Christopher Bobonich
Biographic Data
| ID | 5669713 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Christopher Bobonich |
| GIVEN NAMES | Christopher |
| FAMILY NAME | Bobonich |
| SIGNATURE | BOBONICH C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Stanford University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6927-9818 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 8 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 14 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 7 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Introduction
This short introduction explains the context and purpose of this special issue on the Ancient Philosophy of Law. It also summarizes the diverse approaches and lines of argument pursued by the contributors
Plato on the Law, Political Rule, and Philosophical Knowledge
The Republic ’s primary justification for philosophers’ rule is their epistemic superiority. I examine several possible cases of such superiority. One important conclusion is that the philosopher-rulers are not greatly epistemically superior to the auxiliaries on matters of ordinary ethics, that is, questions about avoiding force and fraud in one’s relations with others. The philosopher-rulers’ great epistemic superiority is rather with respect t…
The Good or the Wild at Aristotle Eudemian Ethics 8.3
The traditional understanding of Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics 8.3 requires emending the text at least two places, the more important of which changes the manuscripts’ characterization of the Spartans as “wild men” (ἄγριοι) to “good men” (ἀγαθοί). Neither emendation has any manuscript support and if they are rejected, we avoid some apparent philosophical problems. This article examines a new proposal to reject both emendations and argues that, desp…
Agency in Plato’s Republic
This article discusses some of the most important recent controversies in the psychology of Plato’s Republic. These include its views on akratic action, the capacities of the parts of the soul, and the distinction between the rational part of the soul and the nonrational parts. It argues that the Republic accepts the possibility of synchronic akratic action, that is, action contrary to the agent’s belief about what is overall best at the time of …
The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Ethics
The field of ancient Greek ethics is increasingly emerging as a major branch of philosophical enquiry, and students and scholars of ancient philosophy will find this Companion to be a rich and invaluable guide to the themes and movements which characterised the discipline from the Pre-Socratics to the Neo-Platonists. Several chapters are dedicated to the central figures of Plato and Aristotle, and others explore the ethical thought of the Stoics,…
Aristotle's Politics
Virtue and law in Plato
In both the Republic and the Laws, Plato delineates societies whose aim is the happiness of the citizens; and in both works they are to achieve happiness by living a life of virtue. It is the chief aim of Magnesia, the city of the Laws – one it shares with the Doric societies of Sparta and Crete, though with an enlarged and improved view of it – to make the citizens happy by rendering them virtuous.
Puppets on strings
Pleasure in Plato is a highly controversial issue. The controversy is not just over the evaluation of pleasure within Plato's ethics, that is, whether he regards it as an overall good or bad thing, but what he takes the nature of pleasure to be. There is conflicting evidence on this issue in the different dialogues. This is in itself not particularly disturbing, because there is conflicting evidence on most central concepts in Plato's philosophy.…
Psychology and the inculcation of virtue in Plato's Laws
Although Aristotle says that Plato's educational recommendations in the Laws are pretty much the same as in the Republic (Politics II.6.1265a6–8), one striking difference in the Laws is its emphasis on a lifelong regime of gymnastics or prescribed physical movement: the Athenian says that pregnant mothers are to take exercise so that the fetus they are carrying is moved about (789a–93e); from the age of three to six, children must play at wrestli…
Ordinary virtue from the Phaedo to the Laws
The principal thesis of this chapter is that Plato's Republic and Laws should be read together as explorations of a theme that fascinates Plato at every stage of his career: the ability of those who have more understanding of what is valuable to lead those who have less. Notice that I say less understanding rather than none. Plato believes that human beings need not be put into one of two exhaustive categories: those who have perfect understandin…
Plato's 'Laws'
Long understudied, Plato's Laws has been the object of renewed attention in the past decade and is now considered to be his major work of political philosophy besides the Republic. In his last dialogue, Plato returns to the project of describing the foundation of a just city and sketches in considerable detail its constitution, laws and other social institutions. Written by leading Platonists, the essays in this volume cover a wide range of topic…
Socrates and Eudaimonia
It has long been a commonplace that ancient ethical thought is characterized by its eudaimonism. The great nineteenth-century moral philosopher Henry Sidgwick, for example, remarks that "in the whole ethical controversy of ancient Greece ... it was assumed on all sides that a rational individual would make the pursuit of his own good his supreme aim." Sidgwick also thinks that its commitment to eudaimonism is one of the most important features th…
Why Should Philosophers Rule? Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Protrepticus
I examine Plato's claim in the Republic that philosophers must rule in a good city and Aristotle's attitude towards this claim in his early, and little discussed, work, the Protrepticus . I argue that in the Republic , Plato's main reason for having philosophers rule is that they alone understand the role of philosophical knowledge in a good life and how to produce characters that love such knowledge. He does not think that philosophic knowledge …
