scholarly journals Human nature and stasis: On the influence of Thucydides on Hobbes’s science of politics

2016 ◽  
pp. 689-707
Author(s):  
Vladimir Milisavljevic
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Peloponnesian War ◽  
Conception Of Man ◽  
History Of ◽  
Civil Science ◽  
True Knowledge

This paper assesses the influence of Thucydides on Hobbes?s conception of man and, more generally, on his model of ?Civil Science?. This influence can be traced back to the time when Hobbes worked on his translation of Thucydides?s history of the Peloponnesian War. Already at that time, Hobbes characterized Thucydides as the ?the most politic historiographer that ever writ?, i.e. the historian whose work contributed the most to the true knowledge of politics. The main argument of the paper is that Hobbes?s admiration for the author of the History of the Peloponnesian War can be best explained by Thucydides?s ability to portray the essential conflictuality of politics. This thesis is confirmed by a comparative analysis of some important themes in Thucydides?s historical narrative and several major theoretical statements of Hobbes?s anthropology and political theory. There is an unmistakable similarity, which has often been commented on, between Hobbes?s account of the three principal causes of conflict between individuals in the state of nature - Competition, Diffidence and Glory - and the three main human instincts to which the Athenians appeal, in a speech that Thucydides conveys, to justify their striving for power. However, Thucydides influenced Hobbes mostly by his descriptions of internal war. The final part of the article examines in this light two topics from Thucydides?s famous description of the stasis which took place in Corcyra - the impossibility of justice and the perversion of language in time of sedition in the polis.

scholarly journals El deseo natural de libertad y la inacción política. Una crítica al significado de la servidumbre voluntaria y la libertad natural en el Discurso de Étienne de la Boétie / The Natural Desire of Freedom and Political Inaction: A critique of the meaning of voluntary servitude and natural freedom in the Discourse of Étienne de la Boétie

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 65-74
Author(s):  
Jesús Fernández Muñoz
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
General Introduction ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Etienne De La Boetie ◽  
History Of ◽  
Voluntary Servitude

ABSTRACTThe objective of this paper is the critical analysis of the concept of “voluntary servitude”; and its implications for the freedom posed by Étienne de la Boétie and its relation to the natural desire for freedom. In particular, some ideas from the Discourses of servitude volontaire (1576) are analyzed, starting with a general introduction and the implications of the work in the history of political ideas. The central part of this paper focuses on the problem that society desire to serve, in other words: the desire for slavery and rejection of freedom. For La Boétie, these ideas go against human nature. These problems are those that are discussed from a political theory that goes against the “monolithic thinking”; and that highlights some of the author’s conceptual errors from the perspective of “political”; and the irrelevance of standards of perfection for a feasible political-social organization.RESUMENEl objetivo de este artículo es el análisis crítico del concepto de “servidumbre voluntaria” y sus implicaciones para la libertad que plantea Étienne de la Boétie y su relación con el deseo natural de libertad. En particular se analizan algunas ideas de la obra Discours de la servitude volontaire (1576) comenzando por una introducción general y las implicaciones de la obra en la historia de las ideas políticas. La parte central radica en el problema que plantea para la sociedad el deseo de servir de los hombres o, en otras palabras: el deseo de esclavitud y rechazo de la libertad. Todo ello va contra la naturaleza humana según La Boétie. Estos problemas son los que se discuten a partir de un planteamiento de teoría política que va contra el “pensamiento único” y que destaca algunos de los errores conceptuales del autor desde la óptica de la “realidad política” y la poca relevancia que tienen los estándares de perfección para una organización político-social factible.

