Module 1 - Political Theory as Political Philosophy PDF

Course PS 101N Description INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL THEORY Module No. 1 Module Title POLITICAL THEORY AS POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY Instructor/Professor JEFFERSON M. DELMENDO, Instructor II-A Reading...

Course PS 101N Description INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL THEORY Module No. 1 Module Title POLITICAL THEORY AS POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY Instructor/Professor JEFFERSON M. DELMENDO, Instructor II-A Reading Author/Title Number 1 Oakeshott, M. (2004). What is political theory? In M. Oakeshott, L. O’Sullivan (Ed.) What is History? and Other Essays, 391-402 2 Sabine, G. (1939). What is political theory? The Journal of Politics 1 (1), 1- 16 3 Strauss, L. (1942). What can we learn from political theory? The Review of Politics 69. 515-529 1 Oakeshott, M. (2004). What is political theory? In M. Oakeshott, L. O’Sullivan (Ed.) What is History? and Other Essays, 391-402 A new collection of essays by such a distinguished political philosopher as Michael Oakeshott is always to be welcomed. Its value is not that it adds anything of significance to what we already know in a better and more sophisticated form, but that it satisfies the voyeur in us all. In this collection, we glimpse the intimate connection between a man and his thoughts, in various states of undress, before appearing fully clothed in such classics as Experience and Its Modes, On Human Conduct, and On History and other essays. Some poses are close to embarrassing, such as the 1943 'Peace with Germany', while others are close to exquisite, evocative and beautifully poised, such as 'The Voice of Education in the Conversation of Mankind' and the delightful analysis of Denys Hay's 'Europe, The Emergence of an Idea', in which the importance of discerning the different questions to which the book is an answer is attested with masterly precision. The editor, Luke O'Sullivan, has an enviable knowledge of Oakeshott's published and unpublished works, and has himself written a very erudite and scholarly book on the philosophy of history of the last of the great 20th century idealists (O'Sullivan, 2003). The essays in Oakeshott's new volume are not arranged thematically. The editor has decided that there is merit is presenting them to us chronologically in order to experience the gradual revelation of thought. The introduction provides the reader with the thematic element, and with the intellectual affinities between unpublished and published works. The editor makes the substantive point that Oakeshott fundamentally changed his conception of philosophy over the course of his life. O'Sullivan contends over the course of Oakeshott's career we witness the gradual rejection of his 'early belief in the possibility of unconditional knowledge of reality. Instead, he came to favour the idea that understanding consisted ultimately of an irreducible plurality of modes or 'voices', to use the conversational metaphor of which he became so fond' (p. 5). I think this considerably overstates the case, and sets up a false dichotomy. Oakeshott says in Experience and its Modes that philosophy is experience without presupposition, reservation or arrest. What this meant in practice was that philosophy examined and questioned the postulates of those forms of experience that claimed knowledge, and convicted them of contra- diction. The issue is effectively this: did Oakeshott's conception of 'under- standing' radically change? I think not. Understanding requires relating what seeks to be understood, and is always in some sense already understood, to a context. A philosophical understanding of a historical statement must be considered in relation to history as an activity, and to history's place in the whole world of experience. Coherence is always the criterion by which the adequacy of statements is measured. When Oakeshott republished his introduction to Hobbes' Leviathan in the same year as he published On Human Conduct despite making many changes, he firmly adhered to the conception of understanding I have outlined. Consider his view of political philosophy: 'Even if we accept the standards and valuations of our civilization, it will be only by putting an arbitrary closure on reflection that we can prevent the consideration of the meaning of the general terms in which those standards are expressed: good and evil, right and wrong, and justice and injustice. And, turning, we shall catch sight of all that we have learned reflected in the speculum universitatis' (Oakeshott, 1975a, b, 5). In the three essays on history he published in 1983, Oakeshott is concerned to explore the distinct modal conditions that constitute history. The study is concerned only to determine the postulates of history, not the truth of historical conclusions, only the conditions in terms of which they may be recognized as conclusions. It is true that Oakeshott does not go on to relate history to experience as a whole, but silence does not signify abandonment. If it did, we would have to conclude that because he made no mention of it in a 1936 lecture on history that he had abandoned the idea of a concrete totality of experience (Oakeshott, 1936, 71-81). After 2 years, he reiterated what he took philosophy to be: the attempt to relate a subject to the concrete totality of experience. Why? Because this constitutes the complete context incapable of being turned by criticism into a text itself requiring a context (Oakeshott, 1938, 351). There must be a reason why O'Sullivan and others claim that a fundamental shift has taken place. The weight of their argument rests on the metaphor (and it is nothing more than a metaphor for the relations among idioms of discourse for Oakeshott) of voices in a conversation. In What is History? Conversation is the analogy used for life in preference to a game of cards. Plato civilized philosophy by relating it to conversation, making the relation dialectic rather than eristic (p. 197 and pp. 193-194). In his most famous discussion of the conversational relationship, Oakeshott uses the metaphor to elucidate the relation in which each language or idiom of thought stands to each other (Oakeshott, 1962, 137-196). O'Sullivan uses this latter essay as grounds for his contention that philosophy is now a voice among other voices, with no priority or special authority. The idea of a conversation is not a significant change of emphasis from his early philosophy. It is a new metaphor better able to characterize the relation he had in mind between the different modes. It is not that philosophy is a voice in this conversation that is important, but that it is a voice of a different kind. It springs from the conversation and is parasitic on the other voices. It explores the quality and style of each voice and its relation to the others. Philosophy is unusually adept at conversation because 'there is no body of philosophical 'knowledge' to become detached from the activity of philosophizing' (Oakeshott, 1962, 201).  Three contentions about philosophy emerge: (i) it is not eristic and does not attempt to persuade; (ii) it is parasitic on the other voices; and (iii) it is not a body of knowledge. On the first point, there is a lifelong consistency. Philosophy consists not in 'persuading others, but in making our own minds clear'. It is noncompetitive and 'something independent of the futile attempt to convince or persuade (Oakeshott, 1933, 7). It sounds, then, very like what he takes conversation to be. Nor does he deviate on the second contention. Experience, or what is going on, is one undifferentiated whole. Understanding involves making identifications in terms of postulates. Philosophical activity questions the postulates, and hence is parasitical on the modes they constitute. On the third contention, not even in Experience and its Modes is there a suggestion that philosophy is a body of knowledge. Oakeshott says at the start that he was not presenting us with a system or with universal truths. It was a provisional point of view that he offered. Philosophy had no exclusive source of knowledge, 'it was merely experience become critical of itself" (Oakeshott, 1933, 82). What distinguishes philosophy from the modes is not absolute certainty vs lesser degrees of truth, but the determination to investigate every presupposition it encounters, in other words, to be permanently en route. It is a method, or way of thinking, aimed at achieving intelligibility, not an accumulated body of knowledge. Oakeshott confirms this, and by implication denies O'Sullivan's contention that Oakeshott believed in the attainment of unconditional knowledge of reality' (p. 5): 'Philosophy is, then, not a particular kind of experience; and certainly, it has no peculiar and exclusive source of knowledge. It is merely experience become critical of itself, experience sought and followed entirely for its own sake' (Oakeshott, 1933, 82). For the Oakeshott aficionado, this collection is a valuable addition to the oeuvre that constitutes the context of Oakeshott's mature deliberations. 2 Sabine, G. (1939). What is political theory? The Journal of Politics 1 (1), 1-16 For many centuries the philosophy of Western Europe has included as one of its accustomed parts a study of the nature and well-being of civic societies, a kind of companion-piece to its study, in psychology and ethics, of the nature and well-being of the human individual. Like so much else in European philosophy, this interest in the political community was, at the be- ginning, a creature of Greek civilization. It began with that humanistic reaction, fostered by the Sophists and crystallized in the overpowering personality of Socrates, which so completely changed the course of Greek philosophy at the end of the fifth century before Christ. Political philosophy began in Athens at the same time with the birth of social studies, such as linguistics, the history and criticism of literature, the descriptive analysis of political and economic institutions, and a critical as distinguished from a merely narrative history. This humanistic relationship, which dominated philosophy for many centuries, was not dis- solved even when the rise of the modern natural sciences in the seventeenth century restored subjects like physics and mathematics to a place of foremost interest in the minds of philosophical scholars. Perhaps marginal, in the sense that it has existed on the edges of the more precise and more technical disciplines, political philosophy has still maintained its standing as a subject of perennial philosophical concern. It is usually unprofitable to argue, speculatively and a priori, about the form or the purposes that a branch of science or philosophy ought to have. The discussion of scientific methods, like any other