(latest update: 25.8.11)
The questions here are include some authors from an earlier version of the course.
The reading questions for Arendt, "The Promise of the Political" will be added later.
This is a compilation of questions. Some questions here may not match this year’s assignments, but all assignments should have questions here. The questions are to help you find your way through the reading. Corrections and supplementations welcome. Let me know.
| Plato | Hobbes | Madison | Mill | Rawls |
| Aristotle | Locke | Hegel | Oakeshott | Habermas |
| Machiavelli | Rousseau | Marx | Arendt |
Republic VI, VII, and VII
Republic VI, The Sun and Divided Line; Republic VII, The Cave Allegory.
Here is an illustrated page to help you with these two and with the Cave Allegory..
Book VIII opens with a summary of previous points about the ideal regime (“constitution”). It then turns to the topic of our interest, an analysis of four constitutions (the fifth and best, aristocracy, has already been examined). The four are timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny. For us, the last three are the most interesting.
The examination is structured by the claim that political regimes are rooted in persons and persons are shaped by political regimes. What do you think about this claim?
From 546a to 547a there is a discussion of the reasons for political change (why even the best regime will change – for the worse). You may skip this (we will discuss it in class).
What is corrupting about privacy or secrecy?
The three regimes that interest us are the regimes of desire: oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny. Aristocracy is the regime of intellect (based on what is best in humans); timocracy is the regime of character (virtue). Oligarchy is desire disciplined by intellect (acquisition of wealth); democracy is desire regulated by virtue (toleration); and tyranny is desire undisciplined (power).
What are the flaws of each of these three regimes?
How does each regime create its own downfall and lead to the next regime?
The topic of the Crito is obedience to the laws of the community. This gives us two questions to think about:
1) why should we obey the laws? and
2) should we obey them even when they are bad or wrong?
The Dialogue:
Socrates has been legally tried and convicted for impiety and for corruption of the Athenian youth. He believes that he is innocent; nevertheless, he was sentenced to death. A rich friend of his, Crito, has arranged an escape and comes to persuade Socrates of the plan. Socrates will refuse Crito's offer, and he will justify his refusal by claiming that he must obey the laws of Athens, even if they command his death.
A secondary theme of the dialogue is friendship. Is Crito, who is willing to do and sacrifice so much for Socrates, a good friend? Who is our good friend? What does a good friend help us do?
In the opening scene, note how considerate Crito is, how serene Socrates is. Even the hour is a quiet one.
In 44b-46a we see Crito the friend express his feelings and argue for his plan.
3) What does Crito think a good friend of Socrates should do for Socrates?
Part of this can be found at 44b-c, but you should also check Crito's long speech (45a-46a) before you answer this question.
4) What will "many" people "who do not know you or me" (44b) think of Crito if he does nothing for Socrates?
Note the quoted phrases from 44b-c: they are "many" and those "many" are people "who do not know" Socrates or Crito.
5) What are the contrasting terms to "many" and to "whose who do not know"? Might the "few who do know" hold a different view?
6) How will Crito take care of problems with the law and with informers? (45a-c)
7) What is Socrates' obligation towards his children?
Note there are two answers to this question: Crito's (45c-d) and Socrates' (48c-d). Socrates' answer is prepared (and explained) by the questions and answers in 46b-48b.
8) Why does Crito feel ashamed? (45e-46a)
9) What is Crito’s basic motive?
I can see two different plausible answers to this question. One is at 45b, but a second, perhaps "deeper" motive can be found running through Crito's answers from 45b to 446a. Give one answer.
In 46a-49e Socrates and Crito prepare to decide.
10) According to Socrates, whose opinions should we take more seriously? (47a-d)
Socrates and Crito must decide about the right thing to do. Note how Socrates prepares them for the decision with the series of questions starting at 47a.
Socrates suggests that a person is composed of (at least) two parts.
11) What are they? (47e-48a)
12) One part is the body which is concerned with ...
13) The other part is concerned with what?
14) What do we ordinarily call this second part of a person?
15) What parallel does Socrates draw between the body and the soul? (47e-48a)
16) If junk food and poisons (alcohol and tobacco) damage the body, what things damage the soul? (47e)
17) How do junk foods, etc. damage the body? How then, by analogy, is the soul damaged? (This is not in the text; you need to finish the analogy.)
18) Does Socrates think most people will believe and agree with what he says? (48a, 49d)
Crito is very concerned for Socrates' life.
19) How does Socrates correct Crito's concern? (48b)
20) For Socrates, what is the important consideration in deciding what Crito and Socrates should do?
At 48c-e, Socrates dismisses a number of considerations that Crito thinks are important; for example, what the majority think or questions of reputation.
