POL 1102 - POL Theory PDF

POL 1102 - POL THEORY NOTES: Premids on monday. Political philosophy-theory Thoerizing- trying to answer a question that is being processed by philosophy, analyze, interpreting what we have read. Philosophy-Question Theory-Answer Result to argument but can still be validated. POLITICAL THEORY I...

POL 1102 - POL THEORY NOTES: Premids on monday. Political philosophy-theory Thoerizing- trying to answer a question that is being processed by philosophy, analyze, interpreting what we have read. Philosophy-Question Theory-Answer Result to argument but can still be validated. POLITICAL THEORY IN POLITICAL SCIENCE Political theory - trying to make sense of the world, normative questions of politics, suggest that we are dealing with real world politics that require explanation, continuation of the conceptual understanding from philosophy. In the concept of political science, you cannot move forward without theoritizing. Approaches: - Traditional political theory - Formal political theory Treated as ‘soft’ genre in political science, distinguished from ‘more scienti c’ Science and objectivity is monopolized by these traditions. The ‘science’ in political science shouldn't be taken at face value. Denies the rhetoric against political theory having less vigor in approach. You cannot quantify and proceed to the methodology if you don’t rst have a theory, a theory is also a product from studies/research. The philosophy(the normative thing) behind rational choice. Economic rationality - People respond from incentives, how people make decisions, assuming that people prioritize economic gain, money, favor, power, anything with value. fi fi What is the concept behind your theory, where did it come from? How do you validate your theory? If you cannot validate it then it is barely a political science, you can validate it by testing it through the real world(research) How can I proceed? How will I quantify when there is no pattern? Take similar variables. Political theory in history Question: - Applicability of theories from di erent historical periods to others. - Universality of concepts. Historicity: - Historical contexts by which these theories were generated is important to its utilization. The ‘Political’ - The ideological connotations attached to each of this theories. POLITICAL THEORY IN PHILOSOPHY Re-Centers our discussion/discourse to real world concepts. Re-abstraction of exiting political concepts treated by political theory asserts the importance of theorizing in the growing assertion of ‘objectivity’ in the political science discipline. Objectivity can change anytime. (A span of years, it must be revisited) POLITICAL THEORY IN THE REAL WORLD We theoritize in response to the real world events. Critics of political theory highlights its utopianism/inapplicable Alienated from politics (Gunnel, 1986) In response: Political theories that utilized empirical approaches. Political theories that theorized on current political events and phenomena. Political theories take their cue from events around them, out of a problem and transforming it into a question. Philosophy - The Origin, the seminal discipline of all, asking questions of everything. Current political theories are the continuation of what the thinkers/scholars of the past studied. Knowing which methodology to use for your question. WESTERN SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 6th century BC in Ionia. ff  Ioninas were the rst to organized city-states. Coming from di erent tribes. The use of reason as primary tool to unravel the truth or explaining the di erent phenomenon that man experience. PRE- SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY MILESIAN SCHOOL - Focused on the exploration of nature. - Pre-Greek societies (non-scienti c) - No concept of universal laws of nature that can be explained through reasoning. - Animistic in nature. Miletus - Comercial center of Ionia. First three greek thinkers (Numberings are for all the mentioned pre-socratic philosophers): 1. Thales - Water as the basic element(everything that lives requires water). 2. Anaximander - Existence of primal substance that is transformed into various elements. - This primal substance is something eternal. 3. Anaximenes - This primal substance is something that is elemental(AIR, it's there but its something that you cannot touch, observe or access empirically.) 4. Pythagoras - Mathematics as a form of deductive reasoning - Upheld the Bacchic mysticism dominant in the pre-socratic ages. - Communicate and be at the level of the gods, you have to be intoxicated, because of the level of the intoxication you can be at the level of the gods/talk to the gods. - Believes in the idea of transmigration of souls. 5. Heraclitus - Fire as the fundamental substance. ( re within men to push men to do things, how and why you want to do those things is because of re, master it) - Only force will compel mankind to act for their own good (you will be able to complete the end is when somebody else will tell you that). - Values power obtained through self-mastery, and despises the passions that distract men from their central ambitions (focus). - Everything changes as a product of battle between the dry and the moist portions of the soul ( re and water). Uphold the re over the moist portions of the soul. 6. Parmenides - Metaphysics based on logic. - The only true thing is "The One." Sensible things are mere illusions. fi ff fi fi fi fi fi ff  - "The thing can be thought and that for the sake of which the thought exists is the same; for you cannot nd though without something that is, as to which it is uttered." - The fact that the concept exists means that it exist. 