Gong Wall Gate (An Outline of Plato's Political Philosophy)

Author: Cheng Zhimin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-10-01
Features: Political philosophy is a rather ambiguous concept today, and its position as an academic discipline in contemporary university departments is also somewhat awkward. For example, should political philosophy belong to the Department of Philosophy or the Department of Political Science? Should it be housed in the Law School or the College of Arts and Sciences? We can perhaps only answer that political philosophy cannot be confined to a single discipline, nor can it be simplified into a single major, because, by its very nature, political philosophy is an interdisciplinary field. Political philosophy is an interdisciplinary field. Its topics range from morality, law, religion, customs, and even communities, nations, states, and their economic distribution methods, to gender, friendship, marriage, family, parenting, education, and even literary and artistic expressions. Therefore, political philosophy possesses a characteristic that is not confined by modern academic divisions. Ultimately, political philosophy is a concentrated expression of self-awareness and self-reflection within a political community. Chinese scholars at the dawn of the 21st century are fostering a new cultural consciousness, which will inevitably first manifest as inquiries into political philosophy. This series, "Political Philosophy Library," aims to provide a starting point for political philosophy research in China with a modest academic approach, promoting the gradual maturation of Chinese political philosophy. This book is one of the works in the "Political Philosophy Library" edited by Gan Yang and Liu Xiaofeng. The author has chosen the direction of literature and classical political philosophy to more comprehensively construct the true nature of Plato's thought. Although the dimensions of literature and classical political philosophy are not the only possible interpretive approaches, they are undoubtedly a "better" way, at least an important aspect that should not be forgotten.