Akrasia in Greek Philosophy
Discussions on akrasia (lack of control, or weakness of will) in Greek philosophy have been particularily vivid and intense for the past two decades. Standard stories that presented Socrates as the philosopher who simply denied the phenomenon, and Plato and Aristotle as rehabilitating it straightforwardly against Socrates, have been challenged in many different ways. Building on those challenges, this collective provides new, and in some cases op…
Individual and Conflict in Greek Ethics
Book Review| October 01 2004 Individual and Conflict in Greek Ethics Nicholas White, Individual and Conflict in Greek Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xv, 369. Christopher Bobonich Christopher Bobonich Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Philosophical Review (2004) 113 (4): 557–560. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-113-4-557 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions…
Plato's Utopia Recast
Argues that Plato in his middle period (roughly at the time of the Phaedo and the Republic) had a radically pessimistic view of non‐philosophers: they could not be genuinely virtuous or happy, and their lives were inevitably deeply undesirable ones to live. This pessimistic conclusion, I argue, rests on Plato's middle‐period epistemology, psychology, and metaphysics. But in the later dialogues (e.g. the Laws and the Statesman), Plato comes to a s…
Reading the Laws
The Laws has often been thought to be one of the most arid and, from a literary point of view, least sophisticated of Plato’s dialogues. Aristotle dismissively notes that ‘it is for the most part a collection of laws’ and in Lucian’s Icaromenippus Zeus complains that the increasing popularity of other gods has left his own altars ‘more frigid than the Laws of Plato or the Syllogisms of Chrysippus’ .1 In this century, the Laws has fared little bet…
The Morality of Happiness
Akrasia and Agency in Plato’s Laws and Republic
The Practices of Reason
Practices of Reason is an exploration of the epistemological, metaphysical, and psychological foundations of the Nicomachean Ethics. In a striking reversal of current orthodoxy, Professor Reeve argues that scientific-knowledge (episteme) is possible in ethics, that dialectic and understanding (nous) play essentially the same role in ethics as in an Aristotelian science, and that the distinctive role of practical wisdom (phronesis) is to use the k…
Persuasion, Compulsion and Freedom in Plato's Laws
One of the distinctions that Plato in the Laws stresses most heavily in his discussion of the proper relation between the individual citizen and the laws of the city is that between persuasion and compulsion. Law, Plato believes, should try to persuade rather than compel the citizens. Near the end of the fourth book of the Laws , the Athenian Stranger, Plato's spokesman in this dialogue, asks whether the lawgiver for their new city of Magnesia sh…
Persuasion, Compulsion and Freedom in Plato's Laws
One of the distinctions that Plato in the Laws stresses most heavily in his discussion of the proper relation between the individual citizen and the laws of the city is that between persuasion and compulsion. Law, Plato believes, should try to persuade rather than compel the citizens. Near the end of the fourth book of the Laws , the Athenian Stranger, Plato's spokesman in this dialogue, asks whether the lawgiver for their new city of Magnesia sh…
Persuasion, Compulsion and Freedom in Plato's Laws
One of the distinctions that Plato in the Laws stresses most heavily in his discussion of the proper relation between the individual citizen and the laws of the city is that between persuasion and compulsion. Law, Plato believes, should try to persuade rather than compel the citizens. Near the end of the fourth book of the Laws , the Athenian Stranger, Plato's spokesman in this dialogue, asks whether the lawgiver for their new city of Magnesia sh…
Akrasia and Agency in Plato’s Laws and Republic
The Practices of Reason
Practices of Reason is an exploration of the epistemological, metaphysical, and psychological foundations of the Nicomachean Ethics. In a striking reversal of current orthodoxy, Professor Reeve argues that scientific-knowledge (episteme) is possible in ethics, that dialectic and understanding (nous) play essentially the same role in ethics as in an Aristotelian science, and that the distinctive role of practical wisdom (phronesis) is to use the k…
The Morality of Happiness
Reading the Laws
The Laws has often been thought to be one of the most arid and, from a literary point of view, least sophisticated of Plato’s dialogues. Aristotle dismissively notes that ‘it is for the most part a collection of laws’ and in Lucian’s Icaromenippus Zeus complains that the increasing popularity of other gods has left his own altars ‘more frigid than the Laws of Plato or the Syllogisms of Chrysippus’ .1 In this century, the Laws has fared little bet…
Plato's Utopia Recast
Argues that Plato in his middle period (roughly at the time of the Phaedo and the Republic) had a radically pessimistic view of non‐philosophers: they could not be genuinely virtuous or happy, and their lives were inevitably deeply undesirable ones to live. This pessimistic conclusion, I argue, rests on Plato's middle‐period epistemology, psychology, and metaphysics. But in the later dialogues (e.g. the Laws and the Statesman), Plato comes to a s…
Individual and Conflict in Greek Ethics
Book Review| October 01 2004 Individual and Conflict in Greek Ethics Nicholas White, Individual and Conflict in Greek Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xv, 369. Christopher Bobonich Christopher Bobonich Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Philosophical Review (2004) 113 (4): 557–560. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-113-4-557 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions…
Why Should Philosophers Rule? Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Protrepticus
