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Tracing practical reason from its origins to its modern and contemporary permutations
The Greek discovery of practical reason, as the skilled performance of strategic thinking in public and private affairs, was an intellectual breakthrough that remains both a feature of and a bug in our modern world. Countering arguments that rational choice-making is a contingent product of modernity, The Greeks and the Rational traces the long history of theorizing rationality back to ancient Greece.
In this book, Josiah Ober explores how ancient Greek sophists, historians, and philosophers developed sophisticated and systematic ideas about practical reason. At the same time, they recognized its limits—that not every decision can be reduced to mechanistic calculations of optimal outcomes. Ober finds contemporary echoes of this tradition in the application of game theory to political science, economics, and business management. The Greeks and the Rational offers a striking revisionist history with widespread implications for the study of ancient Greek civilization, the history of thought, and human rationality itself.
Contents
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations and Classical References
Introduction: Discovering Practical Reason
1. Gyges' Choice: Rationality and Visibility
2. Glaucon's Dilemma: Origins of Social Order
3. Deioces' Ultimatum: How to Choose a Ruler
4. Solon's Bargain: Self-Enforcing Constitutional Order
5. Melos' Prospect: Limits of Interstate Rationality
6. Socrates' Critique: Problems for Democratic Rationality
7. Cephalus' Expertise: Economic Rationality
8. Conclusions: Utility and Eudaimonia
Epilogue
Appendix: Probability, Risk, and Likelihood
Works Cited
Index
