Gender and Rhetoric in Plato’s Political Thought

Gender and Rhetoric in Plato’s Thought explores the relation between Plato’s Republic and Laws on the set of issues that the Laws itself marks out as fundamental to the comparison: the unity of the virtues, the role of women, and the place of the family. Plato aims to persuade men to abandon the view of the good life that Greek cities and their laws inculcate as the only life worth living for those who would be real men and not effeminate weaklings. What we can learn about Plato is the importance for him of understanding the nature of persuasion in order to come to terms with gender justice and the apparent plurality of human goods. What we learn from Plato is that to tackle the issues that arise in our new political community of men and women we must comprehend the proper bases and limits of persuasion.

• Contextual but rigorous exploration of the relation between Plato’s Republic and Laws • Expounds Plato’s understanding of the place of rhetoric in politics,and shows how Plato puts this understanding to work • Shows the extent to which ‘what Plato would allow’ is relevant to us today in grappling with very different problems by means of very different institutions

1. Gender and the virtues; 2. Plato’s psychopolitical justifications; 3. Manliness and tyranny; 4. Justice and the ungendered self; 5. The rule of law and the goodness of the city; 6. Patriarchy and philosophy; Conclusion: from Plato back to politics.