Books by Robert Ballingall
Recovering Political Philosophy Series, Palgrave Macmillan, 2023
Offers an original interpretation of Plato’s "Laws" and a new account of its enduring importance.... more Offers an original interpretation of Plato’s "Laws" and a new account of its enduring importance. I argue that the republican regime conceived in the "Laws" is built on "reverence," an archaic virtue governing emotions of self-assessment—particularly awe and shame. I demonstrate how learning to feel these emotions in the right way, at the right time, and for the right things is the necessary basis for the rule of law conceived in the dialogue. The "Laws" remains surprisingly neglected in the scholarly literature, although this is changing. The cynical populisms haunting liberal democracies are focusing new attention on the “characterological” basis of constitutional government and Plato’s "Laws" remains an indispensable resource on this question, especially when we attend to the theme of reverence at its core.
Papers by Robert Ballingall
The Blackwell Companion to Cities in the Greco-Roman World, eds. Andries Zuiderhoek & Miko Flohr , 2024
Why was the polis so very good to think with? What if anything distinguishes the political though... more Why was the polis so very good to think with? What if anything distinguishes the political thought that it inspired? The usual answer points to its utopianism. Greek political thought seems especially preoccupied with the lofty ends implied by ordinary politics, especially as these culminate in the virtues. Yet this characterization, while true perhaps in the abstract, misses more basic—and in some ways more illuminating—features of Greek political thinking. I focus in particular on the emergence of the nomos/phusis distinction and on how the visibility in the polis of political conventions as conventions inspired uniquely critical forms of public discourse, ranging from sophistic debunking to Socratic inquiry. I suggest that the preoccupation with politeia or “political regime” is best understood in this light. In both theory and practice, the Greeks were exceptionally aware of the profound stakes bound up in the question of who rules and in accordance with what spirit. I conclude by likewise considering the remarkable plasticity with which Greek thinkers handled questions of piety and the nature of the gods.
Brill's Companion to the Legacy of Greek Political Thought, eds. David Carter, Rachel Foxley, and Liz Sawyer , 2024
Plato wrote dramas, not treatises, and he did not limit his works to rationalistic discourse. Man... more Plato wrote dramas, not treatises, and he did not limit his works to rationalistic discourse. Many of them articulate a strange and enduring mythology whose ultimate purpose is famously enigmatic. This chapter examines the controversial readings of two twentieth-century thinkers who place these literary elements at the centre of their interpretations. Simone Weil and Leo Strauss are seldom discussed in the same context, but their approaches to Plato bear surprising resemblances. These figures shared a hope that the philosophic life according to Plato might be revived, and both see in the mythical and dialogic aspects of Plato's works the key to his understanding of philosophy. Paradoxically, however, it is a testament to that understanding that it inspires radically divergent readings, even or precisely when its relationship to Plato's dramaturgy is appreciated.
Perspectives on Political Science, 2022
Scholars interested in the characterology presupposed by constitutional government have occasiona... more Scholars interested in the characterology presupposed by constitutional government have occasionally turned to Plato's Laws, one of the earliest and most penetrating treatments of the subject. Even so, interpreters have neglected a vital tension that the Laws presents as coeval with lawfulness itself. Through a close reading of the dialogue's opening passages, I argue that the rule of law for Plato is implicated in a certain paradox: it both prohibits and requires the imitation of god. Law cannot safely originate with human beings; yet human beings must involve themselves nonetheless in laying law down. Trustworthy lawgivers must revere the gods while at the same time emulating them, must somehow make law themselves while regarding that very task as beyond their ken. Although the political psychology of lawfulness would therefore seem incoherent, I conclude by surveying reasons for thinking this inference unwarranted.