21) Socrates holds that there is really only one valid consideration, namely, ...
22) How will Socrates and Crito find "the right thing to do"?
It is fine to be told that we should do the right thing because it is the right thing to do (and not because we benefit or gain profit or help our friends and harm our enemies or etc. etc.), but what is the right thing to do? Socrates suggests a procedure at 48e. Read the paragraph carefully.
Socrates and Crito agree that it is never right to do wrong to another.
23) Do you agree? Why or why not?
24) What right justifies doing wrong?
If you are interested in seeing Socrates argue for this principle, take a look at Plato's dialogue, Gorgias. It is a very confrontational dialogue! Three opponents gang up on Socrates in a "knock-down-drag-out fight" of an argument.
In 50a-54e the laws of Athens have their turn at speaking and they claim that if Socrates chooses to escape into exile, then he "intends to destroy ... the laws, and indeed the whole city."
25) How can Socrates' one act of disobedience intend to destroy the laws and the city of Athens?
26) How can it in fact destroy laws and the city?
(This is a general question and you may want to read further and come back to answer this one later.)
27) If Socrates disobeys the laws, who then is he obeying?
Why is this bad if he is in a community? (50b)
The laws claim that Socrates is breaking a longstanding agreement he has with the laws.
28) How has Socrates shown his agreement with the laws? (50c-51a, 51d-c)
29) Does a child owe a parent, teacher, and state obedience just because the parent, teacher, and state have long cared for that child?
(Same pages as previous question. Give Socrates' answer, then yours, if yours is different.)
30) Does a citizen owe obedience to those who care for him or her?
Give your own answer to this question.
The rule of law is different than the "rule of Socrates" (see question 26).
31) What is the great and important difference between the two? (See 51b-c and 52a.)
32) Why, if Socrates disobeys Athenian laws, will he be dangerous and unwelcome in Thebes, Megara, or even in "wild" Thessaly? (53b)
33) What other problem would Socrates face in Thebes, Megara, or Thessaly? (53c-54a)
Aristotle
Politics I
Ch. 1
Aristotle defines items by describing what they are “for”. What is a state for?
Are all kinds of rule the same?
Ch. 2
Aristotle claims that one acquires a clear view of natural items by looking at its origin. What is the origin of the state?
Pay attention to the last two paragraphs of the chapter.
Ch. 3
What are the four relations in a household?
Why are slaves a part of a complete household? (Aristotle does not answer the question)
What is the controversy about slavery?
Ch. 4 to 7
Aristotle explains slavery. All ancient civilizations in all parts of the world had slavery. One of the primary differences between the ancients and the moderns is that the modern world has (slowly) done away with slavery.
What are Aristotle’s justifications of slavery?
What might correspond to slavery in the modern (contemporary) world?
Ch. 10
I have cut most of Aristotle’s explanation of household management (the Greek word for this is “economics”). Note his claim about economic activity.
Ch. 11
Note again that Aristotle distinguishes different kinds of rule. Which one(s) is (are) political?
Ch. 13 (optional)
A long and more difficult chapter. I include it for those interested in a more subtle reading of Aristotle’s political views.
What is the main point Aristotle makes in this chapter?
How does the argument in this chapter seem to undermine the main point?
Politics III
Ch. 6
This chapter raises the issue of a common interest. What does common interest have to do with politics?
Ch. 7
Aristotle uses a two part classification scheme. Draw up the chart of the resulting six kinds of "constitutions."
Politics VII
Ch. 1
What are the three kinds of "goods"?
Why is the good of the soul highest?
Ch. 2 and 3
Which is the best life? One of private pursuits and pleasures? One of political action? One of philosophical contemplation? Why?
The Prince, 15-18, 25
Chapter 15:
Note Machiavelli’s emphasis on “useful”, “real”, “not imaginary”. What is the point of using these terms?
Machiavelli says all talk about humans is evaluative (“censure or praise”). What does this mean for the Prince (the political person)?
Towards the end of the last paragraph, Machiavelli recommends one virtue that, in politics, can substitute for all the other virtues that one may lack. What is that virtue (ability)?
Chapter 16:
Generosity is a virtue (praised) that is destructive for a Prince. Why?
How can a Prince seem to have this virtue without really being generous?
Note: this is the point of Machiavelli’s Prince – the one who succeeds by seeming (appearance) rather than by being (reality). This tangles with what Machiavelli says about “imaginary” and “real” at the beginning of Chapter 15. We will spend classtime on this. Just read the chapter.
Another tangle: note the sentence toward the end: “Among all the things a ruler should try to avoid, he must avoid above all being hated and despised.” What does Machiavelli say in the next chapter?
