative study shows just how fundamental these are for understanding Cicero's philosophical activities and for explaining the enduring interest of his ethical and political thought. Dr McConnell draws particular attention to Cicero's treatment of Plato's Seventh Letter and his views on the relationship between philosophy and politics. He also illustrates th…
Lucretius and Civil Strife
I reconstruct the Epicurean philosophical position on civil strife and examine Lucretius' engagement with the topic against it. I challenge the scholarly consensus and argue that there is in fact no compulsion to explain Lucretius' concern with civil strife by appeal to a preoccupation with contemporary events
How Kant Might Explain Ugliness
A number of recent studies have claimed to explain how Kant can or cannot accommodate pure judgements of ugliness in his aesthetic theory. In this paper I critically review the arguments on each side of the debate and then develop a new account of how Kant might explain the pure judgement of the ugly, namely, by appeal to the quickening of the faculties in their harmonious free play. Some implications and applications of such an explanation are t…
To the Flag
The history of the Pledge of Allegiance begins and ends in rich irony. As narrated by Richard J. Ellis in this engaging book, the paradox of its origin is that a pledge so often deployed by anticommunists and denounced by secularists as having been corrupted by the 1954 addition of the words “under God” was written by a Christian socialist. The closing paradox is that a pledge originally intended as a ritual of American unity has in our own time …
The Civil War and Historical Memory
The Civil War and Historical Memory: A Historiographical Survey Get access Stuart McConnell Stuart McConnell Stuart McConnell is associate professor of history at Pitzer College, Claremont, and author of Glorious Contentment: The Grand Army of the Republic, 1865–1900. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar OAH Magazine of History, Volume 8, Issue 1, Fall 1993, Pages 3–6, https://doi.org/10.1093/maghis/8.1.3 Publi…
How Kant Might Explain Ugliness
A number of recent studies have claimed to explain how Kant can or cannot accommodate pure judgements of ugliness in his aesthetic theory. In this paper I critically review the arguments on each side of the debate and then develop a new account of how Kant might explain the pure judgement of the ugly, namely, by appeal to the quickening of the faculties in their harmonious free play. Some implications and applications of such an explanation are t…
Lucretius and Civil Strife
I reconstruct the Epicurean philosophical position on civil strife and examine Lucretius' engagement with the topic against it. I challenge the scholarly consensus and argue that there is in fact no compulsion to explain Lucretius' concern with civil strife by appeal to a preoccupation with contemporary events
Why is Latin spectrum a Bad Translation of Epicurus’ ΕΙΔΩΛΟΝ
The Civil War and Historical Memory
The Civil War and Historical Memory: A Historiographical Survey Get access Stuart McConnell Stuart McConnell Stuart McConnell is associate professor of history at Pitzer College, Claremont, and author of Glorious Contentment: The Grand Army of the Republic, 1865–1900. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar OAH Magazine of History, Volume 8, Issue 1, Fall 1993, Pages 3–6, https://doi.org/10.1093/maghis/8.1.3 Publi…
To the Flag
The history of the Pledge of Allegiance begins and ends in rich irony. As narrated by Richard J. Ellis in this engaging book, the paradox of its origin is that a pledge so often deployed by anticommunists and denounced by secularists as having been corrupted by the 1954 addition of the words “under God” was written by a Christian socialist. The closing paradox is that a pledge originally intended as a ritual of American unity has in our own time …
How Kant Might Explain Ugliness
A number of recent studies have claimed to explain how Kant can or cannot accommodate pure judgements of ugliness in his aesthetic theory. In this paper I critically review the arguments on each side of the debate and then develop a new account of how Kant might explain the pure judgement of the ugly, namely, by appeal to the quickening of the faculties in their harmonious free play. Some implications and applications of such an explanation are t…
Lucretius and Civil Strife
I reconstruct the Epicurean philosophical position on civil strife and examine Lucretius' engagement with the topic against it. I challenge the scholarly consensus and argue that there is in fact no compulsion to explain Lucretius' concern with civil strife by appeal to a preoccupation with contemporary events
Philosophical Life in Cicero's Letters
Cicero's letters are saturated with learned philosophical allusions and arguments. This innovative study shows just how fundamental these are for understanding Cicero's philosophical activities and for explaining the enduring interest of his ethical and political thought. Dr McConnell draws particular attention to Cicero's treatment of Plato's Seventh Letter and his views on the relationship between philosophy and politics. He also illustrates th…
Epicurean Education and the Rhetoric of Concern
