IMAGINING
OTHER
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY – PART 1
WEEK 1: INTRODUCTION
Links: Imagining Other
Index Page
Summary:
1. Introduction to
philosophy:
(a) What is philosophy? Love of knowledge – philos + sophos.
(b) What does philosophy do? ‘Deep’,
fundamental questions. Convincing (logical) answers. Grounded knowledge. Agreed
meanings of concepts and words.
(c) Other kinds of
knowledge. Science (evidence-based). Faith?
(d) Branches of
philosophy. Logic, metaphysics, ethics, epistemology. ‘Applied
philosophy’ – philosophy of science/history/ etc and of politics.
2. What is political philosophy? The
application of philosophical methods to understanding politics and the study of
politics. Normative (to do with value-judgements).
3. What is politics concerned with (that
philosophers can ask questions about)?
(i) Key concepts: Authority,
power, legitimacy; justice, fairness; law, rules, obedience and disobedience;
democracy, and other types of political system; freedom; equality; rights; the
collective vs. the individual.
(ii) The political
community (polis).
4. What kind of questions do political philosophers ask?
(a) Analytical: what do we
mean by...? How do we classify?
(b) normative: values –
freedom vs. equality etc, ethical questions – e.g. why should I obey?
(c) arguments: rigorous, logical,
consistent, truthful, well-grounded, justified.
5. What, in general, do
political philosophers ask about? Human nature;
nature and origins and purpose of political communities.
6. Approaches to
political philosophy. Comparisons and contrasts; ideology; thematic;
chronological; classifying political
thinkers; ‘models’.
NOTES.
1. Introduction to
philosophy:
(a) What is philosophy?
The
study of what we know and how we know it. From: philos: love (*) [note at end]; sophos:
knowledge or wisdom.
(b) What does philosophy do?
(i)
It asks questions in order to explain (understand) the nature, origins and purpose of everything around us (and inside
us!) – to push these questions as far as they can go, so as to find the most convincing “ultimate” or
“final” answers, to ask the “deepest” questions.
(ii)
It aims to “ground” our knowledge and
explanations in logic (reasoning) as well as in evidence.
(iii)
To clarify concepts – and the meaning of
words.
At
the beginning of the 20th century, philosophers argued that much, if
not all, philosophy really only amounted to discussion of the meanings of
words. If there was a disagreement between two thinkers, it probably meant that
they were using words differently, or hadn’t agreed to their definition.
(Logical positivism).
Philosophy
has not given up as a result of this point of view – in fact logical positivism
is now generally rejected, but philosophers always have to pay a lot of
attention to the meaning of words. (Starting with Socrates, in Plato’s
Republic: What is justice? And through to Isaiah
(c) Other kinds of
knowledge:
(i)
Science.
Note
that whilst philosophers make use of
facts and evidence, (that is, information gathered by observation and
experiment – by scientists) they are more concerned with the meaning of and explanations for the
facts. Science is empirical – it
collects evidence, describes and classifies it. Political science is, then, a field of study in its own right, and
to some extent distinct from political philosophy. Political science seeks to
understand, and ask questions about e.g.: voting patterns, political
representation, parties and their structures and policies – based on evidence
(statistics, behavioural studies etc).
(ii)
Faith… revelation etc – are these valid kinds of knowledge?
(d) Branches of
philosophy:
(i)
Logic… metaphysics… ethics… epistemology.
(ii)
We can study each of these, but also, philosophy can be applied to other disciplines/areas of knowledge:
-
philosophy of science, of education, of social sciences etc.
-
hence:
2. Political
Philosophy: the application of
philosophical methods to understanding politics and the study of politics. The kinds of
questions that philosophers ask, and the methods philosophers use, are applied
to aspects of politics.
Political
philosophy - like ethics, but unlike epistemology or logic - is sometimes normative
that is, it asks “should”- or “ought”- type questions; it is concerned with value-judgements
(see further below).
3. What is politics concerned with (that
philosophers can ask questions about)?
(i) Key concepts:
Authority
and power (– what’s the difference? Legitimacy?)
Justice,
fairness (– how do we decide what is fair or just?)
Law,
rules, obedience and disobedience (– is it ever right to disobey the law?)
Democracy,
and other types of political system (how do we know when we have democracy?
Democracy means “power to the people” – but who are “the people”?)
Freedom
(freedom from or freedom to…?)
Equality
(of opportunity or outcome?)
Rights
(what are rights? Who should have them?)
The
collective vs. the individual (how to balance the needs and well-being of the
two).
(ii) Central issue: the
political community:
Note
that the word “politics” originated
from the way communities were organised in ancient/classical
4. Categorising the kind of questions that political
philosophers ask:
(a)
Analytical, conceptual questions.
