Plato's Revenge: Politics in the Age of Ecology

"What Ophuls does in Plato's Revenge is what needs to be done more often but is rarely even attempted. The study of political philosophy in universities is primarily about studying the classic texts and assessing them but not about actually updating and re-inventing political philosophy. This book should encourage others to make similarly brave attempts to rethink how present and future societies might be organized given the array of environmental and sustainability challenges that we face."--Robert Paehlke, Professor Emeritus of Environmental and Resource Studies, Trent University; author of Democracy's Dilemma:
Environment, Social Equity, and the Global Economy

"Ophuls takes us on a wide-ranging review of history, philosophy,
science, and political economy in search of natural law and objective value by which to replenish the 'lode of fossil virtue and belief' inherited from the premodern era and depleted by modern nihilism. A worthy contribution."--Herman E. Daly, Professor Emeritus, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland

For decades, William Ophuls has been among the world's most original thinkers about the implications of our global ecological crisis for freedom, democracy, and political order. In Plato's Revenge, he goes to the essence of this crisis: the deep, tacit, and widespread beliefs that nature and society are nothing more than machines, that the state should play no role in cultivating citizens' virtue, and that self-interested individuals should rely solely on reason to guide their lives. Ophuls weaves together the ideas of some of history's greatest thinkers to argue that humankind's future lies in small, simple republics that cultivate their citizens' virtue through natural law. In doing so, he shreds conventional wisdom and invigorates our conversation about the kind of world we intend our grandchildren to inherit.—Thomas Homer-Dixon, University of Waterloo, author of The Upside of Down:Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization

Ophuls takes us on a wide-ranging review of history, philosophy, science, and political economy in search of natural law and objective value by which to replenish the 'lode of fossil virtue and belief' inherited from the premodern era and depleted by modern nihilism. A worthy contribution.

What Ophuls does in Plato's Revenge is what needs to be done more often but is rarely even attempted. The study of political philosophy in universities is primarily about studying the classic texts and assessing them but not about actually updating and re-inventing political philosophy. This book should encourage others to make similarly brave attempts to rethink how present and future societies might be organized given the array of environmental and sustainability challenges that we face.

For decades, William Ophuls has been among the world's most original thinkers about the implications of our global ecological crisis for freedom, democracy, and political order. In Plato's Revenge, he goes to the essence of this crisis: the deep, tacit, and widespread beliefs that nature and society are nothing more than machines, that the state should play no role in cultivating citizens' virtue, and that self-interested individuals should rely solely on reason to guide their lives. Ophuls weaves together the ideas of some of history's greatest thinkers to argue that humankind's future lies in small, simple republics that cultivate their citizens' virtue through natural law. In doing so, he shreds conventional wisdom and invigorates our conversation about the kind of world we intend our grandchildren to inherit.

"For decades, William Ophuls has been among the world's most original thinkers about the implications of our global ecological crisis for freedom,
democracy, and political order. In Plato's Revenge, he goes to the essence of this crisis: the deep, tacit, and widespread beliefs that nature and society are nothing more than machines, that the state should play no role in cultivating citizens' virtue, and that self-interested individuals should rely solely on reason to guide their lives. Ophuls weaves together the ideas of some of history's greatest thinkers to argue that humankind's future lies in small, simple republics that cultivate their citizens' virtue through natural law. In doing so, he shreds conventional wisdom and invigorates our conversation about the kind of world we intend our grandchildren to inherit."--Thomas Homer-Dixon, University of Waterloo, author of The Upside of Down:Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization