scholarly journals Federalist and Anti-Federalist: Two Divergent Concepts of Politics

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-143
Author(s):  
Obed Frausto Gatica

This article provides a theoretical framework to help us understand the controversies between the federalist and anti-federalists in the early history of the United States of America during the Federal Convention in 1787 as a conflict of two political philosophical traditions. The sources of these opposed traditions may be traced back to the disputes in ancient Greek philosophy, in thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle who defined politics in different ways. Plato grounds his definition of politics in epistêmê, which means that society should be ruled by the wisest. The federalist argued the best form of government is one where the people could avoid decision-making and leave the wisest representatives to handle politics. In opposition to this, Aristotle believes that politics should be inspired by the notion of phrônesis, which means that decisions should be considered collectively. Similarly, the anti-federalist believed that the government tends to be corrupted, and citizens should be suspicious of the government. They believed the ideal way to govern society is to have everyone involved in decision-making.

Author(s):  
Shaoyu Zhang

The history of Western philosophy usually divides the ancient Greek philosophy into three parts, namely, natural science, ethics, and logic. The author deems that the ancient Greek philosophy should be divided into two categories: speculative philosophy and practical philosophy, for which writings of Plato and Aristotle provide sufficient grounds.


Author(s):  
Brooke Holmes

Much of western philosophy, especially ancient Greek philosophy, addresses the problems posed by embodiment. This chapter argues that to grasp the early history of embodiment is to see the category of the body itself as historically emergent. Bruno Snell argued that Homer lacked a concept of the body (sōma), but it is the emergence of body in the fifth century BCE rather than the appearance of mind or soul that is most consequential for the shape of ancient dualisms. The body takes shape in Hippocratic medical writing as largely hidden and unconscious interior space governed by impersonal forces. But Plato’s corpus demonstrates that while Plato’s reputation as a somatophobe is well grounded and may arise in part from the way the body takes shape in medical and other physiological writing, the Dialogues represent a more complex position on the relationship between body and soul than Plato’s reputation suggests.


1906 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Maurice Low

A century of constitutional government in the United States has served to emphasize the wisdom of Hamilton's warning of “the tendency of the legislative authority to absorb every other.” He clearly foresaw and attempted to guard against, dangers that today are only too apparent. “In governments purely republican,” he wrote, “this tendency is almost irresistible. The representatives of the people, in a popular assembly, seem sometimes to fancy that they are the people themselves, and betray strong symptoms of impatience and disgust at the least sign of opposition from any other quarter; as if the exercise of its rights, by either the executive or the judiciary, were a breach of their privilege and an outrage to their dignity. They often appear disposed to exert an imperious control over the other departments; and, as they commonly have the people on their side, they always act with such momentum as to make it very difficult for the other members of the government to maintain the balance of the Constitution.”Never did human ingenuity devise a more nicely balanced system of government than when the framers of the Constitution allocated to the executive and to the legislature the exercise of powers not to be infringed by the other; but like many things human the intent has been perverted. Every person familiar with the Constitution, the debates in the convention, and the writings of Madison, Hamilton, and Jay in The Federalist, must know that the purpose of the framers of the Constitution was to create a system of government by which the President should become neither the creature nor the controller of the legislature; and by vesting certain exclusive powers in the popular branch and certain other powers in the Senate to provide that the line of demarcation between the two houses should not be overstepped.


Author(s):  
Antonio Acosta

The formation of El Salvador’s oligarchy was a long and complex process. Its beginning can be traced to 1848, when the first export of Salvadoran coffee took place. The first stage in its formation may be seen as ending in 1931, just before the army’s great “slaughter” of the rural population after the crisis of 1929. This long period is divided into two parts, with the year 1890 marking a change. Before that date, although El Salvador was beginning to feel the effects of the Industrial Revolution and the reorganization of the world markets, the country’s international politics were focused primarily on Central America. However, from 1890 on, the business sector expanded and penetrated deeply into the country based on the capital accumulated from the coffee industry. To that was added certain foreign participation, especially from the United States. This is why the period of 1848–1890 is considered the origin of the oligarchy, and 1890–1931 is seen as the formation of this social sector that has marked the history of the country up to the 21st century. A plausible definition of the term oligarchy is provided by Waldo Ansaldi: the combination of a social class defined by its function in the economic structure and the particular form of government it developed and practiced. The Salvadoran oligarchy was initially made up of the large landowners and traders whose economic power was based on their access to land and labor, acquired to a large degree at a very low price and often through non-commercial relationships. This minority experienced a transition toward a profile with increasingly capitalistic characteristics—that is, a more complex managing class with more and more wage labor, although in poor working conditions. In spite of this, it retained purely oligarchic features in the way it controlled political power and in its use of abundant, though not always wage-earning, labor, so that it can hardly be considered bourgeoisie. Coffee, including its cultivation, processing and export, was the principal (although not the only) basis of the enrichment of the oligarchy and of their political power. The development and consolidation of the oligarchical class was based on their control of the state and, as a result, also of their monetary, credit, and above all, fiscal policies. Representatives of the oligarchy came to control the government through electoral as well as military means, enabling them to reproduce and expand their power.


Author(s):  
Daniel W. Graham

A leading figure in the study of ancient Greek philosophy, Vlastos was a pioneer in the application to ancient philosophers of the techniques of analytic philosophy. Concentrating on figures of early Greek philosophy, he made major contributions to the understanding of the Presocratics, Socrates and Plato. He saw the Presocratics as applying ethical concepts to nature which ultimately rendered nature intelligible. He distinguished between the early dialogues of Plato, which represent the philosophy of Plato’s master Socrates – a philosophy the early Plato shared – and the middle dialogues in which Plato develops a transcendental metaphysics and rationalist epistemology to ground Socratic ethical concepts. Vlastos’s work played a major role in bringing the history of philosophy into the mainstream of philosophical research.