“What do we mean by (justice, democracy etc)?”
Also such questions as: how do we classify different political
systems (aristocracy, oligarchy, democracy etc)?
(b)
Normative questions. In other words
questions about what is ethical -
best, or right, and about values.
“Whom or what should I obey?” “Why do we obey the
law?”
“Is freedom more important than equality?”
Is democracy better than dictatorship?
(c)
And, of course, they always ask: is such
and such an argument rigorous, logical, consistent, truthful, well-grounded,
justified… etc.
5. What else do
political philosophers ask about?
(a)
Since political philosophy is seeking to understand the way people interact in
a political environment, it is inevitably also concerned with questions of “human nature” – many political
philosophers start from a set of assumptions (that they try to prove are
accurate accounts) about human nature: Hobbes believed we all seek to control others; Locke that we have a
basic right to property; Rousseau
that we are “feeling” beings before
we are thinking beings.
(b)
What are political communities, how are
they organised, and why are they
set up in the way that they are?
The
“other side” to the relationship between people and the political environment
is of course the way that politics is organised – you could say that
consciously arranged political organisations are a feature of human (as
distinct from animal) life: but how did
they originate? What is their purpose?
6. How can we approach
political philosophy?
Comparisons and
Contrasts:
It
is clear that one way to study political philosophy is to compare the ideas of different political philosophers. It is quite
amazing how many differences of opinion there are!
For
example, on the question of “political obedience”:
Anarchists
argue that political leaders either forced
or tricked their subjects into obedience.
Liberal
theorists (Locke and others) argue that at some point we must have agreed to live in a community with
agreed rules etc. (there is therefore a contract
between rulers and ruled). For Locke, the purpose of the political community is
protection of our lives and
property. We obey in order to protect our own property.
For
the ancient Greeks, especially Aristotle, the political community exists to ensure the development of good
citizens. This implies that we have a natural desire to be better
people…
Rousseau
went along with this idea too, though he also (like but well before Marx!)
believed that those who took things from nature and said “this is my property”
were the founders of political life – and they brought along with this war,
conflict, greed and many other evils!! This is one view of the origin of conflict.
Marx
had another (“class conflict”) theory. He believed that all hitherto societies
have been class societies, and we obey because we are obliged to (to earn our
living) and because we have been convinced that the ruling class is acting in
our interests (what some Marxists call “false consciousness”).
Political philosophy and
ideology.
It
should immediately be clear that political philosophers may take up political
positions. Some try to avoid this – Hegel for example had some followers who were
“conservative” and others who were “radical”. However, it is much more common
for the way that a philosopher reasons, and the conclusions they come to, to
“fit” a political “line”. This is a vexed question, and many would draw a
distinction between an ideology
(that is clearly committed) and a philosophy of politics (that is open to being
persuaded otherwise). Nevertheless, I personally take the view that it is
impossible to pretend to be “neutral” when talking about politics – and I shall
not hide my own “line”!! For one thing, it helps you to assess my
interpretation of a thinker if you know my own values and beliefs (which may,
whether I want them to or not, colour my interpretation).
However,
the point about being open to persuasion is crucial: we are not philosophising
but preaching if we are not prepared to listen to others’ points of view, take
them seriously, and question our own.
Approaches to Teaching
Political Philosophy:
One
approach to political philosophy would be to take themes such as “obedience”
and see how different writers approach the themes (a thematic approach). However, the question then arises: what themes
to choose, and in what order (to be systematic)…
Another
approach - my own on this course - is to proceed chronologically.
This
has several advantages:
-
we can relate ideas to their social and political context
-
we can see how one set of ideas grew out of another, or was a reaction against
another
-
it is natural to start with the “founding fathers” – the first people to “think
philosophically about politics”
-
and finally, many others have been down this road, and there are plenty of
books etc on the History of Political Thought!
Classifying Political Thinkers:
However,
to avoid simply going through a (long!) historically arranged list of thinkers,
it helps if we classify these ideas.
Here are some ways of classifying different approaches in political philosophy:
-
a theory can be individualist (the
individual is more important than the state) or collectivist (the individual must suppress their own wants for the
sake of the community)
–
or a more modern variant of this might be that some theorists emphasise the
importance of key individuals and their
personalities, others say that leaders are trapped by their circumstances – the environment. Most
Marxists argue the latter, whilst liberals believe that individual charisma is
crucial.
