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Old Wednesday, March 11, 2009
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Default Aristotle on Revolutions! Tyrants! & Democracy!

Aristotle on Revolutions:

Varying degrees of Revolutions:

Revolution may take the form of a change of constitution or without changing constitution.
May make oligarchy or democracy more or less oligarchic or democratic.
May be directed or not directed against government or an institution or a set of persons.

General causes of Revolutions:

1). Men desire for equality (different to different people). 2). Inequality of possessions.
3). Abuse of Govt: 4). Absence of Middle class 5). Gain, honor & equality. 6). Discrepancy b/w the actual political ability and the actual political power held by different classes of citizens. 7). Desire to have the equality of opportunity.

Remedy: Mixed (democratic & oligarchic) constitution.

Particular Causes:
Love of gain, love of honor, fear, disproportionate increase in some part of the state, election intrigue, nepotism and neglect of small changes.

Prevention of revolutions:

1). Inculcate the spirit of obedience to law 2). Avoid deceiving people 3). Avoid concentration of powers in one of few hands 4). No political offices of to strangers 5). Finances open to public.
A revolution to Aristotle is more a political than legal change.

Aristotle on Tyrants:

Vices of Tyrants:

1). Large number of spies. 2). Efficient system of espionage. 3). Military aggression to divert people attention from internal domestic policy.
4). Promotion of distrust and hostility among different classes. 5). Destroys the intellectual life of citizens to avoid political speculations.
6). Semblance of beneficent rule and concern for art and religion.

Aristotle on Democracy:

It is based on two principles: freedom and majority rule.
To him, democracy is a form of government in which supreme power is in the hands of freemen.
The aggregate virtue and ability of the mass of the people was greater than the a part of the population.
Was in favor of vague sort of democracy, means aristo-democracy of free citizens while he condemns the extreme democracy i.e. mobocracy.
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  #12  
Old Saturday, March 14, 2009
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Aristotle Criticism of Plato:

1. A state, to Aristotle, unlike Plato must represent a plurality of dissimilar which is a bit too sever.
2. Every individual must be allowed a certain minimum of possessions and liberty of action to best express his individuality in the service of society.
3. Plato communism was based on a wrong conception of human psychology.
4. He criticized the vagueness of Plato's reference to non-guardian class but his non-citizens represent hardly any improvements on that.

Aristotle and Plato:

1. Both hold that man is social animal and organic and ideal view of state.
2. Both write on the city sate and individual for the sate and same classification of Govts and mixed constitutions and to both justice lies in the rendering of "due".
3. Both for state regulated Education, disregarded lower classes and neither denounce slavery.
4. Both denounce democracy and assign rule to virtue and state exists for good life.
5. Both correlate Ethics and politics.

Inconsistencies of Aristotle:

1. Failed to notice the disappearance of the city-state under Alexander.
2. Criticized Plato for Mixed constitution yet presented himself a mixed constitution.
3. Deplored division of society yet himself divided state into citizens and non-citizens.
4. Believed in the Unity of diversity but his education is too uniform to bring that desired diversity.

The Hellenic and Universal in Aristotle:

The Hellenic:

Superiority of Greeks city-state & race over others, Justification of SLAVERY for leisure, State directed and controlled system of education, hatred of commerce and usury.

The Universal:

Reconciliation between liberty and authority, Sovereignty of law, Mixed constitution, Value of public opinion, theory of separation of powers, relationship of economics and politics, golden mean (system of checks and balances), individualism, popular sovereignty, welfare theory of state.

Aristotle, a pure conservative:

1. Respect for existing customs, institutions and material i.e. empirical and inductive.
2. Denounced Plato communism and set great stores by private property.
3. He believed in the natural inequality of men and conservative view of citizenship.
4. He excluded women, slaves, children and aliens from public life.
5. He viewed revolutions with disfavor and suggested remedies in the shape of distributive justice and denounces extreme democracy.
6. He placed above all the sovereignty of law and opposed to all form of dictatorship.

Estimates of Aristotle:

1. Founder of the real political science who give the pride to politics instead of ethics.
2. More individualistic than Plato but differs more from him in method and form than content.
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  #13  
Old Sunday, March 15, 2009
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Post Machiavelli: 1469-1527:

Machiavelli: 1469-1527:

His environment:

Italy was battleground of intriguing, embarrassingly complex, depressing and ambitious potentates, local as well foreign.

His Works:

The Prince & The Discoursi

Machiavelli and the Spirit of Renaissance:

1. Machiavelli’s city, Florence, was the center of renaissance. The Renaissance impelled men to re-examine things from other than the clerical point of view.
2. With Renaissance, men instead of God became the chief entity and subject of study.
3. There developed the spirit of individualism and rationalism which viewed God, man and entire universe from the stand point of reason not faith.
4. It produced the concept of nationalism and nation-state which went against medieval church and universalism.
5. It demanded self-assertion, ruthlessness and disregard of conventional morality.
6. The Christian scriptures, the teachings of church Fathers and the conflict for supremacy between the church and the state were quietly put aside by Machiavelli.
7. Machiavelli thought of enlightening the present with the help of the past.