Author(s):  
Christian Wildberg

Simplicius of Cilicia, a Greek Neoplatonic philosopher and polymath, lived in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. He is the author of the most learned commentaries on Aristotle produced in antiquity, works which rest upon the accumulated accomplishments of ancient Greek philosophy and science. In them he gives numerous illuminating references and explanations that not only lead to a fuller understanding of Aristotle, but also allow one to reconstruct the history of the interpretation and criticism of Aristotelian doctrines in antiquity. The main principle that guides Simplicius’ exegesis is the conviction that most Greek philosophers, including some Presocratics, can be brought into agreement with Neoplatonism. Simplicius adduces copious quotations to prove his point, thereby supplying us with substantial fragments from lost works of thinkers like Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Eudemus and the Stoics. A devout pagan, Simplicius sought to defend traditional Greek religion and philosophy against the oppressive dominance of Christianity. His commentaries have influenced the reception and interpretation of Aristotle’s philosophy ever since.


Problemos ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 78 ◽  
pp. 153-164
Author(s):  
Kęstas Kirtiklis

Straipsnyje nagrinėjama komunikacijos filosofijos kilmės problema ir šios problemos reikšmė šiuolaikinėms filosofinėms komunikacijos sampratoms. Tvirtinama, jog, priešingai nei teigia paplitusi pozicija, komunikacijos filosofija kyla ne iš antikinio domėjimosi komunikacijos ir medijų problematika, bet iš filosofų dėmesio pastarųjų dviejų šimtmečių visuomenės kaitai (industrializacijai, urbanizacijai, informatizacijai) ir naujųjų medijų plėtrai. Toks komunikacijos filosofijos genezės aiškinimas išryškina šiuolaikinės komunikacijos specifiką, skiriančią ją nuo komunikacijos ankstesnėse visuomenėse, – būtent tai, kad vyraujanti šiuolaikinė komunikacija yra masinė ir medijuota1.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: komunikacijos filosofija, medijų filosofija, filosofijos istorija.Genesis of Philosophy of CommunicationKęstas Kirtiklis SummaryThe article deals with the problem of the genesis of philosophy of communication and its impact on contemporary philosophical conceptions of communication. The article argues that, contrary to the widespread opinion, philosophy of communication originated not from the interest in problems of communication that could be traced back to the ancient Greek philosophy (namely Plato), but from the attention that is paid by philosophers to the recent changes in society (industrialization, urbanization, informatization) and the development of new media. Such an explanation of the genesis of philosophy of communication highlights some specific traits of contemporary communication, namely that the prevailing form of contemporary communication is mediated mass communication.Keywords: philosophy of communication, media philosophy, history of philosophy.


Author(s):  
László Daragó

We can find the sprouts of the architectural approach of space in ancient Greek Philosophy. The process lasts from the Pythagorean notion (kenon) – which is the emptiness between the numbers – to the definition of space by St Augustine, where he determines the forming of space as the main role of architecture. The enquiry regarding architectural approach of space intensified after the Second World War – Hajnóczi joined into this discourse with his works on the field of spatial theory in the 1960’s. He intended to create a unified framework for the different approaches of space from different fields of science. This common range of interpretation is deriving from the analytic understanding of space – that is Spatiology. Overviewing Hajnóczi’s theoretical works we will try to show the evolution of his thoughts and will try to identify the antecedents of his theoretical structures in the works of contemporary thinkers. In his academic doctorate dissertation in 1977 with the analytic approach he subdivided the architectural space into its elemental spatial relations generated by the constructional objects and then he has attempted to give the quantitative and also the qualitative understanding of them. In his Genesis – as the last accord of his oeuvre – he tried to understand the particular elements of this system and also build an intelligent whole of them again.A tér építészeti értelmezésének megalapozását az európai kultúrában már a görög bölcseletben megleljük. A püthegóreusok számok közötti ürességétől (kenon) az építészeti tér Szt. Ágoston általi meghatározásáig tart a folyamat, melyben végül az építészet legfőbb feladataként a tér alakítását határozták meg. Ezen értelmezések körüli érdeklődés felizzott a második világháborút követő időben – ebbe a diskurzusba kapcsolódott be Hajnóczi Gyula térelméleti munkássága az 1960-as években. Azzal a szándékkal lépett fel, hogy egységes keretet adjon a sok tudományág felől érkező építészeti tér-értelmezéseknek. Ez a közös értelmezési tartomány a tér analitikus értelmezéséből sarjad – ezt a tértudományt nevezte el spaciológiának. Végigtekintve Hajnóczi Gyula térelméleti műveit igyekszünk bemutatni a gondolatok kifejlődésének folyamatát, valamint kísérletet teszünk arra, hogy felmutassuk a kortárs kutatók munkásságában Hajnóczi Gyula gondolati rendszerének előzményeit. Az 1977-ben megjelent akadémiai doktori értekezésében az építészeti tér analitikus értelmezésével szétbontotta az építészeti teret az azt meghatározó konstruktív közegek elemi térviszonylataira, és ezek mennyiségi és minőségi értelmezését kísérelte meg. Az életmű végső akkordjaként írt, Az építészeti tér genezise c. műve az analitikusan szétbontott és egyenként értelmezett térelemek rendszerének megértésére, az elemek újbóli összeépítésére tett kísérletet.


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