Cicero and the People’s Will: Philosophy and Power at the End of the Roman Republic

ISBN-13: 9781316514115 / Angielski / Twarda / 2022 / 300 str.

Morocco) Lex Paulson (Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique

Opis

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.

Recenzje

'Paulson's book provides an incredibly detailed look at Cicero's use of the term voluntas and will be of particular relevance to those in the field of moral philosophy … Recommended.' J. Boersma, Choice

Spis treści

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.