The paper borrows from recent work by classicists on satyr play and demonstrates significant parallels between Plato’s Republic and the structure, theme and stereotypical contents that characterize this newly studied genre of ancient Greek drama. Like satyr play, the Republic includes repeated passages where metatheatricality can reverse the meaning. The frequent occurrence of all the stereotypical elements of satyr play in Plato’s Republic also suggests to readers that they should be responding to Socrates’ narration as they would to a satyr (...) play, again reversing meaning by communicating a set of literary expectations to Plato’s readers over the heads of Socrates’ interlocutors. As is frequently the case with satyr play, the political purpose of the drama is the critique of tyrannical government. The need for a systematically ironic interpretation of the dialogue is raised. (shrink)

Although the concept of Rule of Law has been revived and developed vigorously by mid‐twentieth century conservative political theorists, contemporary legal positivists have not been impressed. The author reviews this confrontation, outlines the logic for a strong theory of Rule of Law, and surveys the leading attempts to provide compelling grounds for such a theory.

The widely recognized impasse in legal theory, which requires an account of law as “both a social fact and a framework of reasons for action” has been most interestingly addressed in recent years by writers characterizing law as convention in the sense of a solution to a game theoretical “coordination problem.” As critics have neutralized most of these proposals, the author advances an account of conventionalism, drawing on economic and sociological theory, which he claims makes the bridge between positivist and (...) naturalist theories of law without compromising the basic insights of either. The result is a unified theory of law, politics and society. (shrink)

For the first time in three centuries, this book brings back into print three discourses now confirmed to have been written by the young Thomas Hobbes. Their contents may well lead to a resolution of the long-standing controversy surrounding Hobbes's early influences and the subsequent development of his thought. The volume begins with the recent history of the discourses, first published as part of the anonymous seventeenth-century work, _Horae Subsecivae_. Drawing upon both internal evidence and external confirmation afforded by new (...) statistical "wordprinting" techniques, the editors present a compelling case for Hobbes's authorship. Saxonhouse and Reynolds present the complete texts of the discourse with full annotations and modernized spellings. These are followed by a lengthy essay analyzing the pieces' significance for Hobbes's intellectual development and modern political thought more generally. The discourses provide the strongest evidence to date for the profound influences of Bacon and Machiavelli on the young Hobbes, and they add a new dimension to the much-debated impact of the scientific method on his thought. The book also contains both introductory and in-depth explanations of statistical "wordprinting.". (shrink)

For the first time in three centuries, this book brings back into print three discourses now confirmed to have been written by the young Thomas Hobbes. Their contents may well lead to a resolution of the long-standing controversy surrounding Hobbes's early influences and the subsequent development of his thought. The volume begins with the recent history of the discourses, first published as part of the anonymous seventeenth-century work, _Horae Subsecivae_. Drawing upon both internal evidence and external confirmation afforded by new (...) statistical "wordprinting" techniques, the editors present a compelling case for Hobbes's authorship. Saxonhouse and Reynolds present the complete texts of the discourse with full annotations and modernized spellings. These are followed by a lengthy essay analyzing the pieces' significance for Hobbes's intellectual development and modern political thought more generally. The discourses provide the strongest evidence to date for the profound influences of Bacon and Machiavelli on the young Hobbes, and they add a new dimension to the much-debated impact of the scientific method on his thought. The book also contains both introductory and in-depth explanations of statistical "wordprinting.". (shrink)