7. Empedocles - Air as the separate substance; theory of survival of the ttest; - Strife and Love produce change (parallel to Heraclitus.) - For humans to advance, love and strife is a constant thing to happen, thus dissociating the natural change of man. 8. Anaxagoras - Carrying scienti c rationalistic tradition of Ionia, he rst introduced philosophy to Athenians. - Mind as the cause of physical change. - Everything is in nitely divisible. - Mind has power over all things that have life; it is in nite and self-ruled, and is mixed with nothing. Mind is the source of all motion. 9. Protagoras - "Man is the measure of all things that are they are and of things that are not that they are not." - When men di er, there is no objective truth in virtue of which one is right and the other wrong. - No absolute truth. Truth is relative or there are multiplicity of truths. - The disbelief in objective truth makes the majority, for practical purposes, the arbiters as to what to believe. THE RISE OF ATHENS Most of great pre socratic greek thinkers came from Ionia and Italian Islands. After the two Persian wars(490 BC and 480-79 BC) - 490- Darius - 480-79- Xerxes - Anti-persian alliances with the ionians were in need of naval force to which Athens provided in exchange for money. - As a result, Athens became naval superpower and a wealthy nation which was capable of reconstructing the war damages, this paved the way for the demand for sculptors, artists, historians (including Herodotus). - The alliance was slowly transformed into an Athenian empire. - Athens' heydays were under the leadership of Percicles until 430 BC. - Compromised of battle between tyranny and democracy where aristocrats were able to situate themselves in the democratic government. - Until Athens' expansionism and growing wealth rose tension with Sparta that led to the Peloponnesian war (431-404) which brought Athens to the ground. Atomists - Leucippus and Democritus - Everything is composed of atoms; which are physically but not geometrically invisible. - Between atoms there is an empty space; the realm of the gods, humans, living. fi ff fi fi fi fi fi  - Determinism: Things are predetermined in line with natural laws - Because of that composition, there os a biological and natural direction of that particular being. - There is an end that is already xed. - "The world may be attributed to a Creator, but even the Creator Himself is unaccounted for." Sophists - Teachers who created subjects by inventing de nitions and concepts and who were paid for teaching them. - Education was meant for leadership(only for those who will rule). - Political institutions are not the product of divine laws but of social conventions and agreements agreed upon by men for utilitarian reasons (Concept of a social contract). - Discredited for being teachers of political propaganda. - The shift from studies about outer world of nature towards man and his behavior with society. - Skepticism as a from of intellectual challenge to the supposed rationalism expressed in democratic constitutions of Athens. - We are governed because we allow to be governed. - How do the rulers make the public believe that they are rightful rulers, how the public will give their consent to the government. SOCRATIC REASON & PLATONIC IDEALISM "Man is the center of all the discussion." -Socrates - Rationality is what connects man to this world. - Man’s purpose, why do we exist, and understand the world around us. - Man in political theory - Man is governed by laws that man created by themselves. - Man in politics- Universality conception of who man is. - Similar characteristics but are di erent from each other, encompass the generalized de nition of all men. Is also an ever-changing being. Who we are as being(man) depends on where or what time we are in. Duality is at the peak of man’s existence. The concept of ‘Man’ is an abstract one (uncontexualized). Man is relative across spaces and especially in history(time). In the context of political theory, the concept of man has been providing organizing principles of whole cultures, systems of government, and society as a whole. What was the state of nature prior to laws, rules, etc. Man’s existence comes rst before you can even socialize. fi fi fi ff fi What is the nature of man? The creation of the state is necessary to correct the behavior of men. THE POLITICAL MAN: ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHY SOCRATES "Just as knowledge/reason can unravel the mysteries of nature, so can it lead mo mankind's moral master." (Ebenstein, 2000). He was very dedicated to argument for the purpose of knowledge. If moral life depends on knowledge then doing good requires knowing the good and the process of knowing the good is doing good. Dialectics - Anti-dogmatic method of seeking the truth. The rst to practice deductive reasoning upon studying the individual and society. For each question, answers lead to another set of questions, a common de nition of concept is produced (Socratic Method). Knowledge/Reason - There is no way to debunk the fundamental platform by which we start our inquiry