Corrupting Youth : : Political Education, Democratic Culture, and Political Theory / / J. Peter Euben.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press eBook-Package Archive 1927-1999
• VerfasserIn: Euben, J. Peter,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [1997]; ©1998
• Year of Publication: 1997
• Edition: Course Book
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (272 p.)

In Corrupting Youth, Peter Euben explores the affinities between Socratic philosophy and Athenian democratic culture as a way to think about issues of politics and education, both ancient and modern. The book moves skillfully between antiquity and the present, from ancient to contemporary political theory, and from Athenian to American democracy. It draws together important recent work by political theorists with the views of classical scholars in ways that shine new light on significant theoretical debates such as those over discourse ethics, rational choice, and political realism, and on political issues such as school vouchers and education reform. Euben not only argues for the generative capacity of classical texts and Athenian political thought, he demonstrates it by thinking with them to provide a framework for reflecting more deeply about socially divisive issues such as the war over the canon and the "politicization" of the university. Drawing on Aristophanes' Clouds, Sophocles' Antigone and Oedipus Tyrannos, and Plato's Apology of Socrates, Gorgias, and Protagoras, Euben develops a view of democratic political education. Arguing that Athenian democratic practices constituted a tradition of accountability and self-critique that Socrates expanded into a way of doing philosophy, Euben suggests a necessary reciprocity between political philosophy and radical democracy. By asking whether we can or should take "Socrates" out of the academy and put him back in front of a wider audience, Euben argues for anchoring contemporary higher education in appreciative yet skeptical encounter with the dramatic figure in Plato's dialogues.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Chapter I. Imploding the Canon: The Reform of Education and the War over Culture -- Chapter II. Corrupting Socrates -- Chapter III. The Battle of Salamis and the Origins of Political Theory -- Chapter IV. Democratic Accountability and Socratic Dialectic -- Chapter V. When There Are Gray Skies: Aristophanes' Clouds and the Political Education of Democratic Citizens -- Chapter VI. Antigone and the Languages of Politics -- Chapter VII. Oedipean Complexities and Political Science: Tragedy and the Search for Knowledge -- Chapter VIII. The Gorgias, Socratic Dialectic, and the Education of Democratic Citizens -- Chapter IX. The Protagoras and the Political Education of Democratic Citizens -- Index