The following categories can be found in the analysis of the prehistory of constitutionalism: the early constitutionalism, the ancient constitutionalism, the medieval or canonical constitutionalism. The usage of these categories raises the question: is constitutionalism the product of the Age of Enlightenment or is it an older phenomenon? The author of the article approaches this problem from another point of view: maybe the usage of the mentioned categories is an anachronism? In this case the (...) elements taken form different contexts are combined into a single unit typical to recent reality. This conjunction, when neither the single entirety nor the alterations of contexts are taken into consideration, distorts the understanding of the past, fits the past to the Procrustian bed straining it to the present standards. The existence of separate elements does not allow the consideration of the phenomenon as a whole. It also suits the category of constitutionalism. In author’s opinion, it is necessary to differentiate between: a) the prehistory of constitutionalism; b) the era of written constitutions as the legal acts of supreme power, the essence of which is expressed by the category of constitutionalism and which began in XVIII century. (shrink)

Any attempt to apply Aristotelian political categories to the principles of modern constitutionalism is undoubtedly at risk of anachronism. This paper acknowledges non-trivial differences between the Ancient Greek politeia, as theorised by Aristotle, and the modern constitution. It nonetheless argues that the central principles of the modern liberal constitution can be elucidated within the explanatory frame of the Aristotelian concept of the politeia as a political determination of institutional structures and competences oriented by an interpretation of the public (...) good. The paper is divided in three sections. Section 1 outlines Aristotle’s account of the politeia. Section 2 considers some central principles of modern constitutionalism. Section 3 then examines these principles under an Aristotelian lens. The conclusion sketches a potential objection, implicit in the paper’s arguments, to a recent proposal for a ‘neo-Aristotelian’ normative constitutional theory. (shrink)

Niccolò Machiavelli is the father of modern constitutionalism. Constitutionalism began anew in the modern world with the study of the ancient republics and it was Machiavelli who inaugurated this revived science of politics. Five hundred years after the composition of Il Principe and the Discorsi we are still working out the implications of applying reason to the structures of law and government in pursuit of justice and the common good. Modern constitutionalism and ancient republicanism share (...) three central beliefs: first, that government should serve justice and the common good; second, that government should do so through known and stable laws; third, that these will best be secured through the checks and balances of a well-designed constitution. Machiavelli took the theories and experiences of republican Rome and applied them to his own era. This application of reason to constitutional design transformed the politics of emergent modernity and reconfigured government throughout the world. (shrink)

This article examines Cicero’s treatment of libertas and its constitutional underpinnings in Pro Rabirio perduellionis reo. In Pro Rabirio, Cicero offers a concentrated discussion of libertas in which he downplays its relationship with popular institutions and procedures and emphasizes instead its strong correlation with social and political consensus. Indeed, for Cicero, libertas is more closely associated with the qualitative characteristics of peaceable association than any particular constitutional order. By characterizing libertas as an experience of calm security that goods citizens enjoy (...) when they are consistently and effectively protected against by injury at the hands of moral degenerates, Cicero makes it possible to distance libertas from provocatio and auxilium, the two major legal and institutional mechanisms associated with libertas in the Roman context, and forge a much stronger connection with the self-regulating activity of the Roman ruling elite. (shrink)

