scholarly journals A New Interpretation of the Noble Lie

Plato Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 71-85
Author(s):  
Joseph Gonda
Keyword(s):  
Political Life ◽  
Tentative Explanation ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
The One ◽  
Noble Lie

 “Could we contrive one noble lie?” implies there is one noble lie (Republic 414b). The Autochthony Claim (asserting the Best City’s citizens are equally brothers) and the Hierarchical Claim (asserting brother justifiably rules over brother) follow. The article argues the former is the “one” noble lie. It argues the claims are both normative and descriptive propositions; both descriptively true about worldly polities in Plato’s day and historically. While the Hierarchical Claim is normatively true of the Best City, the Autochthony Claim is normatively false. The article offers a tentative explanation why jointly they comprise a  foundational myth of political life.

scholarly journals Self-organizing Systems in the Light of the Arrows of Orderedness, Symmetry, and Entropy

1970 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-73
Author(s):  
György Darvas
Keyword(s):  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Local Symmetry ◽  
Evolution Of The Universe ◽  
Global Evolution ◽  
New Material ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
The One ◽  
Global And Local ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Matter Energy

The paper makes an attempt to resolve two conceptual mingling: (a) the mingling of the two interpretations of the concept of orderedness applied in statistical thermodynamics and in symmetrology, and (b) the mingling of two interpretations of evolution applied in global and local processes. In conclusion, it formulates a new interpretation on the relation of the emergence of new material qualities in selforganizing processes on the one hand, and the evolution of the universe, on the other. The process of evolution is a sequence of emergence of new material qualities by self-organization processes, which happen in negligible small segments of the universe. Although thermodynamics looks at the universe as a closed (isolated) system, this holds for its outside boundaries only, while the universe has many subsystems inside, which are not isolated (closed), since they are in a permanent exchange of matter, energy, etc. with their environment (with the rest of the universe) through their open boundaries. Any ";;emergence";; takes place, i.e., all new qualities come into being just in these small open segments of the universe. The conditions to apply the second law of thermodynamics are not present here. Therefore, global evolution of the universe is the consequence of local symmetry decreases, local decreases of orderedness, and possible local decreases of entropy.

Former employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Tambov Governorate after the February Revolution of 1917

2021 ◽  
pp. 194-205
Author(s):  
Pavel S. Rakhmanov
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Law Enforcement Officers ◽  
Professional Group ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
Russian Law ◽  
Internal Affairs ◽  
The One

The problems of changing the position of the Ministry of Internal Affairs after the events of February–March 1917 in the Tambov Governorate are investigated. We study the state policy, the attitude of local authorities and the public to representatives of this socio-professional group, individual features of the adaptation of its representatives to new socio-political conditions. The relevance of the research is due to both significant gaps in the historiography of the issue, especially at the regional level of the study of the problem, and a certain consonance with the modern problems of Russian law enforcement agencies in the context of transformations. It is concluded that representatives of the broad popular strata and the soldier masses treated former em-ployees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs extremely negatively, which was especially pronounced in the period that followed the revolutionary events of February 1917. However, the leadership of both the governorate as a whole and in individual counties pursued an ambivalent policy towards representatives of this social and professional group. On the one hand, the tasks were set for the maximum removal of former law enforcement officers from participation in public and political life, and on the other, their professional skills were in demand in the newly created militia bodies.

Neither Civilian nor Combatant: Weaponised Spaces and Spatialised Bodies in Cizre

2019 ◽  
pp. 71-94
Author(s):  
Haydar Darıcı ◽  
Serra Hakyemez
Keyword(s):  
Political Life ◽  
Right To Life ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Government ◽  
Turkish State ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right ◽  
Kurdish Conflict ◽  
Self Defence

What kind of work does the categorical distinction between combatant and civilian do in the interplay of the necropolitics and biopower of the Turkish state? This paper focuses on a time period (2015-2016) in the history of the Kurdish conflict when that distinction was no longer operable as the war tactics of the Kurdish movement shifted from guerrilla attacks of hit and run in the mountains to the self-defence of residents in urban centres. It reveals the limit of inciting compassion through the figure of civilian who is assumed to entertain a pre-political life that is directed towards mere survival. It also shows how the government reconstructs the dead bodies using forensics and technoscience in order to portray what is considered by Kurdish human rights organizations civilians as combatants exercising necroresistance. As long as the civilian-combatant distinction remains and serves as the only episteme of war to defend the right to life, the state is enabled to entertain not only the right to kill, but also to turn the dead into the perpetrators of their own killing. Finally, this paper argues that law and violence, on the one hand, and the right to life and the act of killing on the other, are not two polar opposites but are mutually constitutive of each other in the remaking of state sovereignty put in crisis by the Kurdish movement's self-defence practices.