-
a theory can describe a political system as a machine (a mechanistic model), or as a living organism (organic model) – or we can use another concept such as class, or we can argue that only a historical analysis will help us to
understand the nature of political systems
-
a theory can emphasise consensus, or
conflict
-
if a theory (like Marxism) stresses the fundamental importance of the economy,
production, technology etc, then it is materialist
(in a philosophical sense); if (like Marx’s predecessor Hegel – and Plato was
one of the first philosophers to argue this way) a theory says that the most
important aspect of politics is what people believe, and that the right ideas
can bring about political change, then a theory is (philosophically, again) idealist.
Each of the
philosophers’ approaches is built up into a “model” (or a “theory”).
It
is my view that political philosophers try to build up a systematic set of
arguments and conclusions – models, if you like – about individuals and the
political environment they find themselves in, drawing on the different
approaches described above.
To
understand and make our own judgements on these theories, or models, we need
to: identify any assumptions made about basic questions, e.g. about human
nature, the natural world, ideas etc – what we call premises. Next we need to identify the implications and conclusions
drawn from these premises, noting that the same basic assumption may lead
to different conclusions. And of course we need to test the logic used to see
if we agree that the conclusions do follow!
For
example, we may say that because we believe that all people are in conflict
with each other, we need law to provide security, – the Hobbesian view – or if
we believe, with Locke, that most people are rational, but some people may
cause trouble sometimes, then this is why we need the law. The kind of laws we
need will differ according to which line of argument we follow. With Hobbes we
get an absolutist state where the ruler is almost above the law, and the
individual citizen is pretty powerless. With Locke we get a ruler constrained
by the law, and (in theory at least) citizens who are able to exercise all
their rights freely.
In
political philosophy we “take apart” the starting assumptions (are they
correct?), the way that implications are drawn from the starting assumptions
(is it logical?), and the conclusions reached (is this what we want?).
(*)
the Greeks had seven different words for ‘love’:
agape
– the love of humanity
eros
– romantic and erotic love
ludus
– playful affection, flirting
storge
– love of family
philia
– the love that arises from shared experience
pragma
– enduring love, as between long-established couples
philautia
– love of the self, self-esteem
(Lucy
Mangan, Guardian G2, 19.05.14 http://www.theguardian.com/culture/shortcuts/2014/may/18/southbank-festival-of-love-seven-ways-express-your-passion).
A
History of key thinkers, and key ideas:
I
also believe that it is possible to identify a small number of key ideas that
characterise the writings of each political thinker. These are summarised (this
is not necessarily a comprehensive list!) below.
7. Key ideas of the
philosophers we aim to study:
Plato:
The
truth is knowable
Ideas/Forms
The
analogy of the cave
Justice:
doing what each knows best and not interfering in others activities
Philosopher-rulers
Aristotle:
Man
is a political being, and politics is natural
Telos:
nature of a thing is in its end or purpose; natural to seek "good"
Eudaimonia
(“happiness”) is the highest good
Purpose
of the state is the highest good
Rule
of the "middle" class, and critique of Plato
The
city-state and citizenship: ruling and being ruled
Augustine and Aquinas:
Obedience
to secular rulers - sinfulness of man and need for controls/punishment (esp.
Augustine)
The
"two cities" (Augustine)
Relative
powers of secular and religious spheres
Highest
good is not in this life but beyond - need for faith
Natural
law accessible to reason (esp. Aquinas)
Thomas More:
"Utopia(s)":
Criticism of the times? Ideal
state? An academic exercise? Pointless
exercise?
Conditions
in Utopia: desirable or not?
Planned
societies: desirable? Communism.
Luther, Calvin and the
Reformation:
Freedom
of conscience, individualism and liberalism
Unexpected
consequences of reformation (in both religion and politics)
The
right to resist
Machiavelli:
Stability
in the state is the highest good.
The
ruler need not conform to morality, but might want to appear moral.
Virtu
vs. fortuna.
War.
Hobbes:
The
state of nature: nasty, brutish and short?
Reasoning
as calculating our interests and how to achieve them.
Humans
as insecure and power-seeking.
Natural
laws and rights.
Social
contract.
Locke:
The
state of nature: simply “inconvenient”?
Reason
as a law of nature
Rights
to life, liberty, property
All
are born equal, but inequality is justified
Rousseau:
General
will - what is it? Would it work?
Sovereignty
of the people based on the general will
Rousseau's
critique of existing society ("man is born free, but is everywhere in
chains"): justified?
"Forced
to be free" – Rousseau as liberal or totalitarian?
Romanticism
- feelings/sentiment against reason?
Direct
democracy in small communities
Tom Paine:
Common
sense
Rights
of man
Politics
a simple matter
Society
(‘from our wants’) vs. government (‘from our wickedness’)
Revolution
The
state and welfare
Edmund Burke:
Complexity
of society and government
Change
should be gradual
Benefits
of experience, tradition, custom: “prejudice”
Natural
(‘abstract’) rights are dangerous.