Social contract theory imagines political societies as resting on a fundamental agreement, adopted at a discrete moment in hypothetical time, that binds individual persons together into a polity and sets fundamental rules regarding that polity's structure and powers. Written constitutions, adopted at real moments in historical time, dictating governmental structures, bounding governmental powers, and entrenching individual rights, look temptingly like social contracts reified. Yet something essential is lost in this slippage between social contract theory and the practice of constitutionalism. (...) Contractarian blinders lead us to look for greater individualism, social unity, and coherence of principles than should be expected. Real constitutional orders appropriate, incorporate, and channel the histories and divisions of the societies they govern. Treating them as social contracts flattens and distorts them, making those engagements with the past or with social plurality appear anomalous and encouraging their minimization. Accordingly this article redirects attention to non-contractarian strands within constitutionalism's intellectual inheritance and lived practice. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Edmund Burke and His Critics: The Case of Mary WollstonecraftJames ConniffA number of interesting questions concerning the development of English political thought in the French Revolutionary period remain matters of controversy. In this essay I propose to consider two of them: why did the Whigs split on the Revolution, and why and how did some of the disaffected Whigs reconcile with Edmund Burke. Various answers have been suggested. The (...) currently dominant position was first articulated some years ago when J. G. A. Pocock suggested that the revolutionary debate was largely a struggle between Whig ancient constitutionalists, Burke among them, and a republican alliance of disciples of Harrington and Machiavelli. 1 In his Republicanism and Bourgeois Radicalism Isaac Kramnick disagreed, arguing that the late eighteenth-century radicals should be seen as Lockeans pursuing “a new Liberal ideal, a society of achievement, a social order of competitive individualism in which social mobility was possible and the rightful reward for ingenious people of talent and hard work” was economic success crowned by wealth. 2 In his view English society was then characterized by a struggle in which the middle class, led by religious Dissenters, was rising to challenge the domination of the existing economic and political elite. For Kramnick such figures as Joseph Priestley, Thomas Paine, and Richard Price were advocates for this class, and their political theories represented its ideology. 3 According to Kramnick, these writers were intent on creating a practical science which could be used to promote the happiness of mankind through reform of the political system. Intent on rewarding merit, the radicals advocated the virtues of commercial civilization and [End Page 299] opposed the lazy indolence of both rich and poor. 4 Other scholars have followed Kramnick’s lead and sought to expand the reach of his thesis. In a recent biography of Paine, Jack Fruchtman treated Paine as a civic humanist, a radical critic of English society, and a defender of commercial republics. 5 Similarly, Joyce Appleby and Drew McCoy have employed republicanism to explain American politics in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. 6It seems to me that the focus on the radical Whig’s critique of Edmund Burke is indeed a good place to start. In the preface to the English edition of The Rights of Man Paine maintained that “from the part Mr. Burke took in the American Revolution, it was natural that I should consider him a friend to mankind... but no sooner did he see the old prejudices wearing away, than he immediately began sowing the seeds of a new inveteracy, as if he were afraid that England and France would cease to be enemies.” 7 In Paine’s view Burke and his allies among the Old Whigs were simply hypocrites. They supported reform, he said, only when it benefitted themselves. Intent on their own self-interest, they could never admit that, “it is to a nation that the right of forming or reforming, generating or regenerating constitutions and governments belong;... those subjects... are always before a country as a matter of right....” 8 Yet as James Boulton has suggested, Paine actually spoke for only a relatively small segment of Burke’s critics. 9 Other more moderate Whigs like Philip Francis and James Mackintosh disagreed with Paine while also rejecting Burke’s violent rhetoric and what they perceived as his opposition to all reform. Over the course of the controversy these moderates maintained contact with Burke, argued respectfully with him, and often continued to work with him on other issues. Moreover, Burke and at least some of his critics shared a common commitment to progress achieved by gradual reform within a context of social stability. Where they differed most was in two areas of subordinate theoretical concern. First, within the common framework of progress, they debated matters of detail, timing, and pace. Second, they disagreed on a number of specific issues which involved such concepts as human nature, equality, the degree of flexibility within the social system, and the value of education, associated with progress. It is, I believe, the disagreement on these subordinate issues which [End Page 300] explains the Whig split. Their limited reconciliation followed in turn... (shrink)

The present article commences analyzing the origins and influences of the religious discourse on the configuration of the modern constitutional discourse and the contributions of the jus-positivism in the consolidation of this sacred-civil language. The second issue is the definition of the U.S. Constitution as a mixed and not as a democratic constitution, with regard to the influences of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero and Polybius to the Drafters of the first modern constitutional text; stability and equilibrium took preference over democracy in (...) a wide sense. I also analyze how the Drafter’s decision has conditioned the modern constitutional system up to the present. (shrink)