The Pragmatic Electorate

1930 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis G. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The Body ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Limited Participation ◽  
Good Citizen ◽  
General Improvement ◽  
The One ◽  
City State ◽  
The Right

Political science has dealt too long, on the one hand, with the ideal, and, on the other hand, with the abnormal and perverted features of political society, rather than with the normal and the eventual. Our theory of ideal democracy is perhaps more suited to the Greek and Roman city-state, with participation as the test of the good citizen. Representation has been heralded as the device which makes the ancient ideal possible on a large scale. But in practice it has been found that the enormous expansion of the public, i.e., the body of persons who have the right of participation, has made the problem far more complex than was at first thought possible. Greek ideals of education and coercion of the citizen body toward general improvement have been carried out with greater success, and our statute books reflect a Hobbesian attitude toward human nature which is true only in part. The political philosophy of democracy must be built on the facts of political life.Shall we break with the Greek and Roman ideal of the participation of the citizen group in the affairs of the state? It is true that the present attitude is a revised form of the democratic ideal of antiquity, but with a different interpretation of the meaning of citizenship. All democratic governments must finally rest on some theory of the suffrage; any study of the fact of non-voting must be based on a theory of the suffrage likewise. With the expansion of the theory of citizenship to include all subjects, a corresponding theory of limited participation was developed—no doubt a product of the Middle Ages. The totality of citizens was distrusted, and some test of participation had to be devised. Such was the origin of religious tests for political participation; such was the origin of the distinction between the right to vote and the fact of citizenship.

Constitutionalism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Zackin
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Constitutional Politics ◽  
Enormous Amount ◽  
Political Traditions ◽  
Legal Document ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Scholarly Attention ◽  
Over Time

The study of constitutionalism often begins with the question of what a constitution is. Sometimes the term refers to a single legal document with that name, but the term “constitution” may also refer to something unwritten, such as important political traditions or established customs. As a result, scholars sometimes distinguish between the “Big-C” constitution, that is, the constitutional document, and the “small-c” constitution, the set of unwritten practices and understandings that structure political life. Constitutionalism is typically associated with documents and practices that restrict the arbitrary exercise of power. Most constitutions contain guarantees of rights and outline the structures of government. Constitutions are often enforced in court, but nonjudicial actors, like legislatures or popular movements, may also enforce constitutional provisions. The relationship between democracy and constitutionalism is not at all straightforward, and it has received an enormous amount of scholarly attention. Constitutionalism seems to both undergird and restrain democracy. On the one hand, constitutions establish the institutions that allow for self-government. On the other, they are often said to restrict majoritarian decision-making. Related to this question of the relationship between constitutionalism and democracy are questions about how constitutions change and how they ought to change. Can written constitutions change without changes to the text, and can judges bring about these changes? Do extratextual changes threaten or promote democracy? Finally, not only do individual constitutions change, but the practice of writing constitutions and governing with them has also changed over time. In general, constitutions have grown more specific and flexible over time, arguably, allowing for a different kind of constitutional politics.

What is the Nature of the Crime of the Delinquent Daughter in Deuteronomy 22:13-21? A Rejoinder to J. Fleishman's Suggestion

2009 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 446-459
Author(s):  
Meir Malul
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
The Other ◽  
Exact Nature ◽  
Previous Suggestion ◽  
Social Community ◽  
Legal Proceedings ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Law ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
The One

AbstractThe exact nature of the girl's crime in the law of the delinquent daughter in Deut 22:13-21 is examined, starting by a detailed critique of J. Fleishman's previous suggestion in this journal (vol. 58, pp. 191-210) to construe it in the light of the law of cursing the parents in Exod 21:17 and understand it as an innovation and restriction of the latter law. In his view, the girl's sin is tantamount to cursing her parents, which, like the sin of the glatton and drunkard son according to Deut 21: 18-21, meant the undermining of the parents' authority and status, for which both boy and girl deserved the death penalty. In the following critique, it is underlined that the girl's sin is, first, not one of omission but of commission, and, second, it is not against her parents but against her husband, who is also the one to initiate the legal proceedings. A new interpretation is suggested, according to which the girl's crime, defined in v. 21 as an act of and a deed of, consisted not only in concealing her previous loss of virginity from her husband, thus deceiving him and her parents, but also in duping her husband into committing a sin comparable to that of lying with a menstruating, and thus desolate, woman. Being deprived of virginity, and thus of the socially recognized status of a virgin, she became, like Tamar (2 Sam 13:20), “desolate, forlorn”, an unenviable state from which only her seducer/ravisher could redeem her (thus are the sense and goal of the laws of the seduced virgin in Exod 22:15-16 and Deut 22:28-29). Trying to dupe her husband into steping in and performing what custom and law dictated the other man—the seducer/ravisher—should have done, and thus to arrogate to herself a social status she did not deserve, was then tantamount to undermining social structure and striking at the fibers that constituted the essence and integrity of the social community (cf. Prov 30:21-23).

