Cicero and the People's Will

by Lex Paulson

Overview

This book tells an overlooked story in the history of the will, a contested idea in both politics and philosophy of mind. For it is Cicero, statesman and philosopher, who gives shape to the notion of will as it would become in Western thought and who invents the idea of 'the will of the people'. In a single word – voluntas – he brings Roman law in contact with Greek ideas, chief among them Plato's claim that a rational elite must rule. When the republic falls to Caesarism, Cicero turns his political argument inward: will is a force to win the virtue in the soul that was lost on the battlefield, the marker of inner freedom in an unfree age. Though his vision of a free republic failed in his time, Cicero's ideal of rational elitism has shaped and fractured the modern world – and Ciceronian creativity may yet save it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781316514115
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	12/08/2022
Pages:	300
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.71(d)

About the Author

Lex Paulson is the Executive Director of the UM6P School of Collective Intelligence (Morocco) and lectures in advocacy at Sciences Po-Paris. Trained in classics and community organizing, he served as mobilization strategist for the campaigns of Barack Obama in 2008 and Emmanuel Macron in 2017. He has led projects in democratic innovation and leadership for UNICEF, the US State Department, the French National Assembly and the National Democratic Institute. He served as legislative counsel in the 111th US Congress (2009-2011), organized on six US presidential campaigns, and has worked to advance democratic innovation at the European Commission and in India, Tunisia, Egypt, Uganda, Senegal, Czech Republic and Ukraine.

Table of Contents

Part I. The Practice of Voluntas: 1. Forebears of will; 2. Innocence and intent; 3. Cartographies of power; 4. An economy of goodwill; 5. Voluntas populi: the will of the people; Part II. The philosophy of voluntas: 6. Willpower; 7. Free will and the forum; 8. The fourfold self.

Editorial Reviews

‘Paulson’s book has laid the groundwork for a re-evaluation of the philosophical and political ideas that we have inherited from the Roman world.’ David Sedley, Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy, University of Cambridge

‘The story of Cicero has much to teach us about our own fragile republics – where their flaws began, and how we can still fix them.’ U.S. Congressman Jim Himes, Connecticut

‘If there is a single abstract noun that has done more to shape the modern world than any other, it may well be the Latin voluntas, which we ordinarily translate as ‘will’. In bold and commanding prose, Lex Paulson recounts this history for us, showing us the fascinating transformations of the concept of will in the work of Cicero. Paulson’s isolation of this key moment, and his expert account of its enduring relevance for our own polities, is nothing short of a revelation.’ Justin E. H. Smith, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Paris

‘Before reading Paulson's book, I knew Cicero as the Illinois burg with one of the world's first airfields, where Al Capone's gang ran rampant. As it turns out, the real Cicero was just as tough and every bit as ingenious.’ Sir Michael Lindsay-Hogg

From the Publisher