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC-43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, political theorist, philosopher, and Roman constitutionalist. He is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists. He is generally perceived to be one of the most versatile minds of ancient Rome. He introduced the Romans to the chief schools of Greek philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary, distinguishing himself as a linguist, translator, and philosopher. An impressive orator and successful lawyer, he probably thought his political (...) career his most important achievement. Today, he is appreciated primarily for his humanism and philosophical and political writings. Although a great master of Latin rhetoric and composition, Cicero was not Roman in the traditional sense, and was quite self-conscious of this for his entire life. He was declared a "righteous pagan" by the early Catholic Church, and therefore many of his works were deemed worthy of preservation. Saint Augustine and others quoted liberally from his works On the Republic and On the Laws, and it is due to this that we are able to recreate much of the work from the surviving fragments. (shrink)

This article examines the connection, personal and intellectual, between David Hume and Edmund Burke. Scholars have often compared the two thinkers, mainly in an unsystematic and selective way. Burke’s early biographers regarded them as opposite figures on account of Hume’s religious and philosophical scepticism and Burke’s devout Christian faith. By contrast, modern scholars often stress their intellectual kinship. More specifically, they have repeatedly attempted to place Hume and Burke either close together or far apart on a liberal-conservative spectrum. This article (...) shows that an historical investigation into their personal and intellectual relationship is bound to challenge and complicate such endeavours. Besides an account of Hume’s and Burke’s acquaintance, the article discusses Burke’s engagement with Hume, and provides a comparison of key areas of their thought. It demonstrates that while Hume had something to offer Burke as a man of letters, in the 1750s and after 1790–1, Hume was less useful for Burke in the intermediate period when Burke was an active parliamentarian and Whig party member, especially since the mature Hume was so hostile to Burke’s brand of Whiggism. (shrink)

Arnopoulos explains the thoughts and practices of the ancient Greeks with regard to external affairs, or exopolitics, integrating political philosophy with modern international theory. He examines the political ideas of Plato and Aristotle specifically, and evaluates the ancient Greek policy ideals regarding constitutionalism, statesmanship, and foreign policy. In many ways, Arnopoulos would say this is a study not of what people do, but rather how they justify their deeds. He has been writing on the subject for about (...) 30 years, and this monograph is a consolidation of his thinking. His current academic affiliation is not noted. (shrink)

This essay concerns Constant’s classic text The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns. Although this is a frequently quoted text, what makes reading it still something of an effort is that it contains a baffling shift from the complete exaltation of modern liberty in its first part to the recognition of the significance of political participation in safeguarding modern liberty in its final part. The text is also replete with additional treasures, including Constant’s famous distinction between (...) the liberty of the ancients and that of the moderns and his turn to the basic human capacity of self-development to support his stubborn insistence on the irreducibility of political participation. With regard to the aforementioned shift in the 1819 text, some have argued that in order to reveal the richness of the text we must be aware that its two parts were written under different historical circumstances. Accepting this claim, I argue that the basic tone of the text is Constant’s attempt to combine modern liberty and political participation and that deciphering the argumentative thrust inherent in the text helps reveal its richness. I focus on the centrality of the representative system, which, I argue, plays an important role in Constant’s endeavour to unify the liberty of the moderns and political liberty throughout the text. To see how he defends both the enjoyment of individual interests and the practice of political liberty, it is necessary to recognize the nature of representative assemblies in Constant’s constitutionalism and to characterize his appeal to self-development as a justification of the practice of political liberty. (shrink)

Ernest Barker wrote two books on the political thought of Plato, both of which were also directly related to his study of the political thought of Aristotle. This essay examines the way Barker’s readings of Plato changed, first from the earlier to the later of his two books, and then from the later of these books, written during WWI, to his translation of Aristotle’s Politics, written during WWII. The contention is that, as Barker himself partly confessed, WWI led him to (...) read hopes into Plato’s works that he not had before and that he abandoned in WWII. This shift in reading Plato was essentially a shift in Barker’s allegiance to political Hegelianism, which, while it intensified during WWI, had given way entirely to a thoroughly English Whig Constitutionalism by the end of WWII. The abandonment of Hegel enabled Barker to reach not only a better understanding of Plato in his Aristotle book but also a better and more wry understanding of German philosophy. (shrink)

