Political Philosophy I: Syllabus and Themes

• Political Philosophy I is lectured by Jacob Maze, at the Anglo-American University, Department of International Relations and Diplomacy
• Today's plan is to discuss syllabus, define political philosophy, and identify themes in political science, including ancient Greek philosophy

Syllabus Components

• Participation is worth 15%
• Quizzes (x2) are worth 10%
• Podcast is worth 15%
• Pamphlet is worth 10%
• The midterm exam is worth 25%
• The final exam is worth 25%

What is Philosophy

• Philosophy is Greek for “The love of wisdom"
• Philosophy pursues truth and wisdom, and can be applied to most anything
• Three main sentiments of philosophy are pathos, ethos, and logos
• The seven branches of philosophy are Metaphysics, Axiology, Logic, Aesthetics, Epistemology, Ethics, and Political Philosophy
• Critique is a detailed analysis and assessment of something; to evaluate a theory of practice in a detailed and analytic way

What is Politics

• Politics derives from the Ancient Greek city-states, or the polis
• Politics indicates some concern with the organization, regulation, and engagement of a community
• Every city/polis is some sort of community that is constituted for the sake of some good
• All communities aim at some good, and the one that is most authoritative and embraces all the others does so particularly
• The political community is called the city [polis]
• Politeia is an element of the community, as the constitution (guiding rules),

Plato's Republic: Happiness and the Art of Governing

• Forms of government and the common good are about political philosophy
• Political philosophy also concerns pleasure, virtue, nobility, goodness, justice, wealth, persuasion, divinity, and the arts
• Politics serves human happiness generally, and, therefore, political philosophy studies human happiness generally
• Political philosophy's topic is the best way to govern and the best way to live

Limits of the Polis

• What is the political community (polis)?
• What is the "good," or even the "highest good?"
• What is the best organization of that community?
• What is justice, and what makes for a just society?
• What relationships between individuals in a community should exist?
• When is a political community civilized, and when is it uncivilized?
• In what ways are members of a polis equal, and in which ways are they unequal?

What is Political Philosophy?

• Richard Stevens defines it as the free and radical pursuit by unassisted human reason of the truth about the nature of politics
• Politics implies the existence of multiple individuals, as well as how those individuals come to reach collective decisions
• Political philosophy is the pursuit of truth when it comes to issues concerning the polis
• It is a search for justifications for various political ideas, practices and ideologies

Themes in Political Philosophy I

• What defines liberty or freedoms?
• When are politics just, and when are they unjust, or is that even possible?
• What is the distribution of wealth and property?
• What political rights should be allotted, and what defines political rights?
• What are the grounding principles of the law, and who has the right to issue, enforce or break laws?
• What are the parameters of authority and how does this interact with legitimacy?

Themes in Political Philosophy II

• What is a government, and at what point is a government good or bad?
• Are we social creatures, or should we instead focus on the issue of individualism and self-interest?
• Are we shaped by our surroundings, and that is what allows us to conform to a community, or is there some natural state of political laws?
• How are needs, preferences and desires dealt with within the polis?
• What role should morality and ethics play within a given political community?
• Is society an organic unity, or does it abide more by functionalist rules?

Politics Without Experience: A Fish Out of Water?

• A big concern of political philosophy concerns its utility and real-world application
• Philosophers argue against requiring philosophy and the real world to engage with one another
• Course will connect these ideas, which often occur in a specific historical context, to larger problems, issues and trends occurring today

Ancient Greek Society

• Used a primitive form of parliament called “The Assembly", that allowed land-owning elites a vote
• Combined with the political chaos at the time, it led to a crisis of government
• Alongside Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, Greek Enlightenment emerged; including the Presocratics, the Sophists, Epicureans, Skeptics and Stoics
• Women were excluded from public life (including education), marriages were arranged, and their role came in balancing a household

Issues in Ancient Greek Thought

• Sophists were paid teachers who practice wisdom, preparing young (upper class) men for fulfilling roles and functions required of them in their polis
  • This school was strongly centered on rhetoric and debate
  • Sometimes practiced theoretical relativism and skepticism
  • Made the nomo-physis antithesis: Nature (physis) constantly seeks to dominate the order (nomos, also referred to as “law”) implemented by political communities, leading to a nature-vs-nature debate
  • Key question: Does the state exist by “nomos” or by “physis”?
• The Myth of Prometheus:
  • Prometheus stole practical knowledge and fire from the gods and delivered it to humans
  • His punishment for betrayal by the gods was being chained to a mountain, so every day an eagle would come to eat part of his liver
  • Humans could obtain knowledge of practicalities, but lacked political knowledge
  • Zeus delivered humans two key political virtues: Justice and Modesty (recognition and respect for others)

Issues in Ancient Greek Thought II

-The Problem of Democracy:

• Are individuals, as a community, capable of self-organizing and coming to agreed upon collective decisions?
• Or, do they require some form of educated guidance if they lack expertise?,
• What should be the selection criteria for representatives or leaders?
• The Role of Tradition:
  • By the time of Socrates, Ancient Greece had entered its era of decline
  • Debate was whether tradition and authority should be respected, or whether critique and reflection should be employed instead (or a mix of these two)
• How to Educate:
  • The role of education became increasingly important, especially after Plato founds the "Academy” in 386 BCE
  • Education can enlighten, influence and indoctrinate, or ingrain social values into people

Socrates in Ancient Greece: Life and Death

• Athens was undergoing a period of cultural, political and economic decline in the latter half of Socrates' life
• Socrates was born around 470 BCE into a relatively well-to-do family, and married twice with three sons
• Showed a disinterest in material pleasures, served in the military during the Peloponnesian War, and was supposedly honored for certain actions
• Socrates was executed for “corrupting the youth” in 399 BCE, and chose to drink hemlock (a poison) as his form of execution
• The dialogue Apology depicts Socrates death, which literally meant a speech in one's defense

Socrates in Ancient Greece: The Socratic Approach

• Socrates's teachings come from the works of his contemporaries, Xenophon and Aristophanes as well as his pupil's (and his pupil's pupil's) writing, Plato (and Aristotle)
• Uses the Socratic Method: Using guided questions to elicit responses
• Socratic Ignorance/Wisdom: When a person openly acknowledges what they do not know, with the underlying belief that one can only obtain true knowledge by first admitting they don't have any knowledge

Plato the Mortal

• Plato was born about 427 BCE to an aristocratic family and died 347 BCE (about 80)
• "Greece" was not a nation-state but a collection of city-states (poleis (pl.); polis (sing.)), with Athens the most prominent
• City-States were a self-sufficient community was built on an agrarian and slave society, with the household or family (oikon) serving as the primary object of analysis
• Plato lived during the Peloponnesian War (431 ВСЕ – 404 BCE) and the conquering of Athens by Sparta in 404 BCE; Athens was declining
• This led to an era of political chaos, and many different forms of government and regimes were attempted
• Plato opened the Academy in Ancient Greece in 386 ВСЕ
• Plato adhered to principles of inequalitarianism and communitarianism

Plato the Philosopher (King?)

• Almost all of Plato's surviving texts are in the form of dialogues
• The characters in these dialogues are typically real people, but are representatives of certain ideals
• Socrates is usually the protagonist of these dialogues, and Plato incorporated more of his personal ideas (through the voice of "Socrates”) in his later texts, like the Republic
• Plato was a conservative, and often harks back to Greece's long-past "democratic" golden days, therefore makes political statements

Main Themes of the Republic

• What makes a “Just” society?
• What makes an ideal Ruler(s)?
• What is the Ideal Society?
• What is the Ideal Regime Type?