Piecemeal Reform in Plato's Laws

1995 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 312-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michaelle L. Browers
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Social Engineering ◽  
The Political ◽  
Karl Popper ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Relationship

Karl Popper has called Plato a dangerous Utopian who offers an unworldly blueprint for society. I argue that, in making this criticism, Popper offers an incomplete reading of Plato's political thought, overlooking the more worldly and modest blueprint of the Laws. In addition, I show that a better understanding of the relationship between the Republic and the Laws–between Plato's philosophical ideal and politically best possible state–demonstrates the necessity of considering Plato's Laws in any discussion of implementation. In fact, a more complete reading of Plato is required by the very criteria Popper employs in advancing his critique. When the political programme of Plato's Laws is viewed in light of Popper's famous distinction between piecemeal social engineering and Utopian social engineering, the problems of applying these characterizations to Plato become apparent.

Political thought in Central and Eastern Europe: The open society, its friends, and enemies*

2021 ◽  
pp. 147488512110496
Author(s):  
Aurelian Craiutu ◽  
Stefan Kolev
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Review Essay ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
The Political ◽  
Open Society ◽  
Illiberal Democracy ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
The Relationship

A review essay of key works and trends in the political thought of Central and Eastern Europe, before and after 1989. The topics examined include the nature of the 1989 velvet revolutions in the region, debates on civil society, democratization, the relationship between politics, economics, and culture, nationalism, legal reform, feminism, and “illiberal democracy.” The review essay concludes with an assessment of the most recent trends in the region.

Conclusion—Rousseau’s paradox

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Social Democrat ◽  
The Social ◽  
Adequate Understanding ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter binds the book together, recapitulating its general argument, and offering pointers as to how the study relates to some contemporary questions of political theory. It suggests that a classification that distinguishes between Weber the ‘liberal’, Schmitt the ‘conservative’ and Neumann the ‘social democrat’, cannot provide an adequate understanding of this episode in the history of political thought. Nor indeed can it do so for other periods. In this book, one part of the development of their ideas has focused on the relationship between state and politics. By learning from their examples, people continue their own search for an acceptable balance between the freedom of the individual and the claims of the political community.

Compassion as a Political Virtue

2002 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 529-544 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen Whitebrook
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The place of compassion in political thought and practice is debatable. This debate can be clarified by stipulating ‘compassion’ as referring to the practice of acting on the feeling of ‘pity’; in addition, compassion might best be understood politically speaking as properly exercised towards vulnerability rather than suffering. Working with these understandings, I contrast Martha Nussbaum's account of the criteria for the exercise of compassion in modern democracies with the treatment of compassion in Toni Morrison's novels in order to suggest how compassion can be viewed politically. In respect of distributive justice and public policy, in both cases compassion might modify the strict application of principles in the light of knowledge of particulars, suggesting an enlarged role for discretion in the implementation of social justice. More generally, compassion's focus on particulars and the interpersonal draws attention to the importance of imagination and judgement. The latter returns a consideration of compassion to the question of the relationship of compassion to justice. In the political context, although strict criteria for compassion are inappropriate, principles of justice might work as modifying compassion (rather than vice-versa, as might be expected).

Ideology and the Intellectuals

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Berry ◽  
Michael Kenny
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
Antonio Gramsci ◽  
Karl Mannheim ◽  
Political Traditions ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Political Right ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Recurrent Theme

The question of how intellectuals ought to relate to the ideological traditions of the political cultures of modern societies has been a recurrent theme of European social and political thought over the last two centuries. This chapter explores earlier traditions of European thinking, associated with the work of Karl Mannheim, Julien Benda, and Antonio Gramsci, which established the major lines of debate about the relationship of intellectuals to a sense of nationhood and the political traditions of the polities they inhabited. These ideas form the backdrop to the analysis of the drift towards post-national thinking among important groups of intellectual practitioners in the UK towards the end of the twentieth century. Cosmopolitan thinking, the article suggests, has tended to obscure the ideological character of the main lines of political thinking associated with globalization, and ensured that progressive intellectuals tended to abandon the ‘national-popular’ to their counterparts on the political right, with fateful consequences.