Professor Konvitz states that John Locke was one of the most influential political philosophers of the last two centuries. Locke’s writings were the intellectual basis for many of the ideas embodied in the American Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. Locke’s Second Treatise on Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration form the intellectual link between ancient, classical political thought and constitutionalism and modern democratic thought. More and Locke agree that man is created by God and has the (...) laws of nature to govern him. More takes man out of the state of nature and places him in a governed group with a civil order. Locke describes man in the state of nature as living according to reason without civil society. According to Thomas Hobbes, in Leviathan, man in a state of nature is in a state of war of all against all. Without government, Hobbes postulates, man is a beast. (shrink)

The neo-republican conception of freedom as non-domination has emerged as a powerful framework for conceptualizing the dynamic relationship between power, democracy, and constitutionalism in modernity. Despite this, I argue that adaptations of republican freedom to the problem of slavery displace attention to race and foreclose more productive ways of addressing how racial slavery constitutes a distinct form of oppression. To illuminate the limitations of neo-republicanism, I turn to the political thought of abolitionists David Walker and Ottobah Cugoano. Both utilize (...) comparative histories of race and slavery to reveal the specificity of modern slavery as a form of oppression, which cannot be captured as an issue of domination in the technical sense of the term. They thus pose challenges to neo-republican theory for its failure to fully appreciate the historical differences between ancient and modern slavery. To do so would illuminate how neo-republican theory faces severe limitations in providing an adequate conceptualization of oppression in the case of racial slavery. (shrink)

