Ancient Greek Rhetorical Speeches as a Source of Political Realism Idea

Abstract

From the perspective of the history of political and legal doctrines, the dichotomous way of looking at actuality through the prism of the struggle between realism and idealism is one of the classical approaches to social sciences. The basic source of knowledge for the political realism idea is the achievements of politicians, historians and philosophers, who are often at the same time creators of political and legal thought. In the research on political realism, however, one should, based on subsidiarity, also use the message found in the rhetorical speeches, recorded and preserved until today. Taking these reservations into account, the subject of the article is to analyze – in a rhetorical perspective – the classical political realism, with the simultaneous narrowing of the research field to international relations. The subject of the analysis are selected ancient Greek rhetorical speeches by authors such as Cleon, Diodotus, Pericles, Demosthenes, Andocides, Isocrates and Lysias.