Politics and Morality in the Thought of Karl Popper

1995 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Minogue
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Karl Popper ◽  
Open Society ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Social

LIKE MANY PEOPLE, I FIND KARL POPPER BOTH FASCINATING and irritating. His vigour and lucidity are irresistible, and no one could complain that he fails to engage with the big questions. The problems begin when we consider his political thought. Some think him one of the great liberal philosophers of the century. I on the other hand, while being fascinated by The Open Society and its Enemies, am repelled by the grossness of its caricaturing of most of the thinkers it touches. The Poverty of Historicism is a marvellous text in the philosophy of the social sciences, but the idea of historicism is a straw man. The paradox seems to be that while there is a lot that refers to the political questions of the day, there is virtually nothing which takes up issues of political philosophy directly. The result is that he seems to me always to be on the wrong foot, and my problem is to discover why.

Carl Schmitt’s Political Theory of Dictatorship

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
General Analysis ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
The Political ◽  
Critical History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter reconstructs the intellectual-historical background to Carl Schmitt’s well-known analysis of the problem of dictatorship and the powers of the Reichspräsident under the Weimar Constitution. The analysis focuses both on Schmitt’s wartime propaganda work, concerning a distinction between the state of siege and dictatorship, as well as on his more general analysis of modern German liberalism. It demonstrates why Schmitt attempted to produce a critical history of the history of modern political thought with the concept of dictatorship at its heart and how he came to distinguish between commissarial and sovereign forms of dictatorship to attack liberalism and liberal democracy. The chapter also focuses on the conceptual reworking of the relationship between legitimacy and dictatorship that Schmitt produced by interweaving the political thought of the Abbé Sieyès and the French Revolution into his basic rejection of contemporary liberal and socialist forms of politics.

scholarly journals Within the heart’s darkness: The role of emotions in Arendt’s political thought

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Degerman
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Relationship

Interest in the political relevance of the emotions is growing rapidly. In light of this, Hannah Arendt’s claim that the emotions are apolitical has come under renewed fire. But many critics have misunderstood her views on the relationship between individuals, emotions and the political. This paper addresses this issue by reconstructing the conceptual framework through which Arendt understands the emotions. Arendt often describes the heart – where the emotions reside – as a place of darkness. I begin by tracing this metaphor through her work to demonstrate that it is meant to convey the inherently uncertain nature of emotions rather than a devaluation of them. I proceed to challenge the notion that Arendt adopts the Enlightenment dichotomy between reason and emotion. In fact, she rejects both as a basis for politics. However, she does identify some constructive roles for the emotions. I argue that fear is intrinsically connected to courage – the principal political virtue – in Arendt’s philosophy. In light of my discussion, I then reinterpret the role of compassion and pity in On Revolution, concluding that Arendt’s insights can help us avoid the potential pitfalls of the contemporary project to recuperate the emotions in politics.

scholarly journals Issues of Complementing the Political and Civic Culture in the Conditions of the Democratic Transition of the Republic of Armenia

wisdom ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 172-181
Author(s):  
Mariam MARGARYAN ◽  
Marine MOVSISYAN
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Transition ◽  
Participatory Democracy ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Active Participation ◽  
Civic Culture ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Effective Development ◽  
The Masses ◽  
The Relationship

In this article, the authors have investigated the issues of complementarity of political and civic cultures in the Republic of Armenia and the importance of participation in their effective development. It has been stated that in the conditions of a democratic transition, participatory democracy can be false or marginal in nature, due to which it can be perceived as irresponsible freedom, but the reality is different. The mani­pu­lative and philosophical bases of participation were also studied. It has been substantiated the approach that in the absence of a consolidation, the new democratic space formed due to the active participation of the masses does not solve the problem of political stability, but on the contrary, deepens the crises of poli­tical development. It emphasizes that the effectiveness of the process of overcoming crises in the condi­ti­ons of democratic transition of the Republic of Armenia requires scientific-analytical management based on the principles of consolidation, the professionalism of the strategic elites; especially after the “Velvet Revoluti?n”. The relationship between democracy and demarchy were also studied.

scholarly journals The constitutional status of the Sejm in the political system of the Republic of Poland

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (57) ◽  
pp. 30-43
Author(s):  
Stanisław Bożyk
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Political Pluralism ◽  
Lower Chamber ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Relationship

The purpose of this article is to evaluate or to determine the constitutional status of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland in the light of the basic principles of the political system. The position of the lower chamber of the Polish parliament is presented in turn against the backdrop of four principles: the sovereignty of the Nation, political representation, political pluralism, and the separation and balancing of powers. In the context of the latter principle, the relationship between the Sejm and the executive is also presented.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document