Chapter 17:
The first paragraph repeats the topsy-turvey world of appearance and reality, this time in the case of cruelty as chapter 16 did for generosity.
Why is it better to be feared than loved?
Note the conclusion to the chapter. What is the basic difference between human relationships based on love and those based on fear?
Chapter 18:
Here is the question of the contrast between law and force (man and beast).
“Man is a wolf to man.” Pay particular attention to the third paragraph (“Since a ruler, ...”) and to the fifth paragraph (“So a ruler need not...”).
What is Machiavelli’s view of human nature?
Chapter 25:
What percentage of our actions is decided by circumstances ("fortune")?
Machiavelli likes the changing circumstances in time to the flow of a river. What is his point with this analogy?
And now for the (still) shocking conclusion. One thinks the Prince is all about Power, but instead it is La Fortuna (luck, fortune – feminine in Italian) that is basic. Note the last paragraph.
Leviathan I, Chapters13-15, 17-18.
Focus on Chapter 13 and the opening of Chapter 14
Chapter 13
In what ways are humans equal? In what ways unequal?
What is the cause of “diffidence” (antipathy) between humans?
What are the three causes of quarrels between humans?
The condition of war deprives humans of ….
What is necessary for moral and legal judgments of right and wrong?
Chapter 14
Hobbes sets out the two fundamental natural laws, then derives 17 more natural laws in Chapter 15.
According to Hobbes, a natural law is:
- A precept or general rule that applies to a group of humans (a society);
- A rule that can be grasped by reason (and hence can serve as a motive and be a ground of responsibility)
- A rule that forbids self-destruction or neglect of self-preservation.
Here are the first two natural laws:
1. That every man ought to endeavor peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war.
2. That a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defense of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things, and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself.
Chapter 15
What is justice?
Is their natural justice, or is it a human construct?
Why are promises important to the notion of justice?
As for the remaining 17 natural laws, our interest is not in the details but in what sort of guidelines for human behavior are basic in Hobbes (natural laws). They are:
3. Contracts are honored (this the source of right/wrong, good/bad) and requires a Sovereign.
4. One should honor favors.
5. One should be congenial.
6. Give forgiveness where asked.
7. Punishment is corrective not retributive.
8. No offensive speech.
9. Necessary assumption of equality.
10. Rights are equally distributed.
11. Equality before the law.
12. Common goods that are allotted.
13. Common goods that are shared.
14. Common goods that ought not be seized.
15. Peacemakers are privileged.
16. Parties in a conflict must seek arbitration.
17. Impartiality of judges.
18. Judges should not be corrupt.
19. Equal cases should suspend judgment.
Chapter 17
What is a human’s ultimate real goal?
The laws are contrary to our natural passions, so what is needed to make us follow reason (natural law) rather than passion?
Hobbes identifies human characteristics that promote conflict (cf. Chapter 13):
- competition for dignity,
- the divergence of private good from common good,
- critical ability (the ability to see mistakes);
- dissembling (the ability to confuse moral appearances (good and evil);
- busybody (the ability to understand and project the meaning and intent of others actions);
- community is unnatural for humans.
What is the contract?
Read Chapter 18 for some very surprising further specifications of the contract and the sovereign.
Second Treatise on Government
Chapter 2: State of Nature
What is the “state of nature” for Locke? (Briefly stated in the in the first paragraph of §4.)
Notice that Locke has a different account of why all men are equal in the state of nature.
In §6 Locke states his version of the basic law of nature. It is?
In §§7-11 Locke specifies two fundamental rights in the state of nature, the right of punishment and the right of retribution. What is the difference between punishment and retribution? Who can claim which right?
§13 criticizes Hobbes.
§14 states the one kind of contract (“compact”) that “puts and end to the state of nature between men.” Namely …?
Why do humans have to even bother with trying to live with one another? (Why is politics necessary? See §15.)
Chapter 5: Property
Locke begins with the question (like Marx), if God (Nature) gave us the world, how did separate private ownership come into existence? And is property just?
What is the first, original, and proper property of each human being?
Pay close attention to Locke’s “labor theory of property” in §27.
Given his view of property, what makes some common good, “mine” or “thine”?
What natural (and moral) limit is there to taking property from common abundance? (§§31-2.)
Note the esteem for industry and reason (§34).
What measures the “intrinsic value” of things (§37), also at outset of §40?
[Note what Locke says about the man who cultivates land “increasing” the common stock of mankind. This argument was explicitly used in America to take land from the Indians.]
What is the reason for introducing money? (The “nuts” argument in §46.)
