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A Wolf in the City: Tyranny and the Tyrant in Plato's Republic

Online ISBN:
9780190678883
Print ISBN:
9780190678852
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

A Wolf in the City: Tyranny and the Tyrant in Plato's Republic

Cinzia Arruzza
Cinzia Arruzza

Assistant Professor of Philosophy

Assistant Professor of Philosophy, New School for Social Research
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Published online:
18 October 2018
Published in print:
29 November 2018
Online ISBN:
9780190678883
Print ISBN:
9780190678852
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

A Wolf in the City is a study of tyranny and of the tyrant’s soul in Plato’s Republic. It argues that Plato’s critique of tyranny is an intervention in an ancient debate concerning the sources of the crisis of Athenian democracy and the relation between political leaders and the demos in the last decades of the fifth century bce. The book shows that Plato’s critique of tyranny should not be taken as a veiled critique of the Syracusan tyrannical regime but, rather, as an integral part of his critique of Athenian democracy. The book also offers an in-depth and detailed analysis of all three parts of the tyrant’s soul, and contends that this approach is necessary to both fully appraise the complex psychic dynamics taking place in the description of the tyrannical man and shed light on Plato’s moral psychology and its relation with his political theory.

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