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The Tyranny of Reason in the World of the Polis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Arlene W. Saxonhouse
Arlene W. Saxonhouse*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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Abstract

The modern language of tyranny has distorted the significance of the Greek term tyrannos. In ancient Greek the term was accorded to the new ruler in the city, one whose legitimacy did not reside in his bonds to the ancient rulers and ancient families. Tyranny thus suggested a freedom from the past. Reason, as the Greeks understood it, also entailed a breaking away from the physical world. Reason and tyranny thus work together as expressions of freedom, but it is a freedom that in its transcendence of boundaries leads to tragedy. An examination of Sophocles' Oedipus draws out both the glory and the failure of the individual attempt of the political actor to rise above the historical particular and the mere body to build a world where reason alone is power.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 82 , Issue 4 , December 1988 , pp. 1261 - 1275
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1988

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