Family and Community in Greek Political Thought: The Tragedy of Philia

FAIN: FT-52688-04

Paul Walter Ludwig
St. John's College, Main Campus (Annapolis, MD 21401-1687)

My project studies the ancient Greek word and concept philia: the nonerotic love between family members and friends. I focus on philia as a bond of political association in Greek philosophy, drama, and historiography. In particular, I examine political and theoretical attempts to use the family (and familial love) as a model for the political community. At their most utopian, these attempts envisioned transforming the community into one great household that would bind citizens together with ties of philia. I attempt to assess the pros and cons of philia as a bond of political association in a variety of classical Greek discourses. To correct what I see as a lacuna in the scholarly literature, I focus largely on examples of dysfunctional philia.