Melissus And His Opponents: The Argument of DK 30 B 8

Phronesis ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 263-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Makin
Keyword(s):  
Prima Facie ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Good Argument ◽  
Orthodox Interpretation ◽  
Realist Position ◽  
The World ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
The One

AbstractIn this paper I offer a new interpretation of Melissus' argument at DK 30 B8.In this passage Melissus uses an Eleatic argument against change to challenge an opponent who appeals to the authority of perception in order to support the view that there are a plurality of items in the world. I identify an orthodox type of approach to this passage, but argue that it cannot give a charitable interpretation of Melissus' strategy. In order to assess Melissus' overall argument we have to identify the opponent at whom it is aimed. The orthodox interpretation of the argument faces a dilemma: Melissus' argument is either a poor argument against a plausible opponent or a good argument against an implausible opponent.My interpretation turns on identifying a new target for Melissus' argument. I explain the position I call Bluff Realism (contrasting it with two other views: the Pig Headed and the Fully Engaged). These are positions concerning the dialectical relation between perception on the one hand, and arguments to counter-perceptual conclusions on the other. I argue that Bluff Realism represents a serious threat from an Eleatic point of view, and is prima facie an attractive position in its own right.I then give a charitable interpretation of Melissus' argument in DK 30 B8, showing how he produces a strong and incisive argument against the Bluff Realist position I have identified. Melissus emerges as an innovative and astute philosopher.

scholarly journals Ambiguity, Authority, and Legitimacy: Reciprocal Echoes among Political Levels in Bangkok

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-134
Author(s):  
Michael Herzfeld
Keyword(s):  
Political Ideology ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Binary Model ◽  
Homogeneous Composition ◽  
The One ◽  
Gubernatorial Election ◽  
Electoral Performance ◽  
Social Poetics

AbstractThai political life is caught in a tension, sometimes temporally rendered as an oscillation, between extremes of democracy and egalitarianism on the one hand and authoritarian relics of older structures on the other. The confrontation between Red and Yellow Shirts leading up to the 2014 coup might seem to suggest a binary model of Thai political ideology, but the internal complexities of both groups belie a simplistic model of two parties with diametrically opposed views and homogeneous composition. In this article, I argue that it is more productive to approach these tendencies in terms of political performances by politicians representing mutually overlapping and often strikingly convergent ideological tendencies. With the benefit of hindsight, I analyse the 2004 Bangkok gubernatorial election – and in particular one key rally held at Thammasat University ten days before polling day – as a case study in the value of an approach from what I have called ‘social poetics’ for understanding the dynamics of electoral performance, showing how the relevant social actors play more or less creatively with established norms of electoral conduct.

Goods

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emanuele Coccia
Keyword(s):  
Political Life ◽  
Ethical Life ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
New Politics ◽  
Physical Conditions ◽  
To Come ◽  
The One

Objects are all around us—and images of objects, advertisements for objects. Things are no longer merely purely physical or economic entities: within the visual economy of advertising, they are inescapably moral. Any object, regardless of its nature, can for at least a moment aspire to be “good,” can become not only an object of value but also a complex of possible happiness, a moral source of perfection for any one of us. This book argues that our relation to things is what makes us human. It shows how objects become the medium through which a city enunciates its ethos, making an ethical life available to those who live among them. Humans have revealed themselves as organisms that are ethically inseparable from the very things they produce, exchange, and desire. The alienation commodities cause and express is moral rather than economic or social; we need our own products not just to survive biologically or to improve the physical conditions of our existence, but to live morally. Ultimately, this book offers a rethinking of the power of images. Through images, we already live another form of political life, which has very little to do with the one invented and formalized by the legal tradition. All we need to do is to recognize it. Advertising and fashion are just the primitive, sometimes grotesque, but ultimately irrepressible prefiguration of the new politics to come.

Indledende note om demokrati-begrebet

2015 ◽  
pp. 89-92
Author(s):  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Nicolai Von Eggers
Keyword(s):  
Public Law ◽  
Political Order ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Administrative Practice ◽  
Political Theories ◽  
The One ◽  
Present Conception

In this text, Giorgio Agamben argues that the concept of democracy attests to a political, ontological amphibology: on the one side, democracy describes a constitution of a political order (and in this sense it belongs to public law); on the other side, democracy is a certain form of administration (in which case it belongs to administrative practice). It is argued that this amphibology can be located in the political theories of Aristotle and Jean-Jacques Rousseau who have been instrumental in forming our present conception of politics. Consequently, we misunderstand the fundamental nature of politics, and any hopes of genuine political life must therefore break with this tradition of Western political philosophy.

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