discussion, needs a subject matter, and in the case of political philosophy, this must be provided by the history of the subject. The question, what is a political theory, ought to be answered descriptively, since in fact political philosophy is whatever philosophers have thought about civil society and called by that name. Evidently, any practicable description will not be complete, for in the course of history political philosophy has assumed many forms, has served many purposes, and has answered to many conceptions of scientific and philosophical re- liability. Still, the subject has to some extent been a unit throughout its history, and some description of its salient characteristics is possible. But though the description must depend on history, the object of seeking such a description at all is not historical. A person who wants to know what a political philosophy is, if he is not an antiquarian, means to ask about its truth, its certainty, or its reliability, and about the kind of criticism that should be applied in order to test these qualities. Obviously, these are not historical questions, for the occurrence of a theory says nothing whatever about its truth. This essay, therefore, has a twofold purpose. In the first place, it will enumerate some of the properties that political theories have actually had. Though this involves selection and concentration on a few properties that have recurred frequently and that seem important, it is intended to be quite factual, de- pending upon the analysis of what have figured as political theories in the literature of philosophy. In the second place, however, it is the intention to keep in view a variety of questions about the truth or validity of political theories. How far can they be described as simply true or false? In what sense can words like sound, true, valid, reliable be applied to them? And finally, the practical question, by what kind of criticism can elements of truth in them be discriminated from elements of falsehood? When one runs his eye over the historical literature that be- longs traditionally to political philosophy, he is struck at once by the fact that this literature is not typically the product of the study or the laboratory. Even when it is produced by scholars, its authors have one eye fixed on the forum; and when political philosophy is produced in quantities, it is a sure symptom that society itself is going through a period of stress and strain. It is a remarkable fact that, in a history extending over nearly twenty-five hundred years, a considerable part of the most significant writing on political philosophy was done in two periods of only about fifty years each and in two places of quite restricted area. The first of these places was Athens, and the period was the two middle quarters of the fourth century before Christ, which saw the production of Plato's Republic and Laws and Aristotle's Politics. The second place was England, and the period was the half century between 1640 and 1690, which produced the works of Hobbes and Locke, together with the works of a host of lesser figures. Both these periods, it should be noted, witnessed changes of the most momentous importance in the course of European social and intellectual history. The first period saw the lapse of the Greek city from its place of cultural leadership surely the major moral upheaval of the ancient world-and the preparation of that amalgam of Greek and Asiatic civilization which determined the whole future course of European culture. The second period saw the formation of the first constitutional state on national lines and the preparation of those intellectual and scientific changes that governed the West- ern World down at least until 1914. These two cases are major examples of a quality in political philosophy which might be illustrated almost without end, and which is indeed typical. Political theories are secreted, to para- phrase a famous comparison of substantive and procedural law, in the interstices of political and social crisis. They are produced, not indeed by the crisis as such, but by its reaction on minds that have the sensitivity and the intellectual penetration to be aware of crisis. Hence there is in every political theory a reference to a pretty specific situation, which needs to be grasped in order to understand what the philosopher is thinking about. Always he is thinking about something that has actually occurred and that has been the stimulus of his thought. To recover this situation and its power of intellectual stimulation may, if the theory belongs to a remote time and place, be a difficult task set to the historical imagination. But to reconstruct, as nearly as one can, the time, the place, and the circumstance in which it was produced is always an important factor in understanding a political philosophy. For it is one of the characteristics of such a philosophy that it occurs as a part of or an incident in politics itself. It is an element of the same intellectual and social life within which politics is another element. It is true, of course, that this reference to a specific situation should not be overemphasized. Because a political theory refers to the historical occasion from which it originated, it need not be applicable to that alone. Political problems and situations are more or less alike from time to time and from place to place; what has been thought on one occasion is a factor in what is thought on another. For obvious reasons the political philosophy that remains alive is just that which can weave itself into the developing tradition of the subject. The greatest political theorizing is that which excels in both respects, in analysis of a present situation and in suggestiveness for other situations. Judged by this standard, Aristotle's Politics was probably the most important treatise on the subject that was ever written. Rarely has a form of government been subjected to a more penetrating examination than the Greek city received in the Fourth and Fifth Books of the Politics; probably never has a political treatise written in one age played so great a part in another as the Politics played in the fourteenth century, or again even in the nineteenth. Since a political theory depends upon a special configuration of facts, it is to that extent turned toward the past. It is also, however, turned toward the future, for the kind of interest that produces political theory is in general quite different from that of an antiquarian. Characteristically political theories are bred of the interest that makes men want to do something about a situation which they believe to be bad. But even the most violently conservative theory-a theory directed to the merest preservation of the status quo-would still be directed, in the mind of its maker, toward the future, since a policy of doing nothing is still a policy. Quite regularly a political theory does contain or imply a policy. It commends some way of doing or criticizes some other; it defends or attacks what has been done and argues for the continuance or the reversal of a line of con- duct. Examples might be multiplied at any length. Locke, as everyone knows, wrote "to establish the throne of our great restorer, our present King William," and to show the validity of representative government founded in the consent of the people. Quite regularly his version of natural rights served to consolidate the gains of successful revolution or to defend the legitimacy of revolutionary programs. With equal regularity the great opponent of Locke's theory, the theory of dynastic legitimacy or royal divine right, was used to commend the values of political stability and national unity, or to neutralize revolutionary propaganda. Very often, perhaps usually, political theories have had some sort of partizan bias, revolutionary, liberal, conservative, or reactionary. Even the most detached philosophies have grown from some interested reading of the facts, some estimate of what the facts signify for the future, and some concern with the way events should shape themselves. There is, then, no such thing as a disinterested political theory, if that word be used to mean literally something that is bred of indifference. For those who are genuinely indifferent about the future do not take the trouble to make political theories, and those who do take that trouble usually care intensely about something. This attitude of regard for the future itself needs to be analysed and divided. It always must include, either expressly or by im- plication, both a judgment about what is likely and a judgment about what is desirable. In short, a political theory includes an estimate of probabilities and an estimate of values. It can scarcely lack the former because any responsible attitude toward the future must take account of the possibilities, or, more accurately, the varying degrees of likelihood that belong to different projects for action, unless indeed a theorist is the complete doctrinaire. It certainly cannot lack the latter because any interested attitude toward the future involves preferences, choices, the sense of moral imperatives, the belief that one out- come is better than another. The word policy is quite meaning- less without some assumptions about what is desirable or obligatory-however one chooses to name this act of evaluation. A political theory, then, as thus far analyzed, covers three kinds of factors: it includes factual statements about the posture of affairs that gave rise to it; it contains statements of what may be roughly called a causal nature, to the effect that one kind of thing is more likely to happen, or may be more easily brought about, than another; and it contains statements that something ought to happen or is the right and desirable thing to have happen. This analysis, it will be perceived, follows pretty closely the de- scription of reflective thinking given by the pragmatists, paticularly by Professor Dewey and George H. Mead. The pragmatists, indeed, would generalize the description, asserting that the joint reference to past and future, and the joint reference to causes and values, are characteristic of every complete act of thought, whether about politics or anything else. Any theory, for the pragmatist, is a plan of action designed to adjust a tension between actually conflicting but potentially harmonizable needs, and this definition is defended on the still more general principle that no concept could be meaningful at all except as a factor in behavior. Whether this general psychological theory of thinking is true or not, the description is reasonably accurate so far as theories of politics are concerned. Granting that political theories have characteristically contained factors of the three kinds mentioned-the factual, the causal, and the valuational-it still remains a question what logical relation holds