I examine Plato's claim in the Republic that philosophers must rule in a good city and Aristotle's attitude towards this claim in his early, and little discussed, work, the Protrepticus . I argue that in the Republic , Plato's main reason for having philosophers rule is that they alone understand the role of philosophical knowledge in a good life and how to produce characters that love such knowledge. He does not think that philosophic knowledge …
Akrasia in Greek Philosophy
Discussions on akrasia (lack of control, or weakness of will) in Greek philosophy have been particularily vivid and intense for the past two decades. Standard stories that presented Socrates as the philosopher who simply denied the phenomenon, and Plato and Aristotle as rehabilitating it straightforwardly against Socrates, have been challenged in many different ways. Building on those challenges, this collective provides new, and in some cases op…
Plato's 'Laws'
Long understudied, Plato's Laws has been the object of renewed attention in the past decade and is now considered to be his major work of political philosophy besides the Republic. In his last dialogue, Plato returns to the project of describing the foundation of a just city and sketches in considerable detail its constitution, laws and other social institutions. Written by leading Platonists, the essays in this volume cover a wide range of topic…
Socrates and Eudaimonia
It has long been a commonplace that ancient ethical thought is characterized by its eudaimonism. The great nineteenth-century moral philosopher Henry Sidgwick, for example, remarks that "in the whole ethical controversy of ancient Greece ... it was assumed on all sides that a rational individual would make the pursuit of his own good his supreme aim." Sidgwick also thinks that its commitment to eudaimonism is one of the most important features th…
Virtue and law in Plato
In both the Republic and the Laws, Plato delineates societies whose aim is the happiness of the citizens; and in both works they are to achieve happiness by living a life of virtue. It is the chief aim of Magnesia, the city of the Laws – one it shares with the Doric societies of Sparta and Crete, though with an enlarged and improved view of it – to make the citizens happy by rendering them virtuous.
Puppets on strings
Pleasure in Plato is a highly controversial issue. The controversy is not just over the evaluation of pleasure within Plato's ethics, that is, whether he regards it as an overall good or bad thing, but what he takes the nature of pleasure to be. There is conflicting evidence on this issue in the different dialogues. This is in itself not particularly disturbing, because there is conflicting evidence on most central concepts in Plato's philosophy.…
Psychology and the inculcation of virtue in Plato's Laws
Although Aristotle says that Plato's educational recommendations in the Laws are pretty much the same as in the Republic (Politics II.6.1265a6–8), one striking difference in the Laws is its emphasis on a lifelong regime of gymnastics or prescribed physical movement: the Athenian says that pregnant mothers are to take exercise so that the fetus they are carrying is moved about (789a–93e); from the age of three to six, children must play at wrestli…
Ordinary virtue from the Phaedo to the Laws
The principal thesis of this chapter is that Plato's Republic and Laws should be read together as explorations of a theme that fascinates Plato at every stage of his career: the ability of those who have more understanding of what is valuable to lead those who have less. Notice that I say less understanding rather than none. Plato believes that human beings need not be put into one of two exhaustive categories: those who have perfect understandin…
Aristotle's Politics
Agency in Plato’s Republic
This article discusses some of the most important recent controversies in the psychology of Plato’s Republic. These include its views on akratic action, the capacities of the parts of the soul, and the distinction between the rational part of the soul and the nonrational parts. It argues that the Republic accepts the possibility of synchronic akratic action, that is, action contrary to the agent’s belief about what is overall best at the time of …
The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Ethics
The field of ancient Greek ethics is increasingly emerging as a major branch of philosophical enquiry, and students and scholars of ancient philosophy will find this Companion to be a rich and invaluable guide to the themes and movements which characterised the discipline from the Pre-Socratics to the Neo-Platonists. Several chapters are dedicated to the central figures of Plato and Aristotle, and others explore the ethical thought of the Stoics,…
The Good or the Wild at Aristotle Eudemian Ethics 8.3
The traditional understanding of Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics 8.3 requires emending the text at least two places, the more important of which changes the manuscripts’ characterization of the Spartans as “wild men” (ἄγριοι) to “good men” (ἀγαθοί). Neither emendation has any manuscript support and if they are rejected, we avoid some apparent philosophical problems. This article examines a new proposal to reject both emendations and argues that, desp…
Introduction
This short introduction explains the context and purpose of this special issue on the Ancient Philosophy of Law. It also summarizes the diverse approaches and lines of argument pursued by the contributors
Plato on the Law, Political Rule, and Philosophical Knowledge
The Republic ’s primary justification for philosophers’ rule is their epistemic superiority. I examine several possible cases of such superiority. One important conclusion is that the philosopher-rulers are not greatly epistemically superior to the auxiliaries on matters of ordinary ethics, that is, questions about avoiding force and fraud in one’s relations with others. The philosopher-rulers’ great epistemic superiority is rather with respect t…
Classical Philosophy and Thought (18 works) · Philosophy (17 works) · Epistemology (15 works) · Law (13 works) · Political science (13 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Politics (7 works) · Classical Antiquity Studies (6 works) · Virtue (6 works) · Art (5 works)