Democratic Athens as an Experimental System: History and the Project of Political Theory
Josiah Ober
Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics, November (2005)
Abstract
What is a historical case study good for?
Can the political history of classical Athens legitimately be regarded as a case study: an experimental system or exemplary narrative, useful for investigating various aspects of democracy and related phenomena? I hope to show that the answer to that question is yes, but first it seems necessary to pose an analytically prior question: What is the goal of the investigation? What precisely is the use-value of the case? What, in short, is the exemplary narrative supposed to be good for?
Those questions may make a proper historian a bit queasy. She might reasonably ask: Need history be good for something other than historical knowledge itself? The point is that as soon as I say that the historical experience of (e.g.) classical Athens is an experimental system, I seem to have abandoned the historian’s tried and true ground of supposing that it is sufficient to say that Athenian history is worth studying for its own sake. I admit to a personal fondness for this sort of traditional historian’s propriety. So, as a preliminary gesture, let me plant a stake in the ground (in Greek terms: a horos) by saying that I actually do suppose that Athenian history is interesting for its own sake. I will try to advance the argument for the use-value of Athens as an exemplary narrative as far as possible beyond that marker. I may be forced to give some of the ground in front of the stake by the end of the day. But the stake of “Athens interesting for its own sake” is the point behind which I would not retreat without making a desperate stand.
Josiah Ober
Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics, November (2005)
Abstract
What is a historical case study good for?
Can the political history of classical Athens legitimately be regarded as a case study: an experimental system or exemplary narrative, useful for investigating various aspects of democracy and related phenomena? I hope to show that the answer to that question is yes, but first it seems necessary to pose an analytically prior question: What is the goal of the investigation? What precisely is the use-value of the case? What, in short, is the exemplary narrative supposed to be good for?
Those questions may make a proper historian a bit queasy. She might reasonably ask: Need history be good for something other than historical knowledge itself? The point is that as soon as I say that the historical experience of (e.g.) classical Athens is an experimental system, I seem to have abandoned the historian’s tried and true ground of supposing that it is sufficient to say that Athenian history is worth studying for its own sake. I admit to a personal fondness for this sort of traditional historian’s propriety. So, as a preliminary gesture, let me plant a stake in the ground (in Greek terms: a horos) by saying that I actually do suppose that Athenian history is interesting for its own sake. I will try to advance the argument for the use-value of Athens as an exemplary narrative as far as possible beyond that marker. I may be forced to give some of the ground in front of the stake by the end of the day. But the stake of “Athens interesting for its own sake” is the point behind which I would not retreat without making a desperate stand.
Click here to read this article from the Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics
Sponsored Content