Democratic Political Leadership and Education in Thucydides and Plato

<p>In this dissertation, I consider three interrelated questions. First, what would a good democratic leader be like? Second, what sort of education would such a leader require? Third, is such an education even possible? In an attempt to answer these questions, I turn to the ancient Greek political thinkers Thucydides and Plato. In particular, I consult Thucydides’s account of the war between Sparta and Athens and two of Plato’s dialogues, <i>Laches</i> and <i>Alcibiades I</i>, in order to trace out the competing answers which Thucydides and Plato’s Socrates give to the questions I have raised. I conclude that while Thucydides and Socrates consider many of the same themes in their accounts (such as the common good, political speech, self-knowledge, the virtues of statesmanship, and the distinctiveness of democracy), they often treat these themes in different, sometimes even incompatible, fashions. I conclude that the root of many, if not all, of these differences lies in Thucydides’s willing acceptance and Socrates’s insistent rejection of the common sense of ordinary political life.</p>