No.260 Seminar ： Philosophical Radicals and The Reception of Ancient Greece: Democracy, Socrates and Empire
- Minami Murata Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Economics
- 2024/12/17 4:45pm
- Research Administration Building, Basement Floor (Conference Rooms 1&2)
- English
- Onsite
Summary
Philosophical Radicals, who widely engaged in political and social reform based on utilitarianism developed by Jeremy Bentham, were active authors, politicians, political economists and philosophers from the late 18th to the mid 19th century England. Some of them, particularly George Grote and John Stuart Mill, were deeply influenced by ancient Greek literature. They were even interestingly called “Greece-intoxicated” men by their contemporaries. Why did the two radicals need to look back to the past to change the present? The talk will explore it by analyzing the reception of antiquity in terms of their literature, History of Greece (1846-56) and Plato, and the Other Companions of Sokrates (1865), published by Grote and several critical articles on these works written by Mill from 1846 to 1866 by comparing with discourses presented by their opponents who were described as “conservatives”. Although there are few disagreements between Grote and Mill, the two praised democratic Athens around B. C. 450 and the Socratic method. For the Hakubi project, I will also investigate their Greek reception related to the discussion on the British Empire. Overall, I will conclude that their interpretations reflect the liberal thought against Tory or Neoplatonists.