Plato and democracy’s ambiguous beauty (i) the tension between philosophy and democracy

n 19 (January, 2017) • Archai: As Origens do Pensamento Ocidental

Autor: Alexandre Franco de Sá

Abstract:

Inasmuch as it has in its core the power of the “crowd”, democracy rests on a concept which is directly and explicitly opposed to philosophy: philodoxy. While a well-ordered polis lies, according to Plato, in the power of those who have “the art of ruling”, and philosophy leads to the acquisition of this art, democracy is based on the power of those who are not qualified to rule, i.e. on the power of those who are able to manipulate their opinion (doxa). Starting from the opposition between philosophy and philodoxy, between the “love of knowledge” and the “love of opinion”, the present paper approaches the conception of philosophy as an alternative political project to democracy.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14195/1984-249X_19_1

Texto Completo: http://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/archai/article/view/5761/5215

Palavras-Chave: Democracy,Crowd,Philodoxy,Tyranny,Power

Archai: As Origens do Pensamento Ocidental

Archai: Journal on the origins of Ancient Thought is published three times a year by Archai UNESCO Chair (University of Brasilia, Brazil).

It is published in Brazil (University of Brasília/Annablume) and in Portugal (Coimbra University Press, IUC), both printed and electronic free online access.

All manuscripts will undergo blind-review by peers.

Archai Journal is committed to a speedy and author-friendly review process; Authors can expect to receive notification the editorial decision within four months.

It is indexed by Web of Science - ESCI (Emerging Sources Citation Index), SciELO, European Reference Index for the Humanities and Social Sciences (ERIH Plus), L’Année Philologique, Philosopher‘s Index, DOAJ, Phil Brasil, Latindex, Cengage Learning, Google Schoolar, BASE, Diadorim, PKP Index and Portal de Periódicos da CAPES. It has Impact Factor 5.171 in the Scientific Journal Impact Factor and it got the second best grade (A2) of its field (Philosophy) in the latest Qualis CAPES evaluation.