What if you could convince everyone you were right?
Political philosophy starts with our ambition - we not only think we're right, we want to prove it, we want converts to our position. We may say we like diversity, but we only appreciate diversity that doesn't seriously challenge us.
Political philosophy starts with our ambition and takes it seriously. Maybe we are right. Maybe everyone should convert to our position. OK then, how should we go about doing this?
Classical Political Philosophy: The Emergence of Dialectic
does rhetoric or science make the most and truest converts?
Pre-Socratic philosophers and Sophists were united in one thing: for both, justice was a matter of human making, or "convention." For the philosophers, if you knew the nature of things, you knew there was no such thing as justice really, but higher goods like happiness that man ought to seek independent of politics.
The Sophists were a bit more blunt. Who cares about the higher goods when you can get whatever you want if you can manipulate justice however? They didn't go out of their way to teach injustice, but simply used the fact that pre-Socratic philosophy (i.e. crude science) undermined the claims of piety and statecraft. That made rhetoric, not truth tied to nature, the ultimate power.
The Socratic response was to formulate truth-seeking speech. Hence, dialectic, where conversation reveals what is true in accounts that are problematic, and what is absolutely false or undesirable.
The Sophists were a bit more blunt. Who cares about the higher goods when you can get whatever you want if you can manipulate justice however? They didn't go out of their way to teach injustice, but simply used the fact that pre-Socratic philosophy (i.e. crude science) undermined the claims of piety and statecraft. That made rhetoric, not truth tied to nature, the ultimate power.
The Socratic response was to formulate truth-seeking speech. Hence, dialectic, where conversation reveals what is true in accounts that are problematic, and what is absolutely false or undesirable.
Readings about Classical Political Philosophy
The primary sources cited are available everywhere. Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Politics are the major works that need to be known, esp. as the former gives you an example of a sophist and his explicit love of tyranny.
- Is Politics Reducible to Rhetoric?
- What contemporary figures depend on Sophistic positions?
- On Epicurus' Letter to Menoeceus
- If you've never studied any philosophy in a pre-Socratic mode before, you might want to look at this. Epicurus is not a pre-Socratic, but puts forth a vision of the universe that depends on philosophy as strictly science and eschews rhetoric.
- On Plato's Crito
- Platonic thought does not reject politics in searching for truth. How is it that Socrates allowed himself to be put to death, and did not work for a political recourse?
- On Polemarchus, from the opening of Plato's Republic
- How packed is every line in Plato's Republic? You be the judge, but here's my take on it.
Medieval and Modern Philosophy
or, the failure of persuasion
So in classical political philosophy, you had two ways of persuading people. You could offer them a comprehensive scientific account, or just bully them with rhetoric.
In some ways, Socratic philosophy was a synthesis of these means. Perhaps that is why it failed - no one ever created Plato's Republic or established the polis that Aristotle speaks of.
The classical critique was utterly powerless in the face of the great monotheistic religions. If one claims God dictates to us commands with universal import, reasoning for a community and deliberating with those around you looks awfully pedestrian and not terribly sensible. After all, others have God on their side. All you have is human reason colored by your local biases.
Thinkers in the West in the Middle Ages don't spend too much time on politics, but wonder about law. What is the nature of the law God has given? Can it be - is it already written - on the hearts of man? If it is, or if there is a way of elaborating sensibly on accepted beliefs, then there is no need for thinking through explicit political arrangements.
The trouble with this argumentation is that it led to people neglecting politics entirely, and allowing despots and thugs to rule unchallenged. Dante in challenging the power of the Church represents the first significant break from this in the West. Machiavelli is the most significant break, as he was willing to say men truly value their property more than their family.
In some ways, Socratic philosophy was a synthesis of these means. Perhaps that is why it failed - no one ever created Plato's Republic or established the polis that Aristotle speaks of.
The classical critique was utterly powerless in the face of the great monotheistic religions. If one claims God dictates to us commands with universal import, reasoning for a community and deliberating with those around you looks awfully pedestrian and not terribly sensible. After all, others have God on their side. All you have is human reason colored by your local biases.
Thinkers in the West in the Middle Ages don't spend too much time on politics, but wonder about law. What is the nature of the law God has given? Can it be - is it already written - on the hearts of man? If it is, or if there is a way of elaborating sensibly on accepted beliefs, then there is no need for thinking through explicit political arrangements.
The trouble with this argumentation is that it led to people neglecting politics entirely, and allowing despots and thugs to rule unchallenged. Dante in challenging the power of the Church represents the first significant break from this in the West. Machiavelli is the most significant break, as he was willing to say men truly value their property more than their family.
The Character of Modern Philosophy...
...is pre-socratic.
Western medieval philosophy is a synthesis of rhetoric and science: God's rhetoric is our science. This mimicry of classical philosophy makes it very astute in places, even as it ignores some glaring issues. Modern philosophy takes on a variety of forms, many of which are dependent on atomistic/materialistic metaphor:
- Comment on Federalist No. 9
- The American Republic is the Enlightenment project fulfilled: wholly secular, it has a "scientific" basis that eschews rhetoric and sees men not in terms of what they say, but their lust for power.
- Comment on the Gettysburg Address
- The trouble with the "scientific" basis was that equality isn't just something demonstrable - it is something we need to believe in.
- Nietzsche on Politics
- Modern political philosophy isn't always about establishing or preserving a given regime. It can focus on how we are shaped by our culture and institutions, and hearken back to Platonic critique in strange ways.
Conclusion - How do you convince people you're right?
three different ways so far
Classical political philosophy gave us rhetoric and science; modern political philosophy gave us science that one could use to shape the world how one wanted (i.e. set up a government where all the branches fight all the time, and the people can be free as a result).
Socratic and Medieval thought tends to shy away from proclaiming any one person right, no matter what their insight into things is. Medieval thought does this because of its reliance on Scripture and Catholic tradition. Socratic thought relies on divinity in a more subtle way.
If you're interested in going beyond the general schema outlined here, the best way to start is to sharpen your reading and rhetorical skills - I blog on poetry a lot, and poetry tends to be able to take control of a person's highest aspirations via eloquence. Hmm. Maybe the sophists were onto something...
Socratic and Medieval thought tends to shy away from proclaiming any one person right, no matter what their insight into things is. Medieval thought does this because of its reliance on Scripture and Catholic tradition. Socratic thought relies on divinity in a more subtle way.
If you're interested in going beyond the general schema outlined here, the best way to start is to sharpen your reading and rhetorical skills - I blog on poetry a lot, and poetry tends to be able to take control of a person's highest aspirations via eloquence. Hmm. Maybe the sophists were onto something...
Rethink.
On Politics, Philosophy, and Poetry
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