Catch the very famous quote in §49: “Thus in the beginning all the World was America.”
What is the difference between the value of land and goods, and the value of money?
Chapter 7: Political or Civil Society
Start with §87. Here begins the crucial description of the “transition from the state of nature to civil (political) society (= justification of state authority). Note and list the features of the transition (from … to ….)
Which branch of the state is fundamental? The basic political agent and authority? (Why would this be extremely controversial in Locke’s day and very surprising to Americans today?)
The chapter ends with several criticisms of Hobbes (§§91-93).
Chapter 8: Beginnings of Political Society (§§95-99)
Now comes the strange notion of consent. (Ask yourself, is it reasonable to base government on consent? How would this be done?)
When humans consent to make a community, who has the right to act and decide?
When humans consent to make a community, what are they consenting to?
Chapter 9: The Purpose of Political Society
Humans unite into political communities for the sake of ….?
What three political benefits or institutions are missing in the state of nature?
What two natural rights to humans lose in political societies?
What is the proper limit of government? That is, what decides if government has “gone too far”?
The letter opens with an attack on religious persecution where that persecution makes use of state powers (power over the body).
Is religion a public or private matter?
Is morality public or private?
Is virtue public or private?
Are beliefs public or private?
What is "public" & what is "private"?
How does Locke separate "public" (civil) and private (religion)?
How are beliefs formed?
According to Locke?
Can they be formed by authority (teaching, laws, compulsion)?
Can they be formed by habit (upbringing, education, training)?
Can one be "brainwashed" (ideology, indoctrination, advertising?
Can a person have "their own beliefs"?
Pay attention to Locke's definition of a church. I think it is a bizarre definition of a church (why?).
It is a very good definition of what we will call civil association and civil society.
For those of you familiar with the New Testament, how accurate is Locke's use of the text? How are we (individually and collectively) to decide on the "correct" understanding of the New Testament?
And of course, the most important question for us: when is a matter of belief a matter of civil (state) concern?
Phrased otherwise, what is tolerance?
Du Contrat Social
Book I, 1, 5-8
1. Note the Machiavellian rejection of “utopian” politics at the opening of Book I.
“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” In what sense is man free? What are the chains? (You will want to keep these questions in mind as you read and answer them after reading.)
Rousseau uses language from Plato, contrasting Nature and Convention. What is the contrast?
6. What basic problem or situation does the social contract address?
What are the terms (requirements) of the contract?
Why is the sovereign power not oppressive? (What is oppressive?)
7. “… may be forced to be free” is a shocking and contradictory phrase. What is its sense?
8. The contract transforms the individual into a citizen (Rousseau here moves far beyond Locke). What is the transformation?
And what is the difference between natural and civil liberty?
Book II, 1-3
1 & 2. Any community eo ipso has a common interest. This common interest is the General Will and this General Will is sovereign. How and where does one find the common interest, General Will, or sovereign? (Again, the answer will emerge as you read on.)
3. What is the difference between common interest (General Will) and public opinion (the will of all)?
Why are interest groups (political parties) anathema to Rousseau?
This is the first essay of Madison in the series.
“…[of the advantages of Union] none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendancy to break and control the violence of factions.” Why is this the most salient advantage?
Towards the end of §1 there occurs the phrase “the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority” Explain the terms: “superior force” and “interested.”
What is Madison’s definition of faction?
Madison neatly lays out a complex disjunctive syllogism to argue how best to address faction. The syllogism makes use of the terms: cause, effect, liberty of opinion, sameness of opinion, prevent faction, disable faction. Try your hand at figuring out the syllogism (see note below).
No man can judge his own case. This is why judges are always some other person. Why won’t this work in a democracy?
Why is democracy powerless against faction? (Readers of Rousseau, note the explicit critique of Rousseau!).
What is the key factor that “controls” faction in the US (according to Madison)?
Note that a disjunctive syllogism has the form: Either A or B. Not A. Therefore B.
Geist is a German word for “spirit” (same word as ‘ghost’ in English). Think of “team spirit”, “the spirit of the times”, “she has a lively spirit”. It is the way that human beings go about performing conscious actions, what they “have in mind.”
What is “positivity” (Savigny) and “negativity” (Hegel)?
The key political concept for Hegel is freedom. What is freedom? Read page 473 carefully.
A norm is a standard of better and worse, a value. What is required to act according to a norm?
Hegel makes the startling claim (for the British) that one can only be free with others. This leads to the famous “struggle for recognition” or “master/servant” dialectic that will be presented and discussed in class.
Pages 480-489 take up the issue of political morality: ethics (Sittlichkeit) in family, civil society (remember Locke) and the constitutional state.