The Method of Machiavelli:

1. Medieval appeal to authority and scriptures and a priori reasoning did not suit him.
2. He relied on HISTORY because he believed that he, who desires to foresee what is going to take place, should consider what has taken place.
3. A realist in politics, he cared very little for political philosophy as such.
4. He concluded that a thing which is immoral for an individual to do might, if necessary in the interest of the state, be justifiably done by the state’s ruler.
5. Machiavelli believed that public morality was something different from private morality.
6. He broke away from the medievalism by denying the parallel existence of two swords, the secular and clerical and by rejecting the doctrine of Natural Law.
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  #14  
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Default machivella

1469-1527
Works:
the prince
the Discources
Art of the war
history of Florance
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  #15  
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Default Hobbes

1588-1679
comments on the Hobbes place in the history of political philosophy:


1: sovereignty of state
2: champenion of absolutism
3: DIVORCE OF RELIGION FROM POLITICS
4: NOVEL TREATMENT OF NATURAL LAWS
5: NATURAL EQUALITY OF MAN

THESE ARE THE CHIEF WORKS OF THOMAS HOBBES THAT HE HAS DONE IN HIS POLITICAL LIFE. ONE MUST THROUGH HIGHLISHTS ON THESE AREAS FOR COMPLATING THE QUESTION

LOCK VIEW ON SOCIAL CONTRACT IS ALSO IMPORTANT

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  #16  
Old Monday, March 16, 2009
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Arrow Machiavelli's conception of Human Nature: & Machiavelli's PRINCE:

Machiavelli's conception of Human Nature:

1.Like Hobbes, he held that all men were wicked and essentially selfish. Men were ungrateful, fickle, deceitful, cowardly and avaricious.
2.Fear is the one dominating element in life and is mightier than love.
3.Men always commit the error of not knowing when to limit their hopes.
4.He feels that the best way of ensuring liberty for himself is by Establishing dominion over others.
5.His conception of human nature lead to the diversion of ethics and politics.
6.State is not a natural organism but a contrivance against the evil nature of men.

Criticism on Machiavelli conception of Human Nature:

1.He did not believe in the moral progress of man and therefore, have a poor idea of human nature.
2.Before Machiavelli, political power of the state was only a a means in the service of a higher end; securing of good life but his thought is based on the concept that power is an end in itself.
3.Machiavelli was the first to coin the word, State.

Machiavelli's PRINCE:

1.Sate is the highest form of association and consideration of the welfare of the state is must which outweighs the any consideration of the welfare of individual or group welfare.
2.Machiavelli almost identifies the state with the ruler. Caesar must make himself worth of this worship by a ruthless ans successful seizure of power.
3.Those things were virtuous in a Prince which excelled in bringing success and power and these were cunning, deceit, ruthlessness, energy, boldness, shrewdness and unflinching will.
4.Integrity may be theoretical better than collusion but cunning ans subtlety are often very useful.
5.A prince must combine in himself the rational ans the brutal, the Law and force.
6.A wise price will not keep his parole and the preservation of the state is the raisin d'etre of the monarchy.
7.A clever prince will attack his enemy before the latter is ready.
8.Prince will establish internal unity by thorough-going despotism.
9.A prince might execute a conspirator but should not confiscate his property for confiscation would more seriously taken notice by the affected family than execution.
10.A prince must avoid being condemned by being building up a reputation of being variable, inconsistent, effeminate and irresolute.
11.The prince must be a col and calculated opportunist and will oppose evil by evil.
12.He must be ready, in the interest of the state, to be ready to sin boldly.
13.For a prince, Dishonesty is also the best of policy.
14.Machiavelli's Prince was not concerned with the ethics of his patients public actions but only with the means of maintaining his patient.
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  #17  
Old Wednesday, March 18, 2009
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Arrow Machiavelli on Politics, Ethics, Religion & Government!

