| This dissertation explores the relationship between science and the pursuit of knowledge on the one hand and civic character and virtue on the other, through a comparison of the Platonic critique of the sophists in Plato's Protagoras to Francis Bacon's and Thomas Hobbes' rejection of ancient science founded on Greek philosophy.;The first part of the dissertation is an exegesis of Plato's Protagoras which argues that the Protagoras is extended meditation on the grounds for a public teaching of politics which promotes genuine civic virtue and checks political hubris. Though the discussion in the dialogue ends with a highly unsatisfactory doctrine in the hedonistic calculus, it points to the need for the discussions in a surprising number of dialogues, including the Apology, Gorgias, Phaedrus, Symposium, Republic and Laws among others. I argue accordingly that the Protagoras should be considered among the most central of Plato's political dialogues.;The second part of the dissertation examines Sir Francis Bacon's refutation of ancient science, grounded on Greek science and aims to show that his refutation is meant to ground a new active science, while leaving space for traditional architectonic political philosophy. This argument is made by showing that Bacon meets at least part of the Platonic critique of the sophists, but on different grounds than Platonic philosophy.;The final part of the dissertation examines the work of Thomas Hobbes to show that Hobbes argues from the basis of the Baconian rejection of Greek philosophy to establish his Leviathan on some of the same grounds from which Protagoras' argued.;The dissertation as a whole aims to add to the debates around the meaning of both modern natural science and democratic politics in the post-modern context. It argues that by reading the early moderns as careful readers of the ancients we become aware of the limits of the modern project and therefore become better, more self-conscious moderns. |