Encyclopedia
Family (519-522)
Notice the change from the Social Contract individual adults. Hegel finds Aristotle’s starting unit, the family, to be the basic unit of property, community, etc. This is his “state of nature”, the natural, biological origin of a human person.
Civil Society (523-528)
Note this is where we find adult individuals. Hegel uses the analogy of atomism. If individuals are atoms, then what are the forces that make atoms interact and combine?
What is exchanged in exchange? (The answer is not just “shoes and money”; what creates shoes and money?)
Hegel disputes “natural equality” by pointing out that society is composed of a variety and plenitude of differences. What are the differences?
Hegel in ¶528 divides society into three classes or castes, namely ...?
Dialectic of Industrialized Society (236-246)
The impressive thing about these paragraphs is that they were written in 1821, when the industrial revolution was barely underway in continental Europe and still new in England. This is one of the more sophisticated diagnoses of industrial capitalist society.
¶236 states the public’s interest in the market place (this will justify public/state regulation of the market). What grounds does Hegel allow for state intervention?
The next paragraphs take up the state’s interest in the individual and in his origin, the family. Despite the Texas legislator, who thinks public education is a communist idea, public education was advocated by Jefferson, Madison, and other founding fathers. What is Hegel’s reason for public education?
¶241-242 note the breakdown and of the family as the social safety net for individuals. Who, according to Hegel should occupy themselves with the poor and destitute? What would Hegel say about “faith-based initiatives”?
¶245 is a prescient description of the “crisis of capitalism” analysed by Marx and dramatically presented in the Great Depression (as the juniors are just now learning).
In the concluding paragraphs, Hegel points to two problems that force civil society beyond its own limits. One is part of its achievement, economic activity (trade), the other is its failure to care for particular individuals (poverty). The state now enters.
The State (538-40)
¶538 Hegel begins by noting that first of all we encounter laws as “restrictions.” He then goes on to say laws are made for ...?
¶539 Liberty and Equality. What is Hegel’s notion of equality? Why is literal (“natural”) equality destructive of political order? Note that Hegle does not accept that equality means “equality before the law.”
What are the positive and negative senses of liberty? You might just list the different senses of liberty here and note which are Hegel’s.
Hegel argues that with more developed modern states, the differentiation (inequality) among citizens is greater but liberty is also greater. Howso?
¶540 Our old friend, the General Will, turns up here. What is Hegel’s revison of Rousseau?
Theses on Feuerbach
Background. Feuerbach was an exciting, trendy theologian in Marx’s youth. (Tells you something about Germany in the 1830’s that religion and theology were where one found intellectual ferment.) Feuerbach’s radical claims were what we might call a psychological re-interpretation of religion. Religion was not about God but about Man. Things said about God were indirect descriptions of human nature and its potential. (See for example #4.) Thus Feuerbach tried to “reduce” “imaginary” religious statements to concrete, real world (what the translation calls “sensuous”) perceptions.
Note the tough-minded ruthlessness so deadly in later Communism already present in these jottings. Also note that #11 is the most famous, the most exciting, and the most attractive to the young. Why?
What is basic reality for Marx? (i.e. what is the basis for thought?)
Communist Manifesto
This is one of the masterpieces of polemical literature. The opening is justly famous, and there is many a quotable passage in it. You can read more about it on the web or in your book. You may ignore the footnotes.
Part I
All history is the history of ____________ struggle. And what are classes?
What classes are there in modern industrial capitalism and what is their relation?
The Manifesto is also a paean to modern capitalism. Keep track of the praises. What has the bourgeois accomplished and why?
What are “means of production”? What are “relations of production”?
The latter paragraphs of this part sketch the development of labor. What does technology do to labor?
Why does capitalism automatically organize and promote the working class?
"On Liberty"
I Introductory
Mill states his purpose: to examine “the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual.” Note the term “society.” What does that tell you?
Mill states that political history is the history of the struggle between Authority and Liberty. What, in his view, is Liberty? Authority?
Note the appearance of Hobbes in paragraph 2 and Jean Jacques Rousseau in paragraph 3.
The two principle restraints on Authority are:
a)
b)
In paragraph 3, what is the major change in the modern view of government authority?
In paragraph 4, in what ways is the US a warning about the dangers of representative government?
What, in a sentence, is the main thesis of paragraph 6, “But though this proposition is not likely to be contested in general terms…”
The main thesis of the entire essay is stated in paragraph 9. Don’t miss it!
Paragraph 10 legitimates the tyranny of the classroom and of imperialism (including the US in the Middle East) on the Rousseauean principle of ….?
What is the criterion for deciding whether a person or a people are or are mature?