between these three types of proposition. The pragmatist infers that because the three sometimes (or, as he thinks, always) occur in the same psychological situation, they must therefore be united in some logical form of synthesis. In other words, what he calls a complete act of thought claims to be complete in a logical as well as a psychological sense. The validity of this conclusion is the philosophical problem (or one current form of it) that this essay is meant to pose, because it appears to be a major issue in contemporary thought. The conclusion herein defended is that logically the three kinds of propositions are quite distinct; in short, that the likelihood of an event's happening and the desirability of its happening are quite without any logical correlation. And this conclusion implies a destructive criticism of pragmatism, in so far as pragmatism has claimed to be more than a chapter in social psychology. This general conclusion will be made a little clearer, and perhaps a little more convincing, in the latter part of the essay, but at present it will be better to finish describing a political theory. The description so far given applies to what might be called the logical structure of a political theory, the elements in it that make propositions and that might, in consequence, be affirmed or denied. Very often, however-perhaps usually-political theories have, and are intended to have, psychological as well as logical effects. Because they deal with practical social issues and are created as incidents of conflict, they are intended to pesuade as well as to convince. Even the most abstract political theory probably never altogether lays aside some such purpose, and even the coolest scholar can hardly be indifferent to the adoption of courses that he believes to be wise and good. In popular political theorizing the element of persuasion is usually very much in the foreground. When Thomas Jefferson wrote the famous second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, he set down the main axioms of the philosophy of natural rights as a justification, to America and to the world, of the action that the Congress had already taken in voting a resolution that "these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states." Years afterward, when John Adams testily declared that there was not an idea in the document which was not a generally accepted commonplace, Jefferson very reasonably replied that he had not been deputed by the Congress to "invent new ideas." He was to state the case for Congress and the Colonies in a form that would carry conviction to all men of intelligence and good will. The doctrine that men have indefeasible rights and are justified in protecting them by armed resistance was persuasive just because it had a familiarity and an emotional warmth bred by centuries of belief. The project of persuading, however, opens up larger possibilities than are immediately evident. In form at least, the Declaration of Independence, though certainly biased, was still essentially argumentative, possibly because it was addressed to an age in which the love of rationality was itself a major passion. But passion of any sort is inherently persuasive. It generates its own belief in the fulfillment of its own wishes and projects its own loves and hates into the perception of facts both past and future. If the object of a political theory were merely to generate belief, it would probably be a waste of time to spend much effort on either facts or arguments. The obvious-and, it must be acknowledged, the effective-short-cut is to generate the passions and supply them with the psychological apparatus of uncritical belief that perpetuates them and gives them effect. The part that political philosophy has been made to play in the modern dictatorships might be described as an elaborate experiment in applied psychiatry, and they show that this art is not only feasible but comparatively easy. One thinks at once of the part that the conception of race has played in recent German political writing. On scientific grounds no competent anthropologist for a moment takes seriously the idea that any European race is pure. Neither is it possible to believe that the persecution of the Jews resulted from any of the actual characteristics of that group in Germany, such as their greater prosperity or their alleged inability to think, feel, or act like other Germans. They were merely suitable for emotional, not for actual rea- sons to be cast in the rôle of national scapegoat. The ideal of racial purity has a strictly mystical significance. It serves as a symbol, and object of veneration, to solidify a party, to release its energies, and to foster that "more savage will to power" which Hitler has described as the key to national greatness. Race is a "myth," in the sense that Georges Sorel attached to that word. In truth, however, it is not the dictatorships alone that have discovered what might be called the folklore of political philosophy. The Freudian psychologists, and indeed psychologists of many other schools, have explored the influence that interests, wishes, and desires exert upon belief and their tendency to pro- duce "rationalizations" that can masquerade as valid theories. As a mode of attacking an opponent's position this sort of criticism has become a standard part of the modern controversialists' equipment, witness the prevalence of a word like "ideology" in our modern vocabulary of political criticism. There is no denying that partizan interests do generate partizan beliefs, and that partizan beliefs do claim the certainty of fact or the necessity of logic. Probably it is true that no man, whatever his honesty of purpose or his desire to be fair, can always weigh his own interests on an equal scale with interests that he dislikes or dis- trusts. But it is one thing to say that political theories have sometimes served the same purposes as folklore, and another to imply, as enthusiastic psychologists and sociologists sometimes seem to do, that they never serve any other purpose, or that a theory is nothing but a tactical manoeuvre in the class-struggle or in the national struggle for power. This game of ideological criticism permits of any number of players, and when the game is all played out and every view has been shown to be equally nonsensical, then the serious business of politics as thus conceived can begin, namely, breaking heads instead of answering arguments. It is true, of course, that every political theory is a fact, a quite substantial fact that occurs in the gamut of facts that makes up a particular political situation. As such, it had its causes and may, no doubt, have its effects. Moreover, it has its effects whether it be true or false, because in either case it exists in a quite objective sense, as a thing that may affect men's conduct. It is always possible that men behave differently in any given situation, merely because they entertain some theory about their own existence and the situation in which they find themselves. This is a curious involution that occurs in all social theories and that has no precise analogue in the theories of natural science, unless it be in those cases, recently brought to light by the principle of indeterminism, where the mere fact of observation operates to change the very state of affairs which is under observation. Where this occurs, the natural scientist admits with all modesty that he has reached a limit beyond which he cannot conceive a refinement of his theory. And the social scientist must surely, in all intellectual honesty, do the same. In so far as theories figure as facts, standing in causal relations with other facts, and in so far as they appear as the data of human behavior which a theorist must himself count among the data of the situation that he is studying, they must of course be accepted as all data are, simply as elements of the reality studied. Their effects are in no way correlated with their truth, for even false theories may influence men's conduct. Their causal influence as existing facts is simply irrelevant to their truth or falsity. But in any given time and place one must make up his mind which language he elects to speak. If he accepts a theory as itself a bona fide effort to speak the truth, he must accord it that respect which belongs to such an effort. He must meet it on the plane of logic, must confirm or refute it on that level, by showing its consistency or inconsistency and its ability or inability to explain the facts. When he begins to discuss its influence, he puts it among existing things in the world of events and objects, and events are not themselves true or false; they simply occur. An example will make the meaning clearer. A critic may deal in two quite different ways with the doctrine that Jefferson wrote into the Declaration of Independence. It is possible to discuss the validity of those propositions about inalienable and indefeasible natural rights, to apply a rational criticism to the assertion that all men are created equal, to analyse their meaning, to show how they agreed with a prevalent conception of scientific method, and to point out wherein they fall short of the self-evidence that Jefferson attributed to them. But such criticism is possible only so far as the critic is willing to discuss the factual truth or logical consistency of the theory examined. Quite apart from all such questions, however, it is still a fact that Jefferson and his fellow-members of the Continental Congress did believe in the theory of natural rights. It is quite possible that they would not have acted as they did had their beliefs been otherwise. It is credible that in so believing they may have been unconsciously the agents of a militant middle- class, intent upon rising to the political power that their economic importance warranted. If such causal influences swayed their action, it is of no consequence whatever whether what they believed was true or false. As Bishop Butler said, "Everything is what it is, and not another thing," and beliefs may have their effects however false they are. But surely no critic can apply both criteria at once. He may be concerned to assess the correctness of a doctrine, and if so its consequences are irrelevant; or he may be concerned with its actual effects and influences, and then its truth is irrelevant. Political theories, therefore, live on two planes or play a double rôle. They are theories, or logical entities belonging to the abstract world of thought, but they are also beliefs, events in people's minds and factors in their conduct. In this latter rôle they are influential (if they are) not because they are true but because they are believed. On this plane they operate as events, or as actual factors in historical situations, and as such are part of the data which the historian of politics has