Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 28

For episode 27, see here

The Theory of the Nation State: The Moderns

XXVIII. Hegel: Dialectic and Nationalism
 A. The typical conclusions of the Enlightenment:
       1. Hume showed ambiguities of "reason."
       2. Rousseau set up reasons of the heart (sentiment) against reasons
           of the head.
       3. Immanuel Kant sharpened contrast of science and morals (and between
           theoretical and practical reason) to preserve both.
       4. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel sought unifying synthesis through
           transcending analytic logic of science. 
 B. Hegel proposed dialectic to demonstrate logical relationship between
      fact and value.
 C. Revolution seen by many, including Hegel, as destructive, doctrinaire
      attempt to remake society and human nature.
       1. Therefore necessity of reconstruction of continuity of national
           institutions.
       2. But was to be reconstruction of stability by the creative forces
           of the nation.
 D. The nation, not the individual, is the significant unit of history via the 
      genius or spirit of the nation -- Volksgeist.
 E. Hegel's political philosophy built around the dialectic and the theory
      of the nation state as the embodiment of political power.  (These two
      did not necessarily entail each other.)
 F. The historical method:
       1. Method of studying history also could be applicable to other
           social studies.
       2. Mode of deriving from the order of historical events standards
           of valuation with which to access significance of particular
           stages in evolution (a philosophy of history).   
       3. Assumed single pattern or law of development that can be 
           exhibited by a proper arrangement of subject matter.
       4. Order is not imposed but immanent.
       5. Standards progressively revealed in evolution of morals, 
           law, etc., provides historically objective standard of values
           to fill vacant place of natural law.
        6. Hegel sought to show necessary stages by which reason 
           approximates the Absolute.
       7. Understanding and reason were faculties of analysis and 
           synthesis respectively and dialectic unites the two.
       8. Understand "breaks up" organic wholes, it is the philosophic 
           basis of indivualism.
           i. fosters illusion that men can remake society
           ii. misses organic creative continuous growth
       9. Only reason can see below historical detail to perceive forces
           that really control events and thus understand that the process
           should be as it is.
 G. In study of religion, following Herder and Lessing, saw succession of
      world religions as progressive revelation of religious truth.
 H. Thought Western civilization product of Greek free intelligence and
      deeper moral and religious insights of Christianity.
 I.  The process of development of the spirit of a people:
       1. Period of "natural" happy but largely unconscious spontaneity
           (thesis).
       2. Period of painful frustration and self-consciousness in which
           the spirit is "turned inward" and loses its spontaneous 
           creativeness (antithesis).
       3. Period in which spirit " returns to itself" at a higher level
           embodying insight gained from frustration (synthesis).
       4. The total process is "thought."
 J. Hegel saw freedom as existing only within bounds of a nation state.
       1. The state is the expression (de facto power) of national unity and
           a national aspiration to self-government.
       2. The state is consistent with any lack of uniformity which does not
           prevent effectively unified government (such as class differences).
       3. With Machiavelli saw no higher duty for the state than its own 
           strengthening and preservation.
       4. The state is the realm in which the Idea of Reason materializes 
           itself (The German Constitution, 1802).
 K. Realization of national spirit contributes to progressive realization of
      the world spirit and is the source of dignity and worth that attaches
      to private concerns of individuals. 
       1. Freedom is voluntary dedication to that realization.
       2. National monarchy is the highest form of constitutional government.
 L. Dialectic and historical necessity (The Philosophy of Right, 1821). 
       1. Dialectic is the new method.
       2. History of a people records the growth of a single national
           mentality that expresses itself in all phases of its culture.

"The individual is for the most part only an accidental variant of the culture
  that created him and insofar as he is different his individuality is more
  likely to be capricious than signficant."

       3. Dialectic is the opposition of forces moving in orderly equilibrium
           and emerging in a pattern of progressive, logical development.
       4. Contradiction means fruitful opposition between systems that 
           constitutes an objective criticism of each and leads continually to
           a more inclusive and coherent system. (Dialectic could manifest as 
           evolution or revolution.) 
 M. Hegel claimed dialectic as logic of reason to supersede logic of
       understanding.
       1. Dialectic both moral judgement and causal law of historical
           development.
       2. Unites relativism with the absolutism.
 N. Dialectic offered no criterion of rightness except success of outcome.
 O. Hegel: individualism and theory of the state.
       1. Individualism had no hold in Hegel's Germany and the same with
           sense of national unity.
       2. Hegel's Philosophy of Right deals with the relationships between
           individual and the social and economic institutions.
       3. Placed state as on a level of political evolution above civil
           society (the result of the end of feudal law and institutions).
       4. Revolution's ideals of liberty and equality made state a mere 
           matter of private interest, a utilitarian device for satisfying private
           needs elevating abstract individualism over society and state.
       5. The individual's best interest lies in being a member of society and 
           the state.
       6. Individualism indifferent to moral and spiritual development of 
           personality by falsifying the nature of social institutions through
           regarding them only as accidental and mere utilitarian devices to 
           satisfy irrational needs
       7. Hegel shared the "Greek notion" of citizenship not in terms of private
           rights but of social functions. 
 P. Hegel saw individual motives as capricious and sentimental, with civil
     civil society as a realm of mechanical necessity, a result of irrational 
     forces of a society.
       1. Society, apart from the state, is governed by non-moral causal laws
           and hence ethically anarchical.
       2. Only the state embodied ethical values and ought therefore to be
           absolute.
       3. Individual attains moral dignity only as he devotes himself to
           the state.
       4. Hegel's theory of freedom implied nothing definite in the way of
           civil or political liberties but he did not reject them in practice. 
       5. The state depends on civil society as the means of accomplishing
            the moral purpose it embodies.
       6. The state is absolute but not arbitrary, it must rule through law and
           law is "rational."
       7. Civil society consists of corporations and the legislature is where
           they meet the state.
       8. The legislature only advisory to the ministry of the governing class
           or "universal class."
 Q. Hegel's constitutionalism not liberal (i.e., democratic procedures)
      but based on orderly bureaucratic administration not subject to
      to public opinion but to the public spirit of an official