Political Polupragmones: Busybody Athenians, Meddlesome Citizenship, and Epistemic Democracy in Classical Athens

Author

Harry D. Rube, Bowdoin CollegeFollow

Year of Graduation

2016

Level of Access

Open Access Thesis

Embargo Period

5-23-2016

Department or Program

Classics

First Advisor

Robert Sobak

Abstract

The figure of the πολυπράγμων, the overactive, over-engaged, or meddlesome democratic citizen, is a literary trope that emerges in Classical Athenian literature in the 5^th and 4^th centuries B.C. This project seeks to use the πολυπράγμων as an entry point into understanding Athenian attitudes toward citizenship and socially acceptable political behaviors in Athens’ democratic era.

I explore the history and usage of the term πολυπράγμων, and the associated characteristic of πολυπραγμοσύνη (meddlesomeness), and its synonyms and antecedents. I demonstrate that to be labeled πολυπράγμων is a term of social restraint—one is named a πολυπράγμων if they do not “mind their own business.” In 5^th century Athens such an admonition is primarily political. It refers to and demonstrates the existence of a contested definition of what is and what is not acceptable political behavior on behalf of the non-elite citizens of Athens.

Through a reading of Plato’s dialogues and an analysis of other Athenian literary productions describing street-level social and political interactions in the fourth century, I endeavor to demonstrate in the second half of this thesis that the behaviors of social inquisitiveness, over-activity, and the negative characteristics attributed to the πολυπράγμων by contemporary writers such as Plato, could actually have served to increase the common knowledge and cohesiveness of the Athenian city-state. To do this, I consider the πολυπράγμων through the lens of modern scholarship and social science that considers Athens as an “epistemic democracy” concerned with aggregating and employing politically useful information.