to deal with. But this historical reality is obviously not what interests those per- sons who sincerely believe a theory to be true; such persons are not interested in a theory because it exists but because they believe it to be a valid explanation of something else. What the framers of the Declaration of Independence meant to do was "to declare the causes" that impelled them to dissolve the political bands which had connected the Colonies with England, an ex- planation required by "a decent respect to the opinions of man- kind." In this they set down as a major premise the claim of indefeasible natural rights and as a minor premise a long list of aggressions, which they attributed to the King of England and interpreted as evidence of a settled determination to tyrannize. For them these claims were not merely beliefs; they were parts of what purported to be a correct statement of facts and a valid inference from them. A rational criticism, as distinguished from a study of historical causes, would have to take these claims as bona fide, even though it might end with the conclusion that they were utterly fallacious. To return now to the beginning of this essay, it will be ap- parent that the questions there raised referred to the rational criticism of political theories, the question whether, or in what sense, they can claim the logical attributes of truth or validity. It will be remembered also that in the description there given of political theories it was said that they regularly unite two kinds of factors. In the first place, there are elements of a factual and causal nature: the apprehension of a state of affairs actually existing, an estimate of the relative importance of different factors in this situation, and a weighing of future possibilities. In the second place, there are elements of valuation: an estimation of importance, not in the sense of what is likely to happen, but of what ought to happen, the discrimination of a better from a worse way, the conviction that some courses of action are morally obligatory, an expression of choice or preference growing from an attitude of desire, or fear, or confidence toward what the present holds and what the future may bring forth. The question, then, is whether a theory uniting these two kinds of factors can be rationally adjudged to be true or false; in short, whether there is any common measure that can extend over and validate the theory as a whole. Now the only absolutely general standard of rational criticism is the rule that a theory must not contain propositions that are mutually contradictory. A person who thinks about politics is under the same obligation to think consistently as one who thinks about any other subject, and to be convicted of an inconsistency is as damaging to a political theorist as to any other kind of theorist. Moreover, the standard of straight, coherent thinking is applicable both to thought which has facts for its subject- matter and to thought which has values for its subject-matter. A thinker can argue for mutually contradictory obligations as easily as he can attribute mutually incompatible properties to objects, and when he does the first he is as certainly wrong as when he does the second, for the avoidance of contradiction is a general principle that applies to all valid intellectual operations whatsoever. Nevertheless, the mere absence of contradiction cannot be regarded as equivalent to truth, except perhaps in pure logic and mathematics. For even if a theory were altogether self-consistent, there would still be the question whether what actually happens is the same as what the theory contemplates, and even if a theory of values were entirely coherent, there would still be the question whether the values which it contemplates are really acceptable as ends to be striven for and, if possible, attained. After making every admission possible to the binding- force of logical consistency, one must still agree that it goes only a little way toward validating a theory of any kind, whether in politics or any other subject. If non-contradiction, though indispensable, is still not a sufficient principle of criticism, is there any other principle that can bridge the two kinds of propositions- allegations of fact and ascriptions of value-that occur together in every political theory? Apparently the answer must be, No. In combining these two kinds of factor a political theory puts together propositions for which there is no common logical measure and which all the dictates of clear thinking require to be distinguished. In so far as a political theory depends on the assertion, expressed or implied, that some state of the facts is so and so, the only test applicable to it consists in inquiring whether the facts really were as alleged or different. In so far as it presumes that one course of events is more likely to occur than another, it can be tested only in the light of the actual probabilities and perhaps in part by seeing whether the event seems to justify the expectation. In either case the assertion that an event has happened and the assertion that it ought to have happened are simply different and there- fore ought not to be confused. And similarly, to say that a future event is probable is quite different from saying that it is desirable, or good, or the reverse. The two kinds of propositions are logically disparate in the sense that any statement containing such a copulative verb as "ought to be" requires the assumption of a standard of value which is never present as such in any purely actual situation or any purely causal sequence of events. When the two kinds of statement occur in conjunction, as they continually do in political theories, the beginning of critical judgment is analysis, the discrimination of the two kinds and the application to each of the tests appropriate to it. Analysis and discrimination in this matter do not imply the superficial idea that political theories can be made "scientific" by the omission of references to moral and other forms of valuation. This idea usually depends not at all on discrimination of values as one element in a theory, but only on a simple-minded unconsciousness of valuations that have become habitual. It de- pends upon the kind of intellectual simplicity that Schopenhauer once attributed to an opponent: he imagined, Schopenhauer said, that whatever he had learned before he was fifteen years old was an innate principle of human reason. In truth it is humanly impossible even to describe a political or social situation without at least implicit assumptions about the importance of the elements that are to go into the description; the choice is between implicit assumptions and the explicit avowal of what is assumed. More- over, there is no objection, at least on the score of logic, to making explicit assumptions about what is desirable; a policy or an end can be discussed as reasonably as anything else. It is prob- ably not true even that men disagree more about values than they do about other matters. In any case there is no logical reason why a social philosopher should not postulate any value he chooses, provided only that he avows what he is doing and does not pretend to prove what he is merely taking for granted. What he cannot do logically (or even honestly, if he knows what he is doing) is to pass off his valuations as if they were inescapable facts. The practical question, of course, remains, whether it is really possible to perform this act of analysis, at least so long as a political theory is still an element in a living situation. Looking back to the past one easily perceives how often men's judgment of facts is swayed by their interests or misled by the intensity of their moral convictions, but in one's own thinking it must be admitted that one does not, and probably cannot, always avoid the same kind of error. The common usages of language con- spire to make such confusions. The most ordinary words, like is and must be, have regularly a twofold use, to signify indifferently logical or moral necessity, existence or predication, and the precise meaning must be gathered, if at all, from the context. Thus, to refer again to the Declaration of Independence, when Jefferson declared it to be "self- evident that all men are created equal," he may have thought that the proposition was analogous to the alleged self-evident propositions that stand on the opening pages of Euclid. In the light of an exact analysis of those propositions, however, no one can imagine that he was merely giving a rule for handling symbols. It is hardly likely that Jefferson thought that all men are as a matter of fact equal; certainly the moral effect of the sentence is spoiled if one takes it to be parallel with some literally true statement about the way men are created, such as, All men are created babies. As everyone knows, Jefferson was really expressing a moral conviction to the effect that, in some matters of vital human importance, it is wrong to deprive men of their freedom of choice. One may accept or reject this assertion, but he cannot intelligently do either unless he sees what is really intended. In a sense the inevitability of confusion or error is irrelevant, even if it is a fact. No one wholly avoids inconsistency, but inconsistency is an error just the same. If there is a confusion inherent in the conflation of facts and values, it is still a confusion even if the whole world conspires to do it. Of course, no one doubts that, in this as in other respects, men do think more clearly when they try resolutely to avoid confusion. It would be altogether unfair, however, to imply that the coalescence of judgments of value with judgments of fact or of logical implication has only the standing of a frequent, but ad- mitted, popular confusion. On the contrary this coalescence is undertaken systematically in certain philosophies which, together, cover a considerable part of current philosophical opinion. A representative of one of these views would enter an exception against the statement made above, that propositions stating facts and propositions ascribing values are logically disparate and would hold that it is possible to include both within a single logical synthesis. Historically this contention goes back to Hegel, who believed that the idea of a self-developing totality in logic could sublate the duality of rationalism and empiricism and refute at once the revolutionary doctrine of natural rights and the conventionalism or positivism implied by Hume's critique of natural rights. This was the purpose which Hegel thought that dialectic could fulfill. By means of dialectic he supposed it possible to show that certain values must emerge in the course of history and, conversely, that the causal processes of history are regulated by an inherent tendency to realize and conserve values. The dialectic was at