Freedom, Reason, and the Polis, Vol. 24, Part 2

What is the nature of law? Does our obligation to obey the law extend to unjust laws? From what source do lawmakers derive legitimate authority? What principles should guide us in the design of political institutions? These essays by prominent contemporary philosophers explore how these questions were addressed by ancient political thinkers. Classical theories of human nature and their implications for political theory are examined, as is the meaning of freedom and coercion in Plato's thought and his idea that philosophers should be political rulers. Other essays ask what we can learn from ancient thinkers like Aristotle about the principles of constitutional design or the limits of political obligation.

David Keyt has been a member of the philosophy department. of the University of Washington for half a century. While on leave from that post he has taught at UCLA, Cornell, the University of Hong Kong, Princeton and Irvine, and held research appointments at the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin, the Center for Hellenic Studies, the Institute for Advanced Study, and the Social Philosophy and Policy Center. He is the author of Aristotle Politics Books V and VI (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999) and of articles on both ancient and contemporary philosophy. He is co-editor with Fred D. Miller, Jr. of A Companion to Aristotle Politics (Blackwell, 1991).

Fred D. Miller Jr. received a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Washington. Since 1972 he has been a member of the Department of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University. He has had research fellowships at Harvard University, the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Princeton University, jesus College at Oxford, at at the Centre for Philosophy and Public Affairs (University of St. Andrews. His book Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle's Politics was published by Oxford University Press in 1995. He is the editor (with David Keyt) of A Companion to Aristotle's Politics, published by Blackwell in 1991, and the editor of A History of the Philosophy of Law from the Ancient Greeks to the Seventeenth Century, forthcoming from Kluwer in 2007.