The first segment starts with a definition of two dimensions of the concept of rule of law; related to the notion of sovereignty and as a concept to control arbitrariness on the part of the ruler. The segment proceeds to give a historical account of the notion and the different stages of its epistemological configuration, from the ancient Greek notion of Eunomia and its incompatibility with the popular rule to the current notion, where the rule of law has become (...) fused with democracy and human rights. The first segment also focuses on the relation between the concept of the rule of law and other principles, such as proportionality, neutrality, and effectiveness. The second segment of the paper analyses the phenomenon of juridification of the rule of law in international treaties and domestic constitutions. It pays particular attention to the role that constitutional accommodation plays in the process of rationalization of the rule of law as a prerequisite to its idealization and mystification. It analyses the reason why this principle is an essential feature of the constitutionalism despite the inner plurality of legal systems. The next aspect, analysed in the third segment of this paper, is the messianic use of the concept of the rule of law. The paper performs a critical definition of messianic, covering a theological perspective and the different theories and concepts that go hand in hand with the idea of the Messiah, such as the “coming”, prophetical and apocalyptical messianism, the phenomena of eschatology, expiation and redemption pictured in Judaism. The segment also covers the secular transplantation of the messianic thought. The last segment is a conclusion returning to the themes identified in the paper and summarises how the messianic thought is applied in the realm of the rule of law. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Aristotelianism of Locke's PoliticsJ. S. MaloyThose, then, who think that the positions of statesman, king, household manager, and master of slaves are the same are not correct. For they hold that each of these differs not innly in whether the subjects ruled are few or many... the assumption being that there is no difference between a large household and a small city-state.... But these claims are not true.Aristotle, (...) Politics, 1252a1The Power of a Magistrate over a Subject may be distinguished from that of a Father over his Children, a Master over his Servant, a Husband over his Wife, and a Lord over his Slave. All which distinct Powers happening sometimes together in the same Man, if he be considered under these different Relations, it may help us to distinguish these Powers one from another, and show the difference betwixt a Ruler of a Common-wealth, a Father of a Family, and a Captain of a Galley.Locke, Two Treatises of Government, 2.22 [End Page 235]When the political theory of John Locke first appeared in print in 1689, the imposing authority of Aristotle stood ready to defeat it. So believed many of Locke's critics, at any rate. After his death in 1704, when it was confirmed that the internationally renowned author of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding had also written the anonymously published Two Treatises of Government, Locke was widely taken to represent a distinctive type of political theory based on individual rights and the social contract. Learned opposition to this sort of voluntaristic account of politics has often rested on Aristotle, "the Philosopher," the ancient authority on the human instinct for sociability and the hierarchal communities arising therefrom. Within the modern academy "liberals," "communitarians," and "republicans" have again made a habit of pronouncing the names of Locke and Aristotle in tones of antagonism. In broad outline the reasons have not changed in two or three centuries ago: the first stands for natural-rights individualism and the second for an organic conception of community.3What are we to make of this conventional opposition in light of the awkward fact that the second of Locke's Two Treatises, "Of Civil Government," takes the reclamation of the Aristotelian conception of political power as its principal purpose? Locke announced in the opening chapter of that essay that his chief target, Robert Filmer, had misunderstood the nature of distinctively political relationships, mainly by ignoring the differences between authority in political society and authority within the family (L 2.1–2). Locke alleged that this basic conceptual mistake of the Filmerian theory of "absolute" and "arbitrary" government was the source of its disastrous practical ramifications, which he had summed up in the first Treatise as "Chains for all Mankind" (L 1.1). Filmer, in turn, had taken Plato's side in the debate about political and familial rule which Aristotle had joined in the opening lines of his Politics (A 1252a). Though a perceptive reader long ago noticed the Aristotelianism of Locke's response to Filmer—Locke and Algernon Sidney were the "two famous men" to whom Rousseau alluded as having defended Aristotle against Filmer's Platonic notions of power—no modern scholar has attempted a full explanation of the significance of Locke's intervention in this debate.4 [End Page 236]The analysis below will show that Aristotle was the classic source for both the principal theoretic argument of Locke's second Treatise and the method employed to pursue it, i.e. using analogies of power for conceptual comparison and distinction. But my argument for the Aristotelianism of Locke's politics will rest on contextual as well as textual grounds. Not only was Locke pursuing an evident variation on the central theme of bk. 1 of Aristotle's Politics; he was far from alone in doing so. This sort of project was by the 1680s typical of radical constitutionalist writing in Europe, including not only English Whigs like Sidney and James Tyrrell but also a long line of writers on both sides of the English Channel, stretching back at least a century, who deployed a particular interpretation of Aristotle in the service... (shrink)

Surprisingly little is known about what ancient Confucian thinkers struggled with in their own social and political contexts and how these struggles contributed to the establishment and further development of classical Confucian political theory. Leading scholar of comparative political theory, Sungmoon Kim offers a systematic philosophical account of the political theories of Mencius and Xunzi, investigating both their agreements and disagreements as the champions of the Confucian Way against the backdrop of the prevailing realpolitik of the late Warring States (...) period. Together, they contributed to the formation of Confucian virtue politics, in which concerns about political order and stability and concerns about moral character and moral enhancement are deeply intertwined. By presenting their political philosophies in terms of constitutionalism, Kim shows how they each developed the ability to authorize the ruler's legitimate use of power in domestic and interstate politics in ways consistent with their distinctive accounts of human nature. (shrink)

The relationship between participatory democracy (the rule of and by a socially diverse citizenry) and constitutional liberalism (a regime predicated on the protection of individual liberties and the rule of law) is a famously troubled one. The purpose of this essay is to suggest that, at least under certain historical conditions, participatory democracy will indeed support the establishment of constitutional liberalism. That is to say, the development of institutions, behavioral habits, and social values centered on the active participation of free (...) and equal citizens in democratic politics can lead to the extension of legally enforced immunities from coercion to citizens and noncitizens alike. Such immunities, here called “quasi-rights,” are at least preconditions for the personal autonomy and liberty in respect to choice-making that are enshrined as the “rights of the moderns.” This essay, which centers on one ancient society, does not seek to develop a formal model proving that democracy will necessarily promote liberal constitutionalism. However, by explaining why a premodern democratic citizenry of free, adult, native males—who sought to defend their own interests and were unaffected by Enlightenment or post-Enlightenment ideals of inherent human worth—chose to extend certain formal protections to slaves, women, and children, it may point toward the development of a model for deriving liberalism from democratic participation. Development of such a model could have considerable bearing on current policy debates. (shrink)

