Cicero Philosophico-Politicus: Glory, Friendship, Utopia

Dutmer, Evan Robert William

doi:https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-ppc9-4h44

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Cicero Philosophico-Politicus: Glory, Friendship, Utopia

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This dissertation is about three of Cicero’s notable projects in ideal theory in his middle and late periods (between roughly 54-43 BCE). It comes during a resurgence in interest in Cicero’s contributions as a philosopher. First, I discuss Cicero’s philosophical account of vera gloria (true glory) in contradistinction to mere fama (fame) in his rhetorical and philosophical works. Second, I present a new philosophical analysis of Cicero’s account of friendship in his dialogue, the Laelius de amicitia. Last, I put forth a new interpretation of Cicero’s philosophical project in the De republica and De legibus (his Republic and Laws), where I advocate a reading on which Cicero’s De rep. and Plato’s Timaeus share commitments to a certain methodological approach—what I call “retrospective ideal theory.” In fact, what further ties each of these papers together is recurrent discussion of this “retrospective ideal theory” in the work of Cicero. Simply stated, retrospective ideal theory is an ideal theory which takes as its models of ideal forms—or puts forward as exemplars—forms which have existed in the past rather than solely forms which could or will exist at some time in the future (or outside of time). In Cicero’s case, this is seen initially by Cicero’s use of Roman examples to illustrate his theoretical points and his use of Roman heroes and history in the setting of his philosophical dialogues. But, as I show here, retrospective ideal theory is a theoretical commitment throughout these three works, too. Cicero gives us reason to think that ideal models which have existed provide us better models on which to plan contemporary personal and political reform. This requires us to change our conception of “ideal”—as we are accustomed to think of ideal political forms (and by “political” I mean here to include the realm of ethics, as Aristotle does) as either not possible in the real world, or only possible in some future moment.

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