Mill distinguishes but also confuses two sorts of interference: a) harm to others; b) harm to other’s interests.
Part I concludes with a delimitation of the “region of liberty.” What are the three defining characteristics?
II Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion
My great interest in this part of the essay is Mill’s notion of truth. You may want to pay great attention to this, especially if you have some ideas about what truth is. Mill’s conception may be labeled a “polemical or dialectical notion of truth.” It also is a notion of truth as a “social achievement.” Thus truth is not in a sentence nor in a person. It is in a dialogue and only holds for a group of persons.
What do you make of the following two claims (paragraphs 2 and 3):
“We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion” and “To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolute certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.”
Paragraph 7 begins the main defense of the liberty of thought and discussion (“free speech”). What more is needed than experience to achieve truth? (Mill lists at least three other factors.)
The ellipsis “[…]” on page 244 leaves out a long passage of some 10 pages. In these pages Mill considers Socrates, Jesus, and Marcus Aurelius, three men earnest about truth and knowledgeable. The sad conclusion of the three cases is that truth does not always triumph, is not usually recognized by the many (Socrates and Jesus killed) nor even always by the noble and wise (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus persecuted Christians). Mill’s point, however, is to reinforce the claim that one can never be sure if one is confronted with the truth or that suppressing an opinion might not be suppressing a truth.
There is a second melancholy thought in the excised passage. Mill considers that the general toleration of all opinions will lead to a lazy conformity. No one will feel the need to understand the basis for his or her opinions; each will be content with just an opinion. Worse yet, since it will be uncomfortable to differ too much from everybody else (since mere opinion operates on a like/don’t like basis – I like my opinions and don’t care so much for other opinions), everyone will tend to a conformity of opinion.
Pick up with paragraph 21 in your book, “Let us now pass to the second division of the argument….”
Paragraph 23 acknowledges an exception to Mill’s theory of truth. What is the exception? Does this exception cast doubt on the general view of Mill?
Curiously, after his sharp dig at the Catholic Church (ah, ever the Englishman!) at the opening of paragraph 23, Mill offers a serious political alternative in paragraph 25, namely the Catholic Church (this is excised in your book). In brief, given Mill’s own theory of truth, a rational political order would work to stratify authority by education, with the primary “separation between those who can be permitted to receive its doctrines on conviction, and those who must accept them on trust.” The former group (the clergy) can engage in a liberty of thought and discussion since they have an education (of character and of intellect) that allows them to sift discussion for truth. The latter group receives a censored teaching of the truth achieved by the first group (“dogma”).
This distinction goes back to Plato’s Republic and of course is the operative distinction for the hierarchy of authority in education.
The book now skips to paragraph 34 (leaving out some polemic against comfortable Christian believers). “It still remains to speak of one of the principal causes….” This paragraph raises a problem for Mill. He insists on debate about all opinions that claim truth. He acknowledges that the debate itself is unlikely to be resolved or even get closer to the truth (since every opinion is partially true). So the question is, what is the point of the debate? Who benefits from the debate? Who sees it and gains insight from witnessing it? One answer (not Mill’s) is the Catholic clergy mentioned above.
Then come the concluding paragraphs (40-43), “We have now recognized the necessity ….”
Again, this leaves out an almost Nietzschean critique of Christian morality as fostering mediocrity; mild, nice people. At the end he answers the question of the previous paragraph: “But it is not on the impassioned partisan, it is on the calmer and more disinterested bystander, that this collision of opinions works its salutary effect.”
III Of Individuality as one of the Elements of Well-being
In this section Mill suggests that Liberty is for the sake of individual development. The topic picks up the German Romantic theme alluded to in the essays epigraph from Humboldt. The individual here is the creative genius, or at least genius. He is the person whose intellect and achievement give meaning to life, one of the “few” – certainly not “of the many.” (Recall the spectator viewing the debate in section II.) He will “become [a] noble and beautiful object of contemplation.” The threat to individual development is the leveling homogenization of mediocrity, the many.
IV Of the Limits to the Authority of Society over the Individual
Mill now tries to distinguish between individual interests and society’s interests. The individual interests should be shielded from direct physical coercion by a doctrine of rights. Society’s interests are restricted to questions of physical security. A citizen’s participation in the benefits of society serves as justification for society imposing limits on his actions.
In paragraph 4 Mill accepts the social contract view that the individual is the best judge of her own well-being.
What is society’s legitimate response and means of control over individuals who mistake their true interest? (Paragraph 5)
Society is entitled to respond to individual misbehavior in two ways. What are the two responses and their justifications? (Paragraph 6)
The next few paragraphs set out Mill’s justification for social intervention. When does an individual’s own irresponsible behavior become a justifiable matter of concern for society?