to the political phenomena or the phenomena being analyzed by philosophy and for human activity to be analyzed, this certain variable must be present among all humans. - This can resolve the mysteries of nature which was the subject matter for pre-socratic philosophers. How did Socrates utilize knowledge/reason? - Knowledge alone is not something that is to be viewed as a mere concept, it must be put into a proper methodology so that in can be structured in a way that in fact the object of you inquiry ca be properly achieved. - Your reason must undergo a certain methodology. “The unexamined life is not worth living” -Socrates during his trial. - You are simply not living if you do not attempt to know. - Because people come from varying backgrounds, they may have di erent opinions and things. - An existing thesis and antithesis can create a synthesis or new concept. - It does not have an end of knowledge process making. How do we achieve knowledge if that is the case. - Intuitive thinking reunites individual Mind and Universal Mind. fi fi ff - Such knowledge will constantly, especially when we try to understand man. - Our existence is not xed. In terms of Political science, everything is at a constant change. WHAT IS JUSTICE? - Justice as a human and societal concept evolved as a product of human activity. Who can we consider a just a man? What can we consider as a just act? Can a man do unjust things and can the unjust man do just things? Norm making - To make sure that our discourse is centered to the contexuality. TWO SOCRATES: Historical Socrates - The actual persona of Socrates that really existed during his time and expressed his own thoughts in real terms. Platonic Socrates - The character Plato used to express his thoughts via literary integrity. How does dialectics operate? ` The Socratic Method: The Dialectic Step 1: Pose a question Examples: "What is Piety? (Euthyphro) "What is virtue?" (Meno) "What is meaning?" (Sophist) "What is love?" (Symposium) "What is justice?" (Republic) Socrates' Apology - He is highlighting that "I know nothing." 1. "God only is wise; and by his answer he intends to show that the wisdom of men worth little or nothing; he is not speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name by way of illustration, as if he said, He, O, men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdoms is in truth worth nothing." fi  - He did not claim that he was knowledgeable with things. - Everything that he thinks he knows he set asides, saying that he does not know anything and that it is simply a concept and it is to be challenged. For those concepts that are introduced for other people, he challenges it as well until it reaches to a point that everything is shared to a level of knowledge. - Knowledge is only monopolized by God. 2. "If you think that by killing men you can prevent someone from censuring your evil lives, you are mistaken; that is not a way of escape which is either possible or honourable; the easiest and noblest way is not to be disabling others, but to be improving yourselves." - This is an attack to those who have persecuted Socrates. - He was declared heretic for such approach in teaching. PLATO (428-7 B.C) - A well to do Aristocrat who witnessed the defeat of Athens by Sparta to which he among other young aristorcrats of his time attributed to democracy. (He is anti-democracy) - Philosophically In uenced by: Phythagoras- Orphic/Bacchic mysticism Parmenides- Reality as eternal and timeless Heraclitus- Nothing is permanent in the sensible world (reason is supreme, not the senses) Socrates- Teleological explanation of the ethical questions. - Highly in uenced by Sparta. - Called their souls were three types depending on which element predominated in a particular mixture, the moral hierarchy of elements, therefore, is transitive to a strict hierarchy of men. - Believes that it is in the soul that constitutes a person's entire being, whatever actions a man makes is the product of a man's soul. - A true just man is able to understand his essence, we must know out essence, the easiest way to categorize that is to see which fuels our actions the most. The Three Elements: REASON, SPIRIT, and APPETITE. The Four Cardinal Virtues: WISDOM, COURAGE, MODERATION, JUSTICE. ELEMENTS OF THE SOUL CARDINAL VIRTUES fl fl Reason/Rationality- The usage of reason, to Wisdom be able to understand a certain phenomena through a certain use of methodology. Spirit- The emotion, passion. love for things, Courage- Your passion enables you to be for country, freedom, and the emotions that fearless. come out of it. Appetite- The want to consume, the urge, it Moderation- Because your appetite must be constitutes every human needs and wants. moderated. More primal and biological (the animal side). Why does the fourth Cardinal Virtue have no Justice (The just man) - Is the ideal person counterpart? It is because it is a summation through which every mem ber of the polis of the three virtues. The BALANCE between must be able to achieve. the three components of the soul and the balance of all the virtues is present in a JUST MAN. PLATO'S UTOPIA - The Organization of the Ideal State. - Plato introduced that society must be divided ad structured in a way wherein individuals must pursue their roles according to their virtue - A society that is balances and just is therefore a society composed in this particular order. The