Overview

Is it possible to reconcile human excellence with a dedication to equality? Equality and Excellence in Ancient and Modern Political Philosophy explores the meaning, conflict, and potential resolution of the tension between human excellence and equality in the thought of philosophers from Greek antiquity to modern times. Each chapter is devoted to the thought of a particular thinker, and the chapters are arranged chronologically. Interpretations offered here rely on close readings of the major texts by critically important thinkers from Plato, Aristotle and Xenophon in antiquity to a broad range of modern thinkers from Spinoza to Rawls.

Full Product Details

Author:   Steven Frankel ,  John Ray
Publisher:   State University of New York Press
Imprint:   State University of New York Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.227kg
ISBN:  

9781438492780

ISBN 10:   1438492782
Pages:   264
Publication Date:   01 April 2023
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction Steven Frankel and John Ray 1. Pursuing the Forms: Equality and Excellence in Plato’s Republic and Symposium Stephanie A. Nelson 2. Equality and Excellence in the Education of Cyrus Nathan Tarcov 3. Splendid Equality in the Nicomachean Ethics: Munificence Ann Charney Colmo 4. How Excellence Bows to Equality in Aristotle’s Politics Mary P. Nichols 5. First among Equals: Philosophers, Statesmen, and Citizens in Spinoza’s Democracy Steven Frankel 6. Excellence and Equality in Fénelon’s Telemachus Ryan Patrick Hanley 7. The Seductive Dangers of Equality and Excellence: The Moderating Wisdom of Montesquieu’s Science of Ovidian Metamorphosis Frank J. Rohmer 8. Equality and Excellence in Rousseau’s Emile, Book III Pamela K. Jensen 9. Hegel’s Evaluation of Liberalism: Equality of Rights without Human Excellence Andrea E. Ray 10. Democracy, Nobility, and Freedom: The Political and Moral Aesthetics of Tocqueville John C. Koritansky 11. Does Kierkegaard Have a Concept of Excellence? Christopher A. Colmo 12. Nietzsche: The Indignity of Equality Timothy Sean Quinn 13. The Good and the Excellent: John Rawls’s Egalitarian Liberalism Michael Zuckert Bibliography Contributors Index

Reviews

This comprehensive volume combines good writing, a sensitivity to texts leavened by an appreciation of enduring human questions, and an admirable resistance to ideological readings of the Western political tradition. Connecting philosophical and scholarly concerns to common life, it shines impressive light on the persistent tensions, affinities, and competing demands of equality and excellence in human nature and in decent and free societies. - Daniel J. Mahoney, author of The Idol of Our Age: How the Religion of Humanity Subverts Christianity

Author Information

Steven Frankel is Professor of Philosophy at Xavier University. He is coeditor (with Martin D. Yaffe) of Civil Religion in Modern Political Philosophy: Machiavelli to Tocqueville. John Ray is Associate Professor of Political Science at Xavier University. He is coeditor (with Steven Frankel) of French Studies: Literature, Culture and Politics.

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