Constitutional scholarship has put much emphasis on Montesquieu's principle of separation of powers as developed in the chapter of 'The Spirit of the Laws' devoted to the English constitution (XI, 6). It has also been quite common to mix up this model of separation of powers with elements taken from other sections of Montesquieu's masterpiece. The starting point of this paper is that there is an alternative, second model of separation powers based on the French monarchy of intermediate powers, which (...) is also an instantiation of limited government. From this premise, the paper's aim is to carve out a second version of the principle of separation of powers by focusing on the different role and nature of judicial power in the English and French models. It turns out that the French version of the separation of powers is not based on a strict separation, since it bestows on the higher judicial intermediate bodies both judicial and legislative functions. This also leads to a kind of constitutionalism that is 'in between' ancient and modern, as it is exemplified by Montesquieu's take on the functioning of parliaments. As is typical of his political thought, he sees this intermediate power as representative of traditional and conservative social forces but, at the same time, in virtue of its social status, as an institution which strengthens, by opposing it, the monarch's legislative rationality, and legally contains political action. (shrink)

The second edition of David Wootton's Modern Political Thought: Readings from Machiavelli to Nietzsche offers a new unit on modern constitutionalism with selections from Hume, Montesquieu, the Federalist, and Constant. In addition to a new essay by Wootton, this unit features his new translation of Constant's 1819 essay "On Ancient and Modern Liberty". Other changes include expanded selections from Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy and a new Hegel selection, all of which strengthen an already excellent anthology.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western CivilizationPaul A. RaheVictor Davis Hanson. The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization. New York: The Free Press, 1995. xvi 1 541 pp. Cloth, $28 (US), $38 (Can.).On the back flap of the dust jacket of this volume, one finds a photograph of its author. He is not represented in the (...) customary manner—as an urbane sophisticate attired in jacket and tie, leaning against a bookcase or sitting at a desk, his hair carefully combed, his beard immaculately trimmed. Instead, he stands slouched before a weathered, wooden structure. He is adorned with sunglasses and jeans; his hair is unkempt, even wind-blown; he sports a mustache and appears to be unshaved; his sleeves are rolled up; his shirttails hang out and they appear to be soiled. We can infer that the shirt’s owner is himself unwashed. Victor Davis Hanson wants us to see him less as a professor of Greek than as a rube—akin to the “dour husbandmen, ‘their facial expressions like sour vinegar’” (403) celebrated by Aristophanes (Eccl. 289–92).This is as it should be, for among classicists Hanson is sui generis, and his is no ordinary scholarly work. He holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and teaches Greek at California State University at Fresno. But that is the least of it—for, with his brothers and a cousin, he has long operated a family farm in the southern San Joaquin Valley. He knows more about agriculture of the sort practiced by the ancient Hellenes than anyone now alive, and he has devoted his career as a scholar to making sense of classical Greek civilization in light of that knowledge. Everything that he has previously published—in articles and book chapters, in his splendid dissertation Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece (Pisa 1983), and in his provocative monograph The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece (New York 1989)—grew out of an attempt to make a whole of his divided life. The same can now be said for the book under review, which is nothing less than a masterpiece.Hanson makes no mention of Antonio Gramsci or even Karl Marx; and from the down-to-earth, resolutely empirical tone of his book, one can easily infer that he would have little patience with the elaborate theoretical posturings of either. But this notwithstanding, he can perhaps best be characterized as a heterodox Marxist. Put simply, he claims that late in the Dark Ages, Greek husbandmen invented a mode of production theretofore unknown and that in accord with the dictates of that mode of production, they elaborated the way of life and the institutions and practices that we commonly recognize as distinctively “Western.” The mode of production that Hanson has in mind is diversified farming [End Page 459] conducted in accord with the dictates of a primitive but nonetheless well-elaborated agronomy by slaveowning, resident proprietors.In the first part of his book Hanson surveys the archaeological and the literary evidence for early Greek settlement patterns and early Greek life; he examines with care the implications of what is said and of what is left unsaid in the last book of Homer’s Odyssey and in Hesiod’s Works and Days; and he draws together from the remaining literature every snippet of evidence pertinent to understanding what it was like to be a farmer in classical Hellas. At every point he is sensitive to information conveyed in the surviving evidence that city slickers, such as myself, inevitably overlook; and slowly, inexorably, piecing together fragments gleaned from a thousand sources, he builds up a persuasive picture of a transformation in agricultural technique more profound in its implications for human life than the Industrial Revolution.In the second part of his book Hanson traces the logic of ancient Greek constitutionalism and the otherwise inexplicable protocols of hoplite warfare to the special needs and peculiar outlook of agriculturalists eking out a livelihood from diversified farming and standing in need of protection for their property and their way of life against predators domestic and foreign. Finally... (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Questions of Method The Troubled Dominance of the Liberal Paradigm Democracy The Political Person International Issues.