Machiavelli's separation of Politics from Ethics:

1.The state was not a mean to an end but an end in itself with its own interests and the ruler is a creator of law as also of morality for moral obligations must ultimately be sustained by law.
2.Public and private standards of conduct are different and the state has no ethics.
3.The safety of the state is a supreme law because it is the highest form of association and had a superior claim to a man's obligation.
4.It is wrong for a private individual to kill but it is not wrong for the state to kill by way of punishment for crime because a citizen acts for himself, the state acts for all.
5.Aristotle distinguished ethics from politics but Machiavelli brought a complete divorce between them.
6.Machiavelli is not immoral but unmoral in his politics, to him, that state is good which serves the interests of the individuals and of the community ans which brings security.
7.Machiavelli may be called the founder of UTILITARIAN ethics.
Machiavelli on Religion:

1.Machiavelli did not believe in a supernatural end for man, to him, the church was department of the state and not independent of it.
2.Machiavelli must be re conked as the last of the great line on medieval secularists who urged the subordination of the church to the state.
3.Machiavelli ism has become a by-word for unscrupulousness but we must note that; He wrote on the preservation of the state. He was not irreligious but non-religious.
4.He had more of the Aristotelian than Platonic about him and believed that Ethics and religion and ethics were social force, working within the state, not over it.
Machiavelli Classification of Government:

1.Unsystematic but liked a mixed constitution with proper checks and balances but the balance he thought was of the economic and social forces not political.
2.Inclined towards republican more than a monarchist because it can maintain it institutions and adapt itself to changing environment better than a sentimental prince.
3.Republican system would lead to universal material prosperity and equality of opportunity, enduring and admits liberty.
4.To him, People collectively show better qualities of prudence and judgment and can select officers of better type.
5.Machiavelli chief care was efficiency and realized different type of governments suited different times and places and believed in the cyclical character of the form of government.
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  #18  
Old Thursday, March 19, 2009
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Arrow Machiavelli's Inconsistencies, theory of Aggrandizement & His Contributions!

Machiavelli's Inconsistencies:

1.He prescribes for an individual a combination of intellect and force but how can this egoistic virtue in the individual be the basis of a good and strong republican system which requires for its sustenance and efficient working public spirit and patriotism.
2.In the prince he lays down rules for the maintenance of absolute power but in Discourse he prescribes rules in which freedom may be maintained in a republican state.

Machiavelli's doctrine of Aggrandizement:

1.Insists on the necessity of extending the territory of the state by subjection of number of states to the rule of a single prince or commonwealth.
2.The state must expand or expire and extension of dominion was easier in one's own country where there was no difficulty of language or institutions.
3.The force must be used judiciously with craft and the prince must preserve the state but he must pay due respect to established customs and institutions.
4.The prince must have a well trained army of his own subjects and he must not impose heavy taxes and he must patronize art and literature.
5.The most important thing is that constitution must be flexible.
6.Bodin and Groutious build up a theory of legal sovereignty on Machiavelli's concept which was later proper formulated by Austin and Hobbes borrowed from him the concept of human nature.
7.Machiavelli is the first modern totalitarian thinker and he inspired Karl Marx.
8.His state is the Nation and gave the state its modern connotation.
9.He writes about the men and affairs as they are and not as the should be and he is mainly concerned with means not with ends or ideas; followed empirical method.

Machiavelli's Contributions:

1.Diversion between Ethics and Politics and public and private standards of morality.
2.State was an end in itself and he worshiped it like a deity.
3.Blessed were the strong and cunning.



The End to Machiavelli's Philosophy
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  #19  
Old Friday, March 20, 2009
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Arrow Thomas Hobbes on Human Nature, His Ancestry & on Scientific Materialism!

Thomas Hobbes:

1.He took his stand neither on theology nor on tradition but on his study of human nature.
2.He was a creature of his times as was Machiavelli.

Previous Traditions of thoughts:

1). Rational-Liberal = Plato & Aristotle:
2). Will and Artifice = Hobbes (Society is not natural but Artificial).
3). Historical Coherence = Rousseau's General Will (1 + 2)

Hobbes' Spiritual Ancestry:

1.Agrees with Machiavelli's on Human nature and that the state could transform a man into a moral being by the exercise of a master's rod.
2.To Bodin for his conception of Sovereignty but no limitations on sovereign.
3.Like Machiavelli subordinated ethics and religion to politics and was the first prophet of unlimited Sovereignty(Legal Sovereignty).

Hobbes on Scientific Materialism:

1.Hobbes attempted to to provide a materialist psychological and sociological foundation for a a new political theory, based on the assumption that human conduct was determined as the conduct of ants and bees is determined by reflex actions following known laws on the basis of mechanical process of causation and effect.
2.He tried to bring psychology and politics to the level of the physical sciences.
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Old Monday, March 30, 2009
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Arrow Hobbes Leviathan's General Treatment:

Hobbes Leviathan's General Treatment:
1.Fear is the basis of subjection of one to another and the state nature was a the state of war.
2.State of nature changed into political society on the individual agreeing that one or few or many represent the will of all.
3.In every political society there must be an absolute and indivisible sovereign.
4.Monarchy is not the only form of government but it is the least subject to passions.
5.Hobbes is against to a sovereign, De Jure or De facto.
6.Happiness of felicity consists in getting what one desires and power is the means of attaining the objects of desire, the greatest of all powers being that of the state.
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