Cicero and the People’s Will

Philosophy and Power at the End of the Roman Republic

AvLex Paulson

Häftad, Engelska, 2025

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Beskrivning

This book tells an overlooked story in the history of ideas, a drama of cut-throat politics and philosophy of mind. For it is Cicero, statesman and philosopher, who gives shape to the notion of will in Western thought, from criminal will to moral willpower and 'the will of the people'. In a single word – voluntas – he brings Roman law in contact with Greek ideas, chief among them Plato's claim that a rational elite must rule. When the republic falls to Caesarism, Cicero turns his political argument inward: Will is a force in the soul to win the virtue lost on the battlefield, the mark of inner freedom in an unfree age. Though this constitutional vision failed in his own time, Cicero's ideals of popular sovereignty and rational elitism have shaped and fractured the modern world – and Ciceronian creativity may yet save it.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2025-01-23
Mått:229 x 151 x 19 mm
Vikt:420 g
Format:Häftad
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:285
Förlag:Cambridge University Press
ISBN:9781009077385

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Mer om författaren

Lex Paulson is the Executive Director of the UM6P School of Collective Intelligence (Morocco) and lectures in advocacy at Sciences Po-Paris. Trained in classics and community organizing, he served as mobilization strategist for the campaigns of Barack Obama in 2008 and Emmanuel Macron in 2017. He has led projects in democratic innovation and leadership for UNICEF, the US State Department, the French National Assembly and the National Democratic Institute. He served as legislative counsel in the 111th US Congress (2009-2011), organized on six US presidential campaigns, and has worked to advance democratic innovation at the European Commission and in India, Tunisia, Egypt, Uganda, Senegal, Czech Republic and Ukraine.

Recensioner i media

'Paulson's book has laid the groundwork for a re-evaluation of the philosophical and political ideas that we have inherited from the Roman world.' David Sedley, Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy, University of Cambridge

Innehållsförteckning

Part I. The Practice of Voluntas: 1. Forebears of will; 2. Innocence and intent; 3. Cartographies of power; 4. An economy of goodwill; 5. Voluntas populi: the will of the people; Part II. The philosophy of voluntas: 6. Willpower; 7. Free will and the forum; 8. The fourfold self.