TheFederalist, written by in 1787-1788 in defense of the proposed constitution of the United States, endorses a fundamental principle of political legitimacy: namely, This essay argues that this principlemay be traced back to Plato. Part I of the essay seeks to show that Plato's Statesman offers a clearer understanding of the rule of reason than his more famous Republic, and it also indicates how this principle gave rise to the ideal of constitutionalism, which was adopted and reformulated by Aristotle, (...) Polybius, and Cicero, as well as moderns including Locke and Montesquieu. Part II argues that TheFederalist agrees with Plato when it argues that popular sovereignty must be tempered by the rule of reason. A proper distance should be maintained between the people and the actual exercise of power in order that political decisions be based on reason rather than passion. The people must therefore act through a federal system divided between national government and state governments, and these governments must themselves possess separated powers which control each other by means of checks and balances. Indeed, federalism itself may be viewed as a modern counterpart of Plato's which unites naturally disparate and opposed parts of the city-state into a concordant whole. In declaring, TheFederalist concedes that politics is the art of the possible. But statesmanship is not an exercise in pragmatism devoid of principles. Here shares Plato's vision of politics as a that is, an attempt to approximate the ideal of rational governance as far as possible in ordinary politics. (shrink)

This paper presents rational and unanimously agreeable norms in (a) governance, (b) economic policy, (c) constitution and (d) religious and scientific beliefs for civilized coexistence. The basis of unanimous agreeability is that individuals do not prefer to have their wealth (including life) robbed, even surreptitiously. This preference is unanimous because even robbers do not want to be robbed. I argue that unanimously agreeable norms are necessary for civilized co-existence of humans and are consistent with the ancient philosophy (Hindutva), which (...) originated in India more than 3000 years BC and is reflected in Gita, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/bhagavad_gita. Gita is considered by Courts of India as a philosophical document. The basic ethos of Gita is explicit and transparent: the state (King Dhristarastra) must not allow anyone (including privileged princes like Duryodhan) to take away others' (Pandavas') property even surreptitiously (through Sakuni's rigged game of Pashakhel). The modern constitution ordains freedom through rights to property, liberty and pursuit for happiness of individuals. But it has tacitly allowed establishment of a system (rules) of governance to facilitate surreptitious robbery. Individuals accumulate property like home and retirement savings with a hope to attain freedom, eventually, which they cannot achieve if they are robbed, even surreptitiously. The ancient philosophy of Gita prohibits robbery of any kind and, thus, guarantees hope for individual freedom. The modern philosophy—underlying the established system (rules) tacitly allowing surreptitious robbery—cannot, however, achieve individual freedom. Widespread or inclusive economic prosperity can be attained only if the constitution and rules of law are unanimously agreeable which will be consistent with ancient ethos but not modern philosophy. (shrink)

The Pythagorean Life is the most extensive surviving source on Pythagoreanism, and has wider interest as an account of the religious aspirations of late antiquity. "...admirably clear translation and sensible introduction"--The Classical...