Paragraph 11 has a sobering point in view of the current situation in the US. Mill there claims that society has had its shot at the individual throughout her early years.
Mill claims that paragraph 12 offers “the strongest argument.” What is the argument? Is it strong? (Test it in other contexts.) The peroration at the end is rather good!
Paragraph 14 begins a string of supporting examples, from pork-eating Christian infidels to prohibition to polygamous Mormons. You can peruse this part.
“Rationalism in Politics”
Section I: Rationalism described
Note the definition and description of rationalism and that it is more or less the same as what I presented as modernism.
What does Oakeshott mean by likening rational politics to engineering?
What is the point of the footnote 2 on page 9?
Section II: Two Kinds of Knowledge
Oakeshott backs up to first principles with a brief essay in epistemology (philosophy of knowledge).
Take notes and be able to explain the contrast between technical and practical knowledge as well as their necessary connection.
How does the rationalist confuse the two?
Section III: The Origins of Rationalism: Francis Bacon and Renée Descartes
Recall what you have learned in your science courses about “the scientific method.”
Oakeshott lists the three defining terms for a method for methods. They are …
Take notes on what Oakeshott means by “the sovereignty of technique.”
Catch the humor and prank in footnote 26.
Section IV: Rationalism in Politics
This, the apparent heart of the essay, is really a loose collection of observations.
The opening observation is that where tradition tries to survive in a rationalist context, it turns into ideology/fundamentalism. Religion is a clear case. What are some other examples of ideological or fundamentalist tradition?
A second observation (a theme also in Arendt’s writing) is the substitution of administration for politics. Why is there this tendency? (Note this observation holds even for so-called conservatives, like Hayek, who substitute civil society (the market) for politics.
Enjoy the comments about Machiavelli and Marx (now that you have read them).
Why were Americans practically if not intellectually already political rationalists?
Explain the curious observations that rationalism and state-of-nature go together and are both opposed by civilization. (It is a cryptic comment; can you make sense of it?)
The last observation is, like the previous ones, a bit too hasty to be clear. Crises promote rational politics, so big crises (World War I, the Depression, the Cold War, the War on Terrorism) promote large measures of rational politics (war time Progressivism, the New Deal, the National Security State, and …?).
Section V: Tradition vs. Technique
Here is where the conservative Oakeshott appears. What important type of education, still visible in medieval guilds, is overlooked by modernist, rationalist education?
Why would Oakeshott not be surprised by the proliferation of how-to books, self-help books, “___________ for Dummies” and “Philosopher X in 90 minutes” books? Nietzsche refers to this as "manuals of external culture for internal barbarians."
"On Violence"
Arendt begins by reviewing many of the claims that connect power and violence (35-40).
Note the connection of this view and the notion of rule as command (& obedience).
What is the first difference that Arendt notes between power and violence? (42)
Arendt then works through the various confused terms (44-47). Make your own vocabulary list.
Note the end of the paragraph at the top of 49. Part of an explanation of the events 1989?
Why does Arendt rule violence out of politics (not political)?
What is the difference between terror and violence? How does terror work? (55)
Arendt
“What is Authority?” is from Between Past and Future.
I. Arendt rescues ‘authority’ from various misunderstandings.
The essay begins with one of her sweeping generalizations which should make one hesitate. Has authority really vanished?
The second paragraph quickly sketches Arendt’s take on the current (mid-20th century) political story: on the one hand the breakdown of party (parliamentary) tradition (e.g. Weimar); on the other hand the rise of a new form of government (and solution to party politics): totalitarianism.
There follows a description of natural authority: parent and child. Note the terms of this description. Not only do they delineate fundamental themes of Arendt’s thought but they also explain why the initial generalization is so sweeping.
Arendt then turns to the task, what is authority. First she separates out different terms used to identify and interpret authority. Work out in your notes what is and is not authority. The rest of this section may be obscure at times since she is defending her distinctions against certain schools of thought. The two basic schools are: those who take history to be some sort of political process and those who human behavior to be psychologically or socially “functional” (purposeful).
Side note: why are memory and depth the same? For an extended meditation on the “politics” of memory, read Milan Kundera’s excellent political novel, “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.”
Why the liberal confusion of authority and tyranny? What is the difference between the two?
Why are tyranny and democracy both egalitarian?
Freedom and authority are both in decline because … (Arendt does not answer the question here, but it would help if you propose an answer and try it out against hers.)
The next three sections (II-V) are the heart of essay where Arendt takes us to political thought we have not studied, the ancients. II is devoted to Plato, III to Aristotle, and IV to the greatest political geniuses, the Romans.
