Volume 2, Issue 3, 2015
Scott Aikin
Pages 275-285
Citizen Skeptic: Cicero’s Academic Republicanism
The skeptical challenge to politics is that if knowledge is in short supply and it is a condition for the proper use of political power, then there is very little just politics. Cicero’s Republicanism is posed as a program for political legitimacy wherein both citizens and their states are far from ideal. The result is a form of what is termed negative conservatism, which shows political gridlock in a more positive light.