once, therefore, a causal exploration and an immanent ethical criticism. However it may be formulated, the belief that some such dovetailing of value and fact is a soluble problem remains the best index of Hegel's influence over later philosophy. It continued to characterize the English Neo- Hegelians, and with all their differences it remains the funda- mental claim of the Marxists, whose dialectical materialism is still in essence a claim that causal and moral necessity can be synthetized. In a milder form the purposes, if not the apparatus, of Hegel's dialectic perpetuated themselves in the pragmatism of Professor Dewey and Professor Mead, already referred to. For from the allegation that meanings can occur only in the fulfillment of purposes and that reflective thought is only a directive agency in behavior, it appears to follow that logical adequacy must include both factual efficiency and the fulfillment of purpose. It would be silly to embark upon a thumb-nail refutation of Hegelianism, with all its ramifications, at the end of an essay already too long. The purpose has been to outline a problem and to suggest a type of solution but not to offer a refutation of other types of solution that have been attempted. Its intention has been to suggest that here is one of the systematic differences be- tween philosophical points of view, rooted as such differences are likely to be in diverse theories of knowledge. Descriptively one finds in human thinking about a concrete problem-say the problem attacked by a political theory-what seems to be a variety of factors answering to a  variety of critical standards. There are allegations of fact and cause; there are imputations of value or obligation; there are the consequences, for human behavior, of believing or disbelieving the theory. Now must it be large enough to the case that there is some criterion of truth stretch over all these factors in the problem? If some such criterion is proposed-say "coherence"-does it cover the ground because it affords a really applicable standard for all types of problem, or does it seem to do so merely because it is so vague and ambiguous that no one knows with certainty what it means? Or, on the other hand, is it possible that the drawing of dis- tinctions is both the beginning and the end of wisdom? In short, is it possible that truth is a word with several different meanings and that no one can say what it means unless he is allowed to discriminate at least what Leibniz called truths of reason and truths of fact, and perhaps several other kinds beside? With this reference to Leibniz, it will be well to stop. For it suggests the obvious line of criticism, namely, that this paper illustrates a kind of philosophic atavism, the nostalgia for clear and distinct ideas that was more typical of the seventeenth than of the nine-tenth century. 3 Strauss, L. (1942). What can we learn from political theory? The Review of Politics 69, 515-529 The title of this lecture is not entirely of my own choosing. I do not like very much the term political theory; I would prefer to speak of political philosophy. Since this terminological question is not entirely verbal, I beg leave to say a few words about it. The term "political theory" implies that there is such a thing as theoretical knowledge of things political. This implication is by no means self-evident. Formerly, all political knowledge was considered practical knowledge, and not theoretical knowledge. I recall the traditional division of the sciences into theoretical and practical sciences. According to that division, political philosophy, or political science, together with ethics and economics, belongs to the practical sciences, just as mathematics and the natural sciences belong to the theoretical sciences. Whoever uses the term "political theory" tacitly denies that traditional distinction. That denial means one of these two things or both of them: (1) the denial of the distinction between theoretical and practical sciences: all science is ultimately practical (scientia propter potentiam); (2) the basis of all reasonable practice is pure theory. A purely theoretical, detached knowledge of things political is the safest guide for political action, just as a purely theoretical, detached knowledge of things physical is the safest guide toward conquest of nature: this is the view underlying the very term political theory. The term political theory has another important implication. According to present-day usage, theory is essentially different, not only from practice, but above all from observation. If a man is asked "how do you account for this or that event?" he may answer: "I have a theory," or "A number of theories may be suggested"; sometimes, one is asked: "What is your theory?" What is meant by "theory" in such cases is the essentially hypothetical assertion of a cause of an observed fact. The assertion being essentially hypothetical, it is essentially arbitrary: my theory. What is seen-Hitler's rise to power e.g.-is not a theory, but our differing explanations of Hitler's rise to power are our theories. This use of the term theory is of fairly recent date. The original meaning of the Greek verb fewpew, with which "theory" is connected, is to be an envoy sent to consult an oracle, to present an offering, to be present at festivals: to look at, to behold, to inspect, contemplate, consider, compare..., i.e., the original meaning of the term does not warrant at all the distinction of theory from observation; it rather excludes it; it certainly does not justify the identification, or almost identification, of theory with an essentially hypothetical kind of knowledge. I have some misgivings as regards these two connotations of the term theory, which are, to repeat, (1) the implication that a purely theoretical discussion of political questions is possible, and (2) the view that political knowledge as a whole consists of observation of "data" and hypothetical explanation of these "data"; I prefer therefore the term political philosophy which does not imply these assumptions. By political philosophy, we under- stand the coherent reflection carried on by politically minded people, concerning the essentials of political life as such, and the attempt to establish, on the basis of such reflection, the right standards of judgment concerning political institutions and actions; political philosophy is the attempt to dis- cover the political truth. Accordingly, I would not speak of the political philosophy of Hitler, e.g., Hitler being not interested in truth and relying on intuition rather than on methodic reflection. It is legitimate, however, to speak of the political thought, or of the political ideas, of the Nazis. All political philosophy is political thought, but not all political thought is political philosophy. (E.g., the very terms "law" and "father" imply political thought, but not political philosophy. Political thought is as old as the human race, but political philosophy emerged at some definite time in the recorded past.) I think we owe it to philosophy that we do not use its noble name in vain. I I shall then discuss the question "What can we learn from political philosophy?" For the purpose of a summary discussion, it is advisable to sketch first the argument in favor of the negative. It seems as if we can learn nothing from political philosophy. For: (1) One may doubt whether there exists such a thing deserving to be called political philosophy, (2) even if there were a political philosophy in existence, we would not need it, (3) even if we would need it, its lessons would necessarily be ineffectual. (1) There is no political philosophy because there are many political philosophies; only one of them, if any, can be true, and certainly the layman does not know which is the true one. When we ask: what can we learn from political philosophy, we mean, of course, what can we learn from the true political philosophy? We can learn nothing from the wrong political philosophies, although we may learn something on the occasion of them. The situation in political philosophy is not fundamentally different from that in the other branches of philosophy. Philosophy means the attempt, constantly renewed, to find the truth, the very term philosophy implies that we do not possess the truth. Philosophy is, at best, pos- session of clear knowledge of the problems-it is not possession of clear knowledge of the solutions to the problems. The basic questions in all branches of philosophy are as unsolved today as they were at all times; new questions have been raised from time to time, the interest has shifted from one type of question to others, but the most fundamental, the truly philosophic questions remain unanswered. This is, of course, no objection to philosophy as such: but it is an objection to the expectation, or the claim, that philosophy is a safe guide for action. One may try, and people did try, to seclude from the realm of philosophy the questions which do not seem to permit of a universally acceptable answer, but in doing so, one is merely evading the questions, not answering them. I have been trying to remind you of that melancholy spectacle called the anarchy of the systems, a phenomenon which is almost as old as philosophy itself and which seems to have so profound roots in the nature of philosophy and of its objects that it is reasonable to expect that it will last as long as philosophy itself. That spectacle becomes perhaps even more melancholy if one considers political or social philosophy by itself. One could take almost any fundamental question of political philosophy, and one could show that no answer exists which is universally accepted by honest seekers of the truth, to say nothing of the partisans of the various camps. (E.g., is justice of the essence of the State?) (2) But even if we could be reasonably certain that a given political philosophy is the true political philosophy, one could say that one cannot learn anything important from it as far as political action is concerned. For that kind of knowledge which is indispensable for reasonable political action is not philosophic knowledge: practical wisdom, common-sense, horse sense, shrewd estimation of the situation, these are the intellectual qualities which make up the successful man of affairs: he does not require political philosophy for his guidance. I may refer to the story told in England of H.G. Wells meeting Winston Churchill and asking about the progress of the war. "We're getting along with our idea," said Churchill. "You have an idea?" asked Wells. "Yes," said Churchill, "along the lines of our general policy." "You have a general policy?" Wells persisted. "Yes," answered Churchill, "the K. M. T. policy." "And what is the K. M. T. policy?" asked Wells. "It is this," replied Churchill, "Keep Muddling Through." The fact that this muddling