"1910 stands out as a model of interdisciplinary and comparative study.... It brilliantly illustrates the complexity of a crucial period in European culture... focusing in particular on the intellectual intricacies of Mitteleuropa on the eve of World War I and of the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian empire."—Lucia Re "Compellingly original.... In Harrison's work, Michelstaedter and his confreres (Campana, Slataper, Kokoschke, Rilke, Kandinsky, Lukàcs, Trakl, et al.) turn out to be considerably more fascinating and more emblematic of their time than anyone (...) has been able to perceive before."—Gregory Lucente, University of Michigan. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION Elio Gianturco translated Giambattista Vico's De Nostri Temporis Studiorum Ratione into English in 1965. l He began the introduction to that ...

This article provides a comprehensive review of the rather intricate relationship between contemporary environmental ethics, understood as a philosophical branch, and ancient philosophy. While its primary focus is on Western philosophy, it also includes some brief yet crucial considerations about the influence of Eastern traditions of thought on environmental ethics. Aside from the introduction in the first section, the discussion is organised into three main sections. In the Reception: Ancient philosophy in environmental ethics section, I review the initial (...) reception of ancient philosophy in contemporary environmental ethics. Next, in the Reaction: Environmental ethics in ancient philosophy scholarship section, I examine how the scholarship in AP responded to this early reception. I conclude, in the final section, with some constructive suggestions for future research. (shrink)

The Greeks have long been regarded as innovators across a wide range of fields in literature, culture, philosophy, politics and science. However, little attention has been paid to how they thought and felt about novelty and innovation itself, and to relating this to the forces of traditionalism and conservatism which were also present across all the various societies within ancient Greece. What inspired the Greeks to embark on their unique and enduring innovations? How did they think and feel about (...) the new? This book represents the first serious attempt to address these issues, and deals with the phenomenon across all periods and areas of classical Greek history and thought. Each chapter concentrates on a different area of culture or thought, while the book as a whole argues that much of the impulse towards innovation came from the life of the polis which provided its setting. (shrink)

Vittorio Cotesta's Eurasian Visions of the World traces the origin of the images of the world typical of the Graeco-Roman, Ancient Chinese and Medieval Islamic civilisations. Each of them had its own peculiar way of understanding the universe, life, death, society, power, humanity and its destiny. The comparative analysis carried out here suggests that they all shared a common human aspiration despite their differences: human being is unique; differences are details which enrich its image. Today, the traditions derived from (...) these civilisations are often in competition and conflict. Reference to a common vision of humanity as a shared universal entity should lead, instead, to a quest for understanding and dialogue. (shrink)

A comparative study of what the most influential writers of Ancient Greece and China thought it meant to have knowledge and whether they distinguished knowledge from other forms of wisdom. It surveys selected works of poetry, history and philosophy from the period of roughly the eighth through to the second century BCE, including Homer's "Odyssey", the ancient Chinese "Classic of Poetry", Thucydides' "History of the Peloponnesian War", Sima Qian's "Records of the Historian", Plato's "Symposium", and Laozi's "Dao de (...) Jing and the writings of Zhuangzi". The intention, through such juxtaposition, is to introduce the foundational texts of each tradition which continue to influence the majority of the world's population. (shrink)

Teun Tieleman surveys the history of the philosophical notion of the ‘art of life’, starting from its originator Socrates and his ancient successors down to its role among present-day philosophers. Apart from Socrates, special attention is given to the Stoics, Nietzsche and Foucault. The way in which the notion was defined and functioned throughout the history of philosophy reveals an exceptionally fruitful interplay between continuity and originality.