II. Plato and Plato’s substitution of philosophy for politics, contemplation for action.
What, according to Arendt, is the notion of freedom for the Greeks? Why is the household a bad model for politics?
Why does Plato turn to reason for authority? Why is this candidate for authority not suitable for democratic or republican regimes?
How does “fabrication” (making) come into Plato’s view of reason (ideas)? What is the effect of this analogy on politics? (The expert.)
Arendt’s claims about the Republic are, I think, one of the best interpretations of this dialogue that you will find in English, better than anything else in English from the 2nd half of the 20th century. This is not to say I fully agree with her, but she is much better on Plato than most, certainly better than her mentor, Heidegger.
III. Aristotle
What is the difference between the few and the many?
You may recognize the distinction between the body/household/necessity and the citizen/political/freedom that I have drawn before.
I would argue that the Republic is an extended argument to show that politics is, in its best essence, education. Why, according to Arendt, would this be a mistake?
An added note to Arendt: her claims about authority seem to explain the striking contrast between Greek and Roman political history. Greek politics and regimes were notoriously volatile in the archaic and classical periods, and even the Hellenistic period, though more stable, never achieved a moderately durable “balance.” The contrast with Rome which, despite tumultuous events, maintained a British-like continuity of institutions over millennia, is striking.
III. Senatus populusque Romanorum
I hope you recognize the opening sentence’s echo of Machiavelli.
Take notes on the interrelation of foundation, religion, augmentation, patria, tradition (traditio), and auctoritas maiorum.
Note the remarkable claim that “the most conspicuous characteristic of those in authority is that they do not have power.” What feature of American political institutions seems to prove this point? (The answer is in Arendt’s book about the American Revolution, On Revolution.)
What is the Roman political trinity?
Note what is Roman and religion about the Catholic Church.
What do you think of Arendt’s claim at the end of the section that if one member of the Roman trinity is rejected, the other two will soon disappear?
IV. Political Theology
[Theologians, note the opening remarks about the political transformation of the Christian notion of hell.]
The curious argument in this section is the political importance of belief in an afterlife. That importance gives ethical reality and weight to human decisions where philosophical insight is not easily available. (The argument is a sort of Machiavellian response to Machiavelli: if we do not have enough time and knowledge to achieve justice and utopia, we can achieve them in the short run and with limited knowledge by believing in the “four last things: death, judgment, heaven and hell.”)
What do you make of the claims at the top of page 132 where Arendt separates truth and self-evidence on one side and opinion and persuasion on the other?
V. Machiavelli and Revolution
Arendt turns to the point we saw in Machiavelli’s Discourses, the importance of foundation.
One of Arendt’s finest books is On Revolution which has an extended discussion of the American revolution. You have some of her theses from that book repeated here.
A Theory of Justice
Chapter 3.
Rawls explicitly affiliates himself with the social contract tradition. That tradition relies on “the state of nature” to analyze political principles and essentials. What is Rawls’ counterpart for “the state of nature”?
What is the “veil of ignorance” veiling?
What are the two fundamental principles for a theory of justice?
Rawls rejects utilitarianism (Mill, pleasure/pain) and perfectionism (Aristotle, virtue). What fundamental feature of human nature does Rawls take most seriously?
Chapter 4.
What is “the original position”? Who is there?
“Reflective equilibrium” refers to the harmonization of _________ and _________.
Chapter 11.
What are on Rawls’ “bill of rights”?
Why is a theory of justice primarily about institutions? Why may it only mention “representative persons”? Why is this more scientific, more mathematical?
Chapter 17.
“No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society.” Comment?
Chapter 24.
This chapter is a rewriting of Rousseau. Howso?
“Three Normative Models of Democracy”
The three models are liberal, republican and deliberative (procedural). Note down the characteristic features of each. Also note how this triple is put to work.
I.
Who is a representative the liberal view of democracy?
Who might represent the view of republican democracy?
Note the different purpose (and motive) for rights in the liberal and in the republican view.
What difference does it make to think about politics (a) in terms of market transactions (“contract”) or (b) in terms of a conversation?
II.
What, in Habermas’ view is the chief defect of the republican view?
Both views have no “rational” solution other than compromise for irresolvable conflict. Habermas points out that compromise, even if it is not ideal (rational) for either side, does depend on background assumptions of what is acceptable. These background assumptions are not only the subject of political philosophy but also a political task. What is the task?
Read carefully the paragraph that runs from 531a to 531b. It is difficult but it is the main point. Come to class with questions about what is not clear.
III.
Habermas reworks Rousseau. (You can skip this section.)