Xenophon's Philosophic Odyssey: On the Anabasis and Plato's Republic

Jacob Howland

American Political Science Review, 2000, vol. 94, issue 4, 875-889

Abstract: Xenophon's Anabasis, a military adventure interwoven with a story of philosophical self-discovery, is a companion piece to Plato's Republic. The Anabasis takes up in deed the two great political problems treated in speech in the Republic, namely, how a just community can come into being and how philosophy and political power may be brought to coincide. In addressing the first of these problems, Xenophon makes explicit a lesson about the limits of politics that is implicit in the Republic. He speaks to the second problem by clarifying the essential role of philosophical erôs in his emergence, at the moment of crisis, as the founder and leader of a well-ordered community. Xenophon‘s self-presentation in the Anabasis, which makes clear his debt to Socrates, illuminates the nature of philosophical courage as well as the saving integrity of the philosophical soul.

Date: 2000
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