through led to disaster in the case of Singapore and Libya' is evidently not a proof of the necessity of political philosophy, considering that neither the Japanese generals nor Rommel are political philosophers to speak of. I have not the slightest doubt as to the possibility of devising an intelligent international policy, e.g., without having any recourse to political philosophy: that this war has to be won, that the only guarantee for a somewhat longer peace-period after the war is won, is a sincere Anglo-Saxon-Russian entente, that the Anglo-Saxon nations and the other nations interested in, or dependent on, Anglo-Saxon preponderance must not disarm nor relax in their armed vigilance, that you cannot throw power out of the window without facing the danger of the first gangster coming along taking it up, that the existence of civil liberties all over the world depends on Anglo-Saxon preponderance- to know these broad essentials of the situation, one does not need a single lesson in political philosophy. In fact, people adhering to fundamentally different political philosophies have reached these same conclusions. (3) But even if it were true that we could not find our bearings in the political world without being guided by political philosophy, i.e., by the one true political philosophy, the possibility would still remain that the orientation supplied by political philosophy would be ineffectual: political philosophy might teach us what should be done, and yet we might be certain that this knowledge would not have the slightest influence on the unpredictable course of events: a set of microbes killing Hitler may seem to have an infinitely greater political significance than the clearest and best demonstrated lesson in political philosophy. If we look at the whole course of the history of political philosophy, we seem to learn that "it is almost a law of the development of political thought that political conceptions are the by-product of actual political relations" (McIlwain, Growth, 391)". As Hegel said, the owl of Minerva starts its flight in the dusk, philosophy comes always too late for the guidance of political action; the philosopher always comes post festum; philosophy can merely interpret the result of political action; it can make us understand the State: it cannot teach us what should be done with regard to the State. One may wonder whether there are any significant political concepts, or ideas, which are the product of political philosophy: all political ideas seem to go back to political fighters, statesmen, lawyers, prophets. Would philosophers have spoken of mixed constitutions but for the fact that such constitutions had been devised by such nonphilosophic lawgivers as Lycurgus?12 Would Montesquieu have taught in 1748 that the separation of executive, legislative, and judicial power is desirable but for the fact that such a separation had been effected, to a certain extent, in England by the Act of Settlement of 1701? What is the political philosophy of Plato and Aristotle but a reflection of the Greek political reality? The influence on political events of Alexander the Great is infinitely greater than that of his teacher Aristotle and Alexander's political activity is diametrically opposed to the principles laid down by Aristotle. II Now, even if we have no knowledge of our own to oppose to these arguments, we cannot help being impressed by an argument to the contrary which is taken from authority. If political philosophy is an evident failure, how is it understandable that quite a few men of superior intelligence were convinced that political philosophy is the necessary condition of the right order of civil society, or, to quote the most superior and the most famous of these men, that evils will not cease in the cities until the philosophers have become kings or the kings have become philosophers? Shall we say with Pascal that Plato's Republic was meant by Plato himself as a joke? It would certainly be rash to take this for granted. All the more so since Pascal himself continues his remarks on Plato's and Aristotle's political philosophies as follows: "They wrote on politics as if they were organizing an insane asylum; and they pretended to consider politics as something grand, because they knew that the madmen to whom they were talking believed [themselves] to be kings and emperors. They accepted the assumptions of these madmen, in order to make their madness as harmless as might be" (Pensées, Brunschvig, n. 771). Even according to Pascal, Plato and Aristotle did believe that political philosophy is of some practical use. III Let us then consider first the second argument, which was to the effect that we can know without any political philosophy what should be done in the political field, as regards international policy e.g. Now, a reasonable policy, I take it, would be along these lines: human relations cannot become good if the human beings themselves do not become good first, and hence, it would be a great achievement indeed if foundations for a peace lasting two generations could be laid, and hence the choice is not between imperialism and abolition of imperialism, but between the tolerably decent imperialism of the Anglo-Saxon brand and the1 intolerably indecent imperialism of the Axis brand. Such a policy, as we all know, is by no means generally accepted; it is attacked not only by those who dislike the burden, and the responsibility, which go with the decent hegemony, but above all by a group of infinitely more generous political thinkers who deny the assumptions, implied in that reasonable policy, concerning human nature. If for no other purpose, at least in order to defend a reasonable policy against overgenerous or utopian thought, we would need a genuine political philosophy reminding us of the limits set to all human hopes and wishes. In other words, even if it were true that man does not need political philosophy absolutely speaking, he does need political philosophy as soon as reasonable political action is endangered by an erroneous political teaching. If Zeno had not denied the reality of motion, it would not have been necessary to prove the reality of motion. If the sophists had not undermined the basic principles of political life, Plato might not have been compelled to elaborate his Republic. Or, to take another example, people would not have been willing to accept the policy of toleration, which was the only way out of the religious wars and hatreds of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, if they had not become convinced by political philosophers that it was not their religious or moral duty to rebel against heretical governments; the political philosophers did not inaugurate the policy of toleration, this was done by reasonable statesmen, but these statesmen never would have succeeded but for the help of the political philosophers who enlightened public opinion. These and similar examples merely show that political philosophy is necessary to defend a reasonable course of action, which was discovered and embarked upon independently of political philosophy, against allegedly true political teachings, which endanger that reasonable course of action; these and similar examples, I say, merely show the necessity of political philosophy as a sort of political apologetic. Such apologetics are evidently useful, and since they are bound to be backed by the politicians or statesmen whom they support, they are not necessarily ineffectual. The difficulty concerns political philosophy proper, which is not the handmaid of a reasonable policy, but its architect, as it were. Let me put the question this way: Is it true that all significant political concepts or theses are the by-product of political life, or the work of statesmen, politicians, lawyers, prophets, and not of philosophers? For argument's sake, I will assume that it is true in all cases in which it could seem to be true before one has sifted the evidence. There is certainly one fundamental political concept which is necessarily of philosophic origin because its very conception is, so to speak, identical with the emergence of philosophy as such. This concept is the concept of natural law or natural right. For "nature" is the fundamental philosophic discovery. Truth, Being, even World, and all other terms designating the object of philosophy are unquestionably older than philosophy, but the first man who used the term "nature"--I think, it was Odysseus, or Hermes, the god of thieves, merchants, and Athenian democracy-was the first philosopher. The only contribution of philosophy to poli- tics of which we can be absolutely certain is the concept of natural law or natural right, a law or right which is not made by man nor by gods, which has the same force everywhere, and which sets an absolute limit to human arbitrariness. "Nature" was the first and decisive and, I think, the most unambiguous discovery of philosophy. But one does not understand the meaning of the term nature if one does not bear in one's mind that from which nature is distinguished and to which it is opposed. If everything were nature or natural, nature would be a very empty concept. The men who discovered "nature," conceived of nature as the opposite of convention or law. Natural things, they observed, are everywhere the same, but the conventions vary from country to country, from city to city. Fire burns in Persia as well as in Greece, that fire burns is necessary; men are generated by men, and dogs by dogs-these things are necessary, but the laws concerning inheritance, theft, sacrifices, etc. are different in different countries and even in the same country at different times: these laws are essentially arbitrary, they are conventions. On the basis of that distinction, the idea arose that it should be possible to discover such an order of life as is good and right everywhere because it is in accordance with the one and unchangeable nature of man; this natural order is the only truly legitimate standard for judgments on the arbitrary enactments of monarchs and republics, and it is the only reliable guide for reform and improvement. Up to then, people had tacitly or expressly identified the good with the inherited or the old; from that moment, men began to distinguish the good from the old: "We are seeking the good, and not the old" (Aristotle),15 With regard to this fact, we may say: philosophy is the antitraditional force; the liberation from the opinions of the past, the opening up of new vistas is, and always has been, of the essence of philosophy. As long as philosophy was living up to its own innate standard, philosophers as such, by their merely being philosophers, prevented those who were willing to listen to them from identifying any actual order, however satisfactory in many respects, with the perfect order: political philosophy is the