Original Sin as the Evil Inclination–A Polemicist's Appreciation of Human Nature

1980 ◽  
Vol 73 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 495-520 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
Large Measure ◽  
History Of ◽  
Methodological Shortcoming

Studies on the essence and development of the concept of original sin abound. Not only has this fundamental tenet of Christian theology played an important role in the history of Western religious thought, but it continues to command the attention of scholars and theologians even today. Given this great interest, one is occasionally surprised at the narrowness of the historical and religious framework to which many have confined their discussions of original sin. All too often, scholars have overlooked the significance which events within the community they are examining or parallel developments in other religious communities might have for explicating a new direction in the history of this doctrine. While the present study can hope neither to reformulate the findings of the voluminous literature on original sin nor to compensate in large measure for this methodological shortcoming at times inherent in it, it will attempt to demonstrate by example how the notion of original sin did not evolve in a historical vacuum. It both drew from and contributed to prevalent philosophical and political theory, and it even interacted significantly with non-Christian religious concepts.

scholarly journals Thucydides and the Synchronous Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-94
Author(s):  
Gregory T. Papanikos
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Generation Process ◽  
Data Generation ◽  
Peloponnesian War ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Methodology ◽  
Rare Group

Thucydides survived the pestilence and gave a vivid portrayal of the Athenian Epidemic at the onset of the Peloponnesian War. He belongs to the rare group of historians who wrote history about events which had a personal experience. He was involved with the war (as an Athenian strategos) and with the epidemic (had survived an infection). His History of the Peloponnesian War is a textbook approach of how historical events and facts should be researched and described. His historical methodology is based on an orthological analysis of human behaviour. Such an approach enables the researcher to interpret existing stylized facts and personal involvements with reason and objectivity. Within this framework, this paper examines Thucydides exposition of the epidemic of 430 BCE by means of four hypotheses which underline his historical analysis of the pestilence. Then, I proceed with the verification of these hypotheses using the data generation process of the synchronous pandemic of 2020. My main conclusion is that despite technological progress made by human beings with the graceful assistance of Prometheus, human nature did not change as much as Thucydides so eloquently emphasized, prognosed and hoped. Evidence on synchronous pandemic supports Thucydides diagnosis of the human nature but does not vindicate him on the hypothesis (or may be his wish) that his history would be used by future generations to avoid making the same mistakes over and over again. So far, the same or similar faults seem unavoidable. It appears that these faults are embedded in human nature and cannot be avoided.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Sagar
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Treatise Of Human Nature ◽  
The Family ◽  
History Of ◽  
Over Time

This book examines how David Hume and Adam Smith forged a new way of thinking about the modern state. It considers what Hume referred to as the opinion of mankind, a political theory found in the second and third books of A Treatise of Human Nature. Smith read and absorbed Hume's arguments, adapting them to his own purposes in the construction of a political theory that would move beyond the Treatise. Both Hume and Smith rejected Thomas Hobbes's vision of human nature and his arguments about our capacity to form stable societies over time. The book discusses Hume's theory of sociability, the role of history and the family in debates over human sociability and the foundations of politics, and Smith's theory of regime forms. This introduction provides an overview of the theory of the state and the history of political thought.

scholarly journals Plaga bezprawia. Wojna domowa i paradoks władzy suwerennej

2015 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 183-204
Author(s):  
Michał Pospiszyl
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Peloponnesian War ◽  
Modern Capitalism ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

This paper consists of three parts. The first is devoted to the role of the Athenian plague in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. There are indications that the civil war that broke out in the country, weakened by plague, was not simply the result of a historical and degraded human nature. Instead of using evil human nature as the key for understanding each social conflict, I suggest interpreting the Athenian civil war (stasis) as a symptom of non-egalitarian social relations. The  second part of the paper is devoted to the birth of modern capitalism and the analysis of Thomas Hobbes’ philosophy. An English philosopher, Hobbes not only translated The History of the Peloponnesian War, but was also an author who treated the reality of modern civil wars as a principal point of reference. Hobbes created his philosophy mainly as a result of fearing a conflict that could undermine the existing division of power and wealth. The result of this fear was a mechanism that I refer to as the paradox of sovereign power. It was a process during which the authority that had been established to defend society against lawlessness and chaos dominated the social life, not respecting existing laws and customs, and thus creating the very world it was supposed to protect the people from. The third part is devoted to Walter Benjamin’s criticism of sovereign power. Observing the same processes as Hobbes did, the German philosopher viewed them from the inside (i.e., from the perspective of the victims of modern progress, the same view that aroused fear in the author of Leviathan). Benjamin argued that the social order established at the threshold of modernity was built on unlawful violence (primitive accumulation) and that the condition for its duration was the permanent reproduction of this lawlessness (hence, the thesis of the state of emergency, which has become the rule). According to Benjamin, this vicious circle of violence can only be escaped by recovering the memory of folk traditions, past class struggles, lost revolutions and social systems that, like the Paris Commune, pose the possibility of life liberated from the yoke.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 201-230
Author(s):  
Laurie M. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Peloponnesian War ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Interesting Alternative