There has been a large amount of scholarly controversy over the precise nature of the motivations at play in the Epicurean accounts of justice and friendship, and whether any form of altruism or other-concern is compatible with Epicurean hedonist ethics. This paper addresses this tension between self- and other-concern from a novel angle, by examining the motivations behind Epicurean educational practice. What emerges is a rather complex motivati…
Magnitudo Animi and Cosmic Politics in Cicero's De re Publica
This paper offers a fresh interpretation of the role played by the Dream of Scipio in Cicero's De re publica. It explores Cicero's key distinction between the cosmic and the local levels of statesmanship and the problems he sees with localism, and it details fully for the first time the importance that Cicero attached to the virtue of magnitudo animi (“greatness of soul”). The paper makes the case that in De re publica Cicero promotes his own inn…
Demetrius of Laconia and the Debate Between the Stoics and the Epicureans on the Nature of Parental Love
Epicurus denies that human beings have natural parental love for their children, and his account of the development of justice and human political community does not involve any natural affinity between human beings in general but rather a form of social contract. The Stoics to the contrary assert that parental love is natural; and, moreover, they maintain that natural parental love is the first principle of social οἰκείωσις, which provides the b…
Lucretius on the Nature of Parental Love
This paper outlines the full details of Lucretius’ treatment of parental love. It shows that Lucretius is faithful to Epicurus’ notorious claim that parental love is not natural: in addition to orthodox Epicurean hedonist concerns, Lucretius asserts that children do not ‘belong to’ their parents by nature; as such, even though parental love is now ubiquitous and indeed a cultural norm, there is no basis for the naturalness of parental love. This …
Why is Latin spectrum a Bad Translation of Epicurus’ ΕΙΔΩΛΟΝ
Cicero on the Emotions and the Soul
This chapter provides a critical account of Cicero’s discussion of the nature of the soul and the emotions in the Tusculan Disputations . The first two sections trace the key steps of Cicero’s argumentation as he critically evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of various competing views in the Greek philosophical tradition. Cicero ultimately purports to favor Plato’s position on the immortality of the soul and the Stoics’ cognitivist account of…
The Problem of Aristippus at Cicero, De officiis 1.148
The manuscripts of De officiis all record something strange at 1.148: Cicero says that the philosophers Socrates and Aristippus had exceptional licence to flout social custom and convention owing to their ‘great and divine good qualities’ ( magna et divina bona ). There are no worries about Socrates, but the example of Aristippus seems preposterous. This paper makes the following argument: (1) elsewhere Cicero defines divina bona in such a way to…
Power and Persuasion in Cicero's Philosophy
Old Men in Cicero’s Political Philosophy
In his philosophical works Cicero addresses a number of questions concerning the role of old men in politics, most obviously in his dialogue De senectute of 44 bce . How best should the old participate in politics and the wider community – what, if anything, do the old have to offer that is special or unique? How should the generations fit together in the body politic, and should age be a factor in the structural organisation of states? Should th…
Power and Persuasion in Cicero's Philosophy
Extensively trained as a philosopher, Cicero was also a working politician with a keen awareness of the distance between pure intellectual endeavor and effective strategies of persuasion. This volume explores a series of interrelated problems in his works, from the use of emotion, self-correction, and even fiction in intellectual inquiry, to the motives of political agents and the morality of political arguments, to the means of justifying the us…
Cicero's ‘De Officiis'
Cicero's De Officiis, perhaps his most influential philosophical work, ranges over a wide variety of themes, from the role of the family in society to the question of whether our duties can conflict with one another, and from the moral significance of offence to the question of whether it is right to kill a dictator. This Critical Guide, the first collection of essays devoted to the work, is helpfully organised in thematic sections and aims to il…
The Model of Voting in Cicero’s Best State
In the proposed law-code in De legibus there is a law that votes are to be known by the best citizens (the optimates) but free to the common people (the plebs) (3.10). This law, Cicero claims, grants ‘the appearance of liberty’ (libertatis species), preserves the authority (auctoritas) of the optimates, and promotes harmony between the classes (3.39). The law and the precise meaning of libertatis species remain opaque even with the lengthy commen…
James E. G. Zetzel
Philosophy (16 works) · Classical Philosophy and Thought (11 works) · Law (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Art (10 works) · Cicero (9 works) · Classical Antiquity Studies (9 works) · Epistemology (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · History (7 works)