eternal challenge to the philistine. There never has been, and there never will be a time when the medicine administered by political philosophy has been and will be superfluous, although it must always be administered, as all medicine must, with discretion. This holds true in particular of our time; for in our time, we are confronted not merely with the Philistines of old who identify the good with the old or the actual, but with the Philistines of progress who identify the good with the new and the future. But of this, I shall have to speak somewhat later. If it is true that the concept of a natural law, or of a natural order, is coeval with philosophy itself, we are justified in speaking of the legitimate utopian- ism inherent in philosophy as such. This utopianism is the very soul of Plato's and Aristotle's political philosophy whose primary and guiding purpose is to discover that "constitution," that order of civil society, which is "natural." And this utopianism is legitimate because it is not deceptive: the philosophers I am speaking of call the perfect order of society an object of eux which means both wish and prayer: that perfect order is the object of the wish, or the prayer, of all decent people. Since it is acceptable, and meant to be acceptable, to decent people only, it is not a theoretical construction, but a practical ideal. By calling it candidly an object of wish or prayer, they left no doubt as to the gulf separating the ideal from reality, they considered that the realization of the ideal is a matter of chance, of lucky circumstances which may, or may not, arise. They did not make any predictions. While completely suspending their judgments concerning the realization of the ideal, they were definite as to the ideal itself: this ideal was, and was meant to be, the standard of sincere, uncompromising judgments on the real. The practical meaning of this utopianism was not, to repeat, to make any predictions as to the future course of events; it was merely to point out the direction which efforts of improvement would have to take. They did not seriously believe that the perfect order of society would ever become a reality; for, being an object of wish or prayer, there is no necessary reason why it should; but they felt that any actual order could bear improvement, substantial improvement. The relation of the ideal, or the utopia, to reality, as they conceived of it, may be described this way: there is a common, ordinary civil justice which con- sists in obedience to the law of the land and just administration of that law; that justice is not concerned with the justice of the law itself; it is for this reason a very imperfect justice, for every law, every legal order is bound to be only imperfectly just; therefore, justice must be supplemented by equity which is the correction of legal justice in the direction of perfect justice; the equitable order, or, as we might prefer to say, the order of charity is the utopian order; that utopian order by itself is essentially the object of wish or prayer, and not of political action; equity, or charity, by themselves are not capable to subsist on this earth without the solid, some- what brutal, imperfectly just, substructure of common justice; common justice must be "completed," corrected by considerations of equity or charity-it can never be supplanted by them, although all decent men would wish, or pray, that it could. It is for this reason that traditional political philosophy, or moral philosophy, frequently took on the form of exhortation, or moral advice. For if you do not believe that the perfect condition can be brought about by political action, you cannot hope for more than that one or the other of those in power might be induced, by moral appeal, by advice, by exhortations, by sermons, to do his best in his station along the lines of decency and humanity. This approach was underlying one special genre of political literature in particular, the mirrors of princes. While mentioning the mirrors of princes, I have come to the great turning point in political philosophy, to the starting point of the development in the course of which the traditional utopianism of the philosophers and, we may add, of the theologians, was gradually replaced by the modern utopian- ism of the social engineer. The mirrors of princes provoked the displeasure, the disgust, the passionate reaction of Machiavelli. Opposing the whole tradition of political philosophy, he did not wish to study any longer how men ought to behave, but how they do behave. He felt, not without good reason, that princes are not likely to listen to moral advice. From this he drew the conclusion, which no good man would have drawn, that he ought to teach princes how they could be efficient, if wicked. Machiavelli is the father of modern political philosophy, and in particular of that trend of modern political philosophy which came into being as a reaction to his teaching. For very few philosophers were prepared to follow him on his dangerous course. The general trend was along these lines: people accepted Machiavelli's critique of the utopianism of the philosophic and theological tradition; they admitted that the traditional ideals are too lofty to be put into practice, but, they argued, one cannot limit oneself to merely describing how men are and behave; men must be taught how they should be and behave. Thus a compromise between Machiavellianism and the tradition came into being: the idea to lower the traditional standard of conduct in order to guarantee the realization of these lower standards. Political philosophy attempted, therefore, to dis- cover standards whose realization would be necessary, or automatic, and, hence, no longer an object of mere wish or prayer. The natural standard of human societies is the common good; the problem was to reconcile the common good, the common interest, with the private good, the private inter- est. The answer which was given was this: the common good is the object of enlightened self-interest, or: virtue is identical with enlightened self-seeking. Accordingly, the primary task of political philosophy became to enlighten people about their self-interest. The idea was that the necessary outcome of general enlightenment about self-interest would be that people would no longer interfere with that natural, automatic process which would bring about social harmony but for people's foolish interference with that process. The guiding motive of all men-this is the "realistic," "Machiavellian" assumption underlying this modern utopianism-is self-interest. Self-interest, as we actually find it, unenlightened self-interest, necessarily leads to conflict, to the war of everyone against everyone, but this conflict is by no means necessary: everyone can be brought to realize that he would be better off in peace. What you have to do is to enlighten people about their self- interest: enlightened self-seekers will be as cooperative as unenlightened self- seekers are untractable. Enlightenment will gradually make superfluous the use of force. The trouble with this idea, or rather the fallacy underlying this idea, is this: however enlightened a man may be about his self-interest, the object of his enlightened self-interest is not necessarily identical with the object of his strongest desires. This means: the original conflict between moral demands and desires remains intact-it merely becomes much more difficult to cope with. For the conflict between moral demands and desires has its natural remedy: which is the appeal to [a] sense of duty, honor, or however you might like to call it. The appeal to the enlightened self- interest necessarily lacks that moral sting. Enlightened self-interest requires as much sacrifice as justice itself-but the exclusive appeal to enlightened self-interest weakens the moral fibers of men and thus makes them unable to bring any sacrifice. Things become, not better and clearer, but worse and more con- fused, if self-interest is replaced by self-realization. Another implication of this utopianism is the assumption that people really and basically want the object of their enlightened self-interest, that only lack of information prevents them from willing it. Actually, at least some people want more: power, precedence, dominion. And these dangerous people, even if few in number, are able to counteract the whole effort of enlightenment by employing" various devices, which sometimes are more effectual than the quiet voice of enlightening reason. What I am alluding to is the well- known fact that this modern utopianism naturally forgets the existence of the "forces of evil" and the fact that these forces cannot be fought successfully by enlightenment. We know a number of people who were honest enough to admit that they had forgotten the existence of evil; we can only hope that they will never do it again. One sometimes hears this kind of reasoning: during the last century, man has succeeded in conquering nature; natural science has been amazingly successful; all the more striking, and all the more regrettable, is the failure of the social sciences; the failure of the social sciences to establish social harmony, when contrasted with the success of the natural sciences, appears paradoxical. But it is paradoxical on the basis of modern utopianism only. For what is the human meaning of the success of the natural sciences? That man has become enormously more powerful than he has ever been. But does a man necessarily become a better, a nicer man by becoming more powerful? Let us consider for one moment under what conditions it would be reason- able to say that man becomes better by becoming more powerful. This would be reasonable if all wickedness, nastiness, malevolence, aggressiveness were the outcome of1" want. For as far as this is the case, one could make men better by satisfying their wants. This view is underlying the famous theory of frustration and aggression. The decisive fallacy expressed in this theory is the assumption that frustration is avoidable, that a life without some sort or other of frustration is possible at all, or that full satisfaction of wants is possible. I must try to explain this somewhat more fully. The view that enlightened self-interest leads to public-spiritedness and even to social harmony, whereas only unenlightened self-interest leads to social conflict, is not altogether erroneous. The error creeps in as a consequence of the ambiguity of the term "wants." Which are the wants whose satisfaction is the object of enlightened self- interest as distinguished from the object of unenlightened self-interest? Philosophers of former times used to distinguish between the necessary and the superfluous things. And they held that if all men were satisfied with the necessary things, with the truly necessary things, with what the body really and absolutely needs, the products of the earth would be sufficient to satisfy these wants without any fight among human beings becoming necessary. In other words, they held that the only guarantee of universal harmony is universal asceticism. Accordingly, they believed that the basic vice, the roots of all social conflict, is the desire for superfluous things, for luxury. 