This concluding chapter argues that Thucydides' approach to politics is more preferable than Hobbes's. Hobbes, despite his pessimistic assumptions about human nature, is not realistic. Is it realistic to assume that all people act predictably, that they are always guided strictly by self-interest, that all other motivations are a sham—or, if genuine, so rare that to take them into account is useless? According to Thucydides, human beings are multifaceted, so that it becomes necessary, for example, to examine individual leaders and to listen seriously to their reasons for acting a certain way. Thucydides also shows that there is a natural sociability in people that goes beyond vying for power and glory and, indeed, coexists with these urges, so that it is unrealistic not to take into account a certain amount of genuine altruism. Does Hobbes's account of leadership deal with the impact of great individuals on history? Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War contains individuals with varying motivations, some altruistic, some self-interested, some acting on rage and revenge. In other words, it reflects reality. As such, Thucydides, as often as Hobbes, has been dubbed the father of international realism. The chapter then discusses how realism and neorealism, despite their differences, share the same philosophical roots. It also suggests that Thucydides has been misunderstood and that he actually provides an interesting alternative approach to realism in the study of international politics.

Human Nature

2020 ◽  
pp. 3-71
Author(s):  
Laurie M. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Brute Force ◽  
Peloponnesian War ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Good Sense ◽  
History Of

This chapter discusses Thucydides' and Hobbes's ideas of human nature, which are often said to be very similar. International relations theorists are just as much prone to this mistake as others, referring to Thucydides, as they do to Hobbes, as a “realist.” Hobbes's view is close to the view of the famous “Athenian thesis” repeated throughout Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War. That thesis is similar in many ways to the realist thesis, claiming that human beings are universally selfish and always motivated by fear, honor, and interest. Since they are compelled by their passions, they are not to be blamed for their actions, and, as Thucydides' character Diodotus points out, they can be controlled only through superior power and brute force. However, the chapter argues that, in contradiction to the Athenian thesis, Thucydides' overall treatment of human nature proves that it is not so uniform and that passions do not force people to act. Individuals are responsible for their actions, capable of reason, and therefore guilty when they allow their passions to overcome their good sense. In Thucydides' view, political problems cannot be permanently solved, because there are elements in human nature that cannot be manipulated. While Thucydides depicts the bloodthirsty violence of civil war as well as genocidal international warfare as products of the extreme pressures of war, Hobbes sees them as events that take place whenever there is no power strong enough to prevent them.

Averroes' Paraphrase on Plato's “Politeia”

1934 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 737-744
Author(s):  
Erwin Rosenthal
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
Conception Of Man ◽  
Islamic Empire ◽  
History Of ◽  
Medieval Political Theory ◽  
Philosophical Writings

Although Averroes is well known as a commentator on Aristotle—the scholastics called him The Commentator—very few scholars have so far taken any notice of his commentary on Plato's famous treatise. This paraphrase, however, deserves a thorough critical study, for a variety of reasons. First, it belongs to the Corpus of Averroes’ philosophical writings, even though—as Averroes states himself in his preface—it be only as a substitute for Aristotle's “Politics” which were not known to Averroes and which were not accessible to the scholastics until 1260. Secondly, it is an interesting example of the treatment of Platonism by Islamic scholars. Then: are the changes and deviations due to Islamictheory and thought, or to Averroes’ own way of adapting the “Politeia” to the Islamic “Empire” ? Was there any Platonic influence on Islam in its political theory and when, how, and where can we trace it ? Is it Plato himself or Plato in the light of Neo-Platonism that Averroes’ more or less inadequate paraphrase gives us ? These questions show that the linguistic task is only a preliminary towards the more importantand interesting question of the position and meaning of this treatise within the history of medieval political theory and of the interrelations between Eastern and Western conception of Man and State.

