The Life of Roman Republicanism
Joy Connolly - Princeton University Press, 26 ott 2014
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| Anteprima |
In
recent years, Roman political thought has attracted increased attention
as intellectual historians and political theorists have explored the
influence of the Roman republic on major thinkers from the Renaissance
to the Enlightenment. Held up as a "third way" between liberalism and
communitarianism, neo-Roman republicanism promises useful, persuasive
accounts of civic virtue, justice, civility, and the ties that bind
citizens. But republican revivalists, embedded in modern liberal,
democratic, and constitutional concerns, almost never engage closely
with Roman texts. The Life of Roman Republicanism takes up that challenge.
With
an original combination of close reading and political theory, Joy
Connolly argues that Cicero, Sallust, and Horace inspire fresh thinking
about central concerns of contemporary political thought and action.
These include the role of conflict in the political community,
especially as it emerges from class differences; the necessity of
recognition for an equal and just society; the corporeal and passionate
aspects of civic experience; citizens' interdependence on one another
for senses of selfhood; and the uses and dangers of self-sovereignty and
fantasy. Putting classicists and political theorists in dialogue, the
book also addresses a range of modern thinkers, including Kant, Hannah
Arendt, Stanley Cavell, and Philip Pettit. Together, Connolly's readings
construct a new civic ethos of advocacy, self-criticism, embodied
awareness, imagination, and irony.