19 Now, one of the first actions of modern utopianism was the rehabilitation of luxury. It was assumed later on2" that if all men were interested exclusively in raising their standard of living, their comfort, in the commoda vitae, social harmony would follow; it was assumed that the object of enlightened self-interest is, not the bare minimum of subsistence, but the highest possible standard of living. No sensible person can be unmindful of the great blessings which we owe to the victory of this tendency, but one is justified in doubting that it has brought about any higher degree of social harmony, or that it has brought us any nearer to universal peace. The number and the extension of the wars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are not sensibly smaller than the wars of earlier ages. The curious thing about the present-day utopist is that he appears in the garb of the most hardboiled realist. He does not speak of moral ideals-he speaks of economic problems, economic opportunities, and economic conflicts. He has learned in the meantime that mere enlightenment, that mere change of opinions, would not do, he insists on the necessity of changing of institutions; he does not hesitate to recommend social revolution, unbloody21 or otherwise. I am aware of that. Nevertheless, I must insist on the basic agreement between him and his grandfather of the eighteenth century. No one will misunderstand me as if I were saying anything against economists. I still remember the papers read by Drs. Feiler and Marschak in last year's summer course,22 papers which culminated in the thesis that the most important economic problems necessarily lead beyond the sphere of economics into the sphere of moral decisions. But to come back to the trend of my argument, modern utopianism is not without good reason inseparable from economism, as distinguished from economics. For modern utopianism ultimately rests on the identification of the common good with the object of enlightened self-interest understood as a high standard of living. The original thesis was that man would be deter- mined by economic impulses, if he were enlightened, whereas actually he is determined by such foolish impulses as pride, prestige, etc. The next step was the assertion that man is in fact decisively determined by economic impulses and economic factors. The basic social or political facts are the economic facts: "the first private owner is the true founder of the State," "power goes with property." In its fully elaborated form, it is the economic interpretation of history which boasts of its more than Machiavellian realism, and which has nothing but contempt for the utopian socialism which it sup- planted. But to say nothing of the withering away of the State-which will still be a matter of pious or impious hope [a] long time after the withering away of Marxism will have been completed-what is more utopian than the implication of Marx's famous sentence: "Hitherto, the philosophers have limited themselves to interpreting the world; what matters is that the world be changed." For why did the philosophers limit themselves to interpreting the world? Because they knew that the world in the precise, unmetaphoric sense of the term, the universe, cannot be changed by man. Marx's innocent looking sentence implies the substitution of the little world of man for the real world, the substitution of the whole historical process for the real whole, which by making possible the whole historical process sets absolute limits to it. This substitution, a heritage from Hegel's idealistic philosophy, is the ultimate reason of Marx's utopian hopes. For is it not utopian to expect a perfect order of society, which is essentially perishable? To expect men to put all their will, hope, faith, and love on something which is admittedly not eternal, but less lasting than this planet of ours? To mistake eternity for a time of very long duration, for some billions of years, is the privilege of nonphilosophic men; it is the mortal sin for a man who claims to be a philosopher. If all human achievements, the jump into liberty included, are not eternal, the germ of ultimate destruction will be noticeable even in the highest human achievements, and hence the so-called perfect order on earth is bound to be a delusion. Much more realistic were the philosophers of old who insisted on the fact that the realization of the ideal is essentially a matter of chance, or the theologians of old who insisted on the fact that the ways of providence are inscrutable to man. Modern utopianism is based on the assumption that the realization of the ideal is necessary, or almost necessary. By "almost necessary" I mean that but for an avoidable human shortcoming the ideal would necessarily be realized. The peak of modern utopianism was reached in the apparently least utopian political philosophy of the last centuries, in the political philosophy of Hegel. For, contrary to Plato and Aristotle and their followers who had insisted on the fundamental difference between the ideal and the real, the reasonable and the actual, Hegel declared that the reasonable is the actual and the actual is the reasonable. A general survey of the history of political philosophy is apt to create the impression that there is no political philosophy from which we can learn any- thing because there is a disgraceful variety of political philosophies which fight each other to [the] death. Deeper study shows that this impression is misleading. It would be absurd to say that deeper study shows us all political philosophers in perfect agreement; it does show us, however, that there was a tradition of political philosophy whose adherents were in agreement as regards the fundamentals, the tradition founded by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, which was transformed, but not broken under the influence of the biblical virtues of mercy and humility, and which still supplies us with the most needed guidance as regards the fundamentals. We do not need lessons from that tradition in order to discern the soundness of Churchill's approach, e.g., but the cause which Churchill's policy is meant to defend would not exist but for the influence of the tradition in question. This tradition is menaced today by a spurious utopianism. No one will deny that the basic impulse which generated that utopianism was generous. Nevertheless, it is bound to lead to disaster because it makes us underestimate the dangers to which the cause of decency and humanity is exposed and always will be exposed. The foremost duty of political philosophy today seems to be to counteract this modern utopianism. But to describe the service which political philosophy can render, not merely today, but at all times, one would have to say that political philosophy teaches us how terribly difficult it is to secure those minimums of decency, humanity, justice, which have been taken for granted, and are still being taken for granted, in the few free countries. By enlightening us about the value of those apparently negligible achievements, it teaches us not to expect too much from the future. In the last analysis, political philosophy is nothing other than looking philosophically at things political-philosophically, i.e., sub specie aeternitatis. In thus making our hopes modest, it protects us against despondency. In thus making us immune to the smugness of the philistine, it makes us at the same time immune to the dreams of the visionary. Experience seems to show that common sense left to itself is not" proof against these faulty extremes: common sense requires to be fortified by political philosophy. Man's modern venture which has been amazingly successful in many respects, makes us distrustful of all teachings which insist on the fact that there are certain absolute limits to human progress: have not many of the allegedly existing limits proved to be surmountable? But the question is whether the price which had to be paid for these conquests was not, in some cases, too high, in other words, whether it is not still true that man can indeed expel nature with a hayfork, but that nature will always come back with a vengeance. By erecting the proud edifice of modern civilization, and by living within that comfortable building for some generations, many people seem to have forgotten the natural foundations, not dependent on human will and not changeable, which are buried deep in the ground and which set a limit to the possible height of the building. In practical terms, this means that the task before the present generation is to lay the foundations for a long peace period: it is not, and it cannot be, to abolish war for all times. To quote a great liberal of the last century, Henry Hallam: "the science of policy, like that of medicine, must content itself with devising remedies for immediate danger, and can at best only retard the progress of that intrinsic decay which seems to be the law of all things human, and through which every institution of man, like his earthly frame, must one day crumble into ruin" (Const. Hist. 1:182),24 This sounds pessimistic or fatalistic, but it is not. Do we cease living, and living with reasonable joy, do we cease doing our best although we know with absolute certainly that we are doomed to die? At the end of the third part of King Henry the Sixth, after the victory of his house, King Edward the Fourth says: "For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy." All the commentary that is needed is implied in the fact that Edward's brother Richard, afterwards King Richard the Third, is silently present. At the end of Richard III, after that bloody tyrant had been slain, the victorious Henry VII concludes his speech by saying: "peace lives again: That she may long live here, God say amen!" The prudent Henry VII, the favorite of Bacon, was wiser than the ill-fated Edward IV. A wise man cannot say more than the father of Henry VIII did, and he cannot seriously hope for more. To what God did say "amen" after the victory of Henry VII, is recorded in the histories. It is hard to face these facts without becoming cynical, but it is not impossible. The philosophers advise us to love fate, stern fate. The Bible promises us God's mercy. But the comfort which comes from God is as little pleasant to the flesh as is the love of fate. For the flesh, which is weak, wants tangible comfort. That tangible comfort-a man-made eternal peace and happiness-non datur. We have to choose between philosophy and the Bible.