Apocrypha from the History of the Jewish Military Union and its Authors

2008 ◽  
pp. 147-176
Author(s):  
Dariusz Libionka
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Warsaw Ghetto ◽  
History Of

This article is an attempt at a critical analysis of the history of the Jewish Fighting Union (JFU) and a presentation of their authors based on documents kept in the archives of the Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw. The author believes that an uncritical approach and such a treatment of these materials, which were generated under the communist regime and used for political purposes resulted in a perverted and lasting picture of the history of this fighting organisation of Zionists-revisionists both in Poland and Israel. The author has focused on a deconsturction of the most important and best known “testimonies regarding the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising”, the development and JFU participation in this struggle, given by Henryk Iwaƒski, WΠadysΠaw Zajdler, Tadeusz Bednarczyk and Janusz Ketling–Szemley.A comparative analysis of these materials, supplemented by important details of their war-time and postwar biographies, leaves no doubt as to the fact that they should not be analysed in terms of their historical credibility and leads one to conclude that a profound revision of research approach to JFU history is necessary.

History of Ardalānids (1590-1810) by Sharaf al-Dīn bin Shams al-Dīn

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-79
Author(s):  
Sara Zandi Karimi
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
History Of ◽  
Critical Translation

This article is a critical translation of the “History of the Ardalānids.” In doing so, it hopes to make available to a wider academic audience this invaluable source on the study of Iranian Kurdistan during the early modern period. While a number of important texts pertaining to the Kurds during this era, most notably the writings of the Ottoman traveler Evliya Chalabi, focus primarily on Ottoman Kurdistan, this piece in contrast puts Iranian Kurdistan in general and the Ardalān dynasty in particular at the center of its historical narrative. Thus it will be of interest not only to scholars of Kurdish history but also to those seeking more generally to research life on the frontiers of empires.Keywords: Ẕayl; Ardalān; Kurdistan; Iran.ABSTRACT IN KURMANJIDîroka Erdelaniyan (1590-1810)Ev gotar wergereke rexneyî ya “Dîroka Erdelaniyan” e. Bi vê yekê, merema xebatê ew e ku vê çavkaniya pir biqîmet a li ser Kurdistana Îranê ya di serdema pêş-modern de ji bo cemawerê akademîk berdest bike. Hejmareke metnên girîng li ser Kurdên wê serdemê, bi taybetî nivîsînên Evliya Çelebî yê seyyahê osmanî, zêdetir berê xwe didine Kurdistana di bin hukmê Osmaniyan de. Lê belê, di navenda vê xebatê de, bi giştî Kurdistana Îranê û bi taybetî jî xanedana Erdelaniyan heye. Wisa jî ew dê ne tenê ji bo lêkolerên dîroka kurdî belku ji bo ewên ku dixwazin bi rengekî berfirehtir derheq jiyana li ser tixûbên împeretoriyan lêkolînan bikin jî dê balkêş be.ABSTRACT IN SORANIMêjûy Erdellan (1590-1810)Em wutare wergêrranêkî rexneyî “Mêjûy Erdellan”e, bew mebestey em serçawe girînge le ser Kurdistanî Êran le seretakanî serdemî nwê bixate berdest cemawerî ekademî. Jimareyek serçawey girîng le ser kurdekan lew serdeme da hen, diyartirînyan nûsînekanî gerîdey ‘Usmanî Ewliya Çelebîye, ke zortir serincyan le ser ‘Kurdistanî ‘Usmanî bûwe. Em berheme be pêçewanewe Kurdistanî Êran be giştî, we emaretî Erdelan be taybetî dexate senterî xwêndinewekewe. Boye nek tenya bo twêjeranî biwarî mêjûy kurdî, belku bo ewaney le ser jiyan le sinûre împiratoriyekan twêjînewe deken, cêgay serinc debêt.

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