Thucydide et Héraclite ne sont pas des auteurs qu’on associe communément. Le but ici est double : examiner les rapprochements textuels entre un ensemble de fragments d’Héraclite et certains passages de Thucydide ; et proposer une hypothèse sur la nature de cette proximité. Par l’application d’une nouvelle forme de raison critique à une réalité perçue comme fondamentalement chaotique et contradictoire s’élabore le terreau commun à une forme de réalisme politique similaire. Il s’avère alors que le réalisme de Thucydide permet paradoxalement d’éclairer tout un pan de la pensée d’Héraclite.
This paper intends to confront Plato’s thought on war and enmity in Laws 1 (625c-628e) to those of Thucydides and Heraclitus showing that Clinias’ thesis that the state of perpetual war is the principle of legislation has a deep similarity with some aspects of their political thoughts. Next, I investigate how the refutation by the Athenian Stranger of the place and status of war and conflict at the root of political realism is a key argument in the whole process of the Laws and in the emergence of the platonic meaning of political philosophy.
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