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Review: [untitled]

Author(s): Josiah Ober

Reviewed work(s): The Tragedy of Political Theory: The Road Not Taken by J. Peter Euben

Source: Political Theory, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Aug., 1991), pp. 477-480

Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/191427

Accessed: 27/08/2008 01:26

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478 POLITICALTHEORY/ August 1991

to resolve that conflict in favor of completehomogeneityor utterdiversity.

Justice, therefore,canexist only when agentsrecognizethemselves bothasindividualsandas partof a whole larger han themselves: To thinkandact

justly requiresacknowledgingthe need for a unity of difference (p. 84).Eubenarguesthat boththe contentand the dramatic orm of tragedyunder-

score this teaching. Euben means teaching quite literally; he sees the

dramatistas bothpoet and politicaleducator p. 88). Platomay appear ohavechallengedthis positionby banning poetry(andthusdrama) rom his

utopianRepublic,butEubenargues(pp.274-75) that theRepublicis in fact

analogousto (anddeliberatelycompeteswith) tragedy.Eubensupportshis

tragicreadingby arguing hat heRepublic mplicitlyrecognizesthatphilos-ophy,which hopes for final solutions,embodies a tyrannical mpulse.

The issueof identity of self andpoliticalcommunity) s intimatelybound

up in questionsof samenessand difference. Euben stresses the problemoftheunique,self-created,autonomousagentversus thehomogenized,sociallyconstructed subject. Oedipus, in the beginningof Sophocles' play, is the

paradigmaticelf-createdbeing:He hadarrived nThebes with(hesupposes)no kin, polis, or formaleducationbut was able to gain throne andwife by

solvingthe

mysteryof the

Sphinx. Bythe

play's end, Oedipus' uniquenesshascollapsed into a horrifying, ncestuous sameness and his will to knowl-

edge has ruinedhimself,his family,and hiscommunity.ForEuben,Oedipus'errorcan be summed up in his lust for single, completely adequate,unam-

biguoussolutionsto complex questions.Because of his searchfor closure,becausehe fails tosee thepartiality f his own autonomyand thecontingent,politicalnatureof all solutions,Oedipus s destroyed.LikeOedipus,Socrates

attempted o knowhimself,but unlikeOedipus,Socrates saw that gnoranceis the foundationof knowledge.Euben's Socrates is far from an apolitical

philosopherwhose interest in self-knowledge precludedthe possibilityofmembership n a politicalcommunity.Rather,Socrateswas democraticand

political,althoughin unconventionalways, and Socraticphilosophycan bereadas anattemptto reintegrate ivic and individual ife by reestablishingthe preconditions or politicaldeliberationsand moral discourse (p. 205).Socrates was indeeda critic of the political communityof which he was a

part,but,as Eubenastutelynotes,Socrates' critical tandardsandhisabilityto actas a critic] are derived fromwhat hecriticizes (i.e., the democratic

polis and its politics), a fact Socrates himselfrecognized (p. 230).

Socratesis simultaneouslya citizen (thusa constructed ubject)andan autonomous,self-createdagent. He recognizedthis dichotomy and wisely never reallytriedto resolve it, which, for Euben,unitesSocrateswith the lessons taughtby tragedy.

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480 POLITICALTHEORY August 1991

ginalityand deconstructions valuablebutonly if balancedby a recognition

of the necessity of individuals o act by makingmoralchoices (which willIndeedexcludeotheroptions)as membersof acommunity whichwill indeeddividetheworld into them and us ).Refusingto embracewholeheartedlyor to reject the insights of postmodernism,Euben reasserts the need for

political thinking, education, and action by men and women who mustconfront a world that can no longer be viewed from the perspectiveof

membership n a polis.

NOTE

1. Ringstructure of chapters):1. Introduction

2. Road not taken

3. Justice Aeschylus4. Identity Sophocles5. Membership- Euripides6.

Dismembership-Thucydides7. Politicalidentity-Apology8. Justice Republic

9. Roadhome

Forthe self-consciousreadingof thethreepoliticaltheory extsas a secondtrilogyof tragedies,see p. 240.

-Josiah OberPrincetonUniversity