The European Legacy, 2019
Alexis de Tocqueville is often seen as a champion of personal liberty and human greatness in the ... more Alexis de Tocqueville is often seen as a champion of personal liberty and human greatness in the face of the conformism and mediocrity of the democratic social state. In this light, his vision of “soft despotism” anticipates familiar reservations about state managerialism and political apathy. Yet this picture risks eclipsing one of Tocqueville’s most pregnant ambiguities. Though deeply concerned by threats to liberty posed by modern mass society, Tocqueville is alive to the special need such societies have of authority, particularly moral authority, and hence of restraints to liberty itself. The freedom to decide how best to lead one’s life must become self-destructive, he contends, without a corresponding inclination to look outside oneself for prudent leadership and counsel. This paper elucidates the reasoning behind this paradoxical position. I argue that beneath the need of authority Tocqueville detects an enduring human problem, though one that takes a unique and even insuperable form under modern egalitarianism. I suggest that dwelling on this problem promises to enrich debates about the cynical nativism now menacing liberal democracies. Its origins are to be found less in economic upheaval and communication technology run amok than in the decay of civil religion and civic virtue, a trend that runs very much with the grain of democratic society and whose progress may be irrevocable.
Classical Rationalism and the Politics of Europe (ed. Ann Ward), 2017
Plato is usually considered a critic of poetry and of tragedy in particular. In the Laws, however... more Plato is usually considered a critic of poetry and of tragedy in particular. In the Laws, however, we read of a city-in-speech whose “whole regime is constructed as the imitation of the most beautiful and best way of life, which we at least assert to be really the truest tragedy” (817b3-5). This chapter takes up the apparent rehabilitation of tragedy in the Laws and argues that it is in fact consistent with the critique of tragedy in the Republic. Although the Athenian stranger appears to praise the regime that he conceives in calling it a tragedy, I show that he quietly means to insult it. The regime is a tragedy, he implies, because it merely—and hence regrettably—imitates the way of life that is best and truly serious. Attending to key passages that Plato dramatically connects with 817a-d, I argue that the reasons adduced for this shortcoming are the very ones responsible for tragedy’s enduring appeal. Like Socrates in the Republic, the Athenian in the Laws counsels the censorship of tragic lamentations. But his arguments suggest that the allure of tragedy is ineradicable and the cause of the unfortunate necessities to which politics must resort even or precisely at its best.
History of Political Thought, 2016
Political theorists remain divided on the question of Plato's utopianism. Some associate his dial... more Political theorists remain divided on the question of Plato's utopianism. Some associate his dialogues with an uncompromising vision of the human good, one that Plato is thought to build into blueprints that he would have humanity implement as far as possible. Others read Plato as a brilliant critic of utopian thinking and insist that his blueprints are not to be understood as normative paradigms at all, but rather as self-destructive parodies. This article develops a third approach to Plato's utopianism by turning to the treatment of 'imitation' (mimÂsis) in the Laws. I argue that the Laws requires a distinction between three ways in which an imitation might resemble its 'model' (paradeigma). Attending to this distinction adds credence to the view that, for Plato, the good in speech must be 'revised' in order to find satisfactory expression in human deeds.
Journal of Intellectual History & Political Thought, 2012
While C. B. Macpherson's study in the history of political thought continues to exercise scholars... more While C. B. Macpherson's study in the history of political thought continues to exercise scholars, his later work in normative democratic theory has undeservedly received scant attention. This paper examines the conceptual centrepiece of Macpherson's normative theory, the so-called 'developmental concept of power', and addresses several apparent problems to which its introduction gives rise. While Macpherson's theory provides the philosophical resources to respond to most of these problems, I argue that the developmental concept remains beset by what I call the problem of ethical authority.
Book Reviews by Robert Ballingall
Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought, 2023
on his deep learning to elucidate the overall logic of the dialogue and to clarify its place with... more on his deep learning to elucidate the overall logic of the dialogue and to clarify its place within millennia of philosophical reflection. Plato's Second Republic concludes with fifty-two pages of dense (and very often instructive) notes as well as an extensive bibliography that students of the Laws will want to consult carefully, including as it does works of French, German, and Italian scholars seldom cited in the anglophone literature. Above all, the book brims with the kind of provocative, ingenious readings for which Laks is justly famous among readers of the Laws. This new 'essay' will command the attention of such readers for years to come.
Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek Political Thought, 2019
History of Political Thought, 2014
Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek Political Thought, 2013
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Books by Robert Ballingall
Papers by Robert Ballingall
Book Reviews by Robert Ballingall