Three classes of society: VIRTUE SOUL CLASS Wisdom Rational Rulers Courage Sprited Soldiers Temperance Appetite Artisans PLATO'S THEORY OF JUSTICE - It consist, we are told; in everybody doing his own work and not being a busybody; the city is just when trader, auxiliary, and guardian, each does his own job without interfering with that of other classes. - Justice is deemed as a matter of stability. - Stability as an expression of justice is preserved by the proper function each individual especially the rulers: Secure the size of the state Maintain unity of the commonwealth Education and nurture THE COMPOSITION OF A STATE: WISE- Virtue of rationality that is needed to rule. BRAVE- virtue of the necessary spirit to protect the state. TEMPERATE- Virtue of control of individual appetite in service to the state. JUST- the overall state of balance of the three previous virtues. The Guardians(The wise) - They are rational and geared towards leadership. Programs for The Guardians: 1. Music(Culture 2. Gymnastics(Athletics) 3. Economic and Biological: - Communism (ancient conception or practice) including the auxiliaries/soldiers - Small house, simple food, live in camps, dine together as groups. - No private property (beyond what is necessary) - Equality of Women - Family(women and children are to all) - Procreation festivals - Abolition of the family - Common marriage - The purpose is to minimize private possessive emotions, and so remove obstacles to the domination of public spiri, as well as to acquiescence in the absence of private property, 4. Religious - "One Royal Lie" God has created men of three kinds: The best made of gold: Fit to be guardians The second best, of silver: Should be soldiers The common her of brass and iron: The rest should do manual work. The Philosopher King To be sought if the ideal state is to be established. The merger of intellectual capacity and established authority (previously monarchial in nature). To create the ideal state, the rationalism of the philosopher should be inculcated in the ranks of the rulers: - Either philosophers become kings or kings become su ciently inspired with a genuine desire for wisdom. PHILOSOPHER - Is a man who loves the "vision of truth". The acquisition of such truth is knowledge. ffi KNOWLEDGE VS. OPINION Knowledge- Super-sensible eternal world(Concerns with beauty itself). I understand beauty. Opinion- The world that is presented through the senses(Concerns with Beautiful things). My view of beauty. Particular- OPINION - Particular sensible things seem to have within it contradictory elements and therefore untrue since it is subjective/relative. - Example: Beautiful and ugly at the same time. Just and unjust at the same time (relative to the viewer of action). Universal (forms)- KNOWLEDGE - Are non-sensible true meaning of things. This is the truth of the thing that is absolute. Its logical proof is the existence of the concept of a thing. Plato's Allegory of the Cave - An object has sensible features but this is not reality but rather as interpretation of the perfect idea or form, the reality. - Such reality can only be accessible to the limited few. - Served as the Philosophical backbone o LOGIC VS METAPHYSICS Logic - Has to do with the meaning of general words. These words are not meaningless, but they are not bound by a particular thing it represents but the universal idea it represents. - Example: The word "cat" is not particular cat (This cat or that cat). If that or this cat dies, the word "Cat" does not die with it. The cat has no position in space or time. Metaphysics - The thing is certain ideal that is created by god. All other things that are sensible partakes the nature of a thing- imperfectly. Its imperfection is the cause for its multiplicity - The presence of the idealism of things. - Example: The particular cats are call cats but not the cat itself. They only take portions of the nature of the cat. The cat that is represented by the word cat is therefore the real cat and the particular cats are mere apparent. Knowledge is perfection and opinion is the imperfection, both of them interact with each other in the sense that the imperfection takes part in the perfect concept imperfectly. ARISTOTLE AND THE POLITICAL ANIMAL ARISTOTLE  - He observes how city states were governed di erently. - There must be a balance between the ruler and the ruled. - Everyone should be good, the goodness should not be absolute, citizens are expected to function as citizens that are good. - The ruler should be ruled, so they can be identi ed how to be ruled. GOOD MAN Good man(Ruler)-PRUDENCE Virtue of excellence/goodness is single and absolute regardless of the constitution. Excellence in the order of ruling. POLITICAL RULE, the ruler of over equally free men, is developed and learned by ruler both by being ruled and by ruling. Good Citizen(Ruled)-RIGHT OPINION Not absolute excellence/goodness. Excellence/goodness of the citizen is relative to the constitution as the composition of their association. Knowledge of rule over free men from both points of view (rule and ruled). EUDAIMONIA (The Good Life) - It is the ultimate purpose and end of the polis/state. - The constitution of a state is a composition of associations and class in a good life, self su cing/self su cient. - Social institutions are a means to the god life: Marriages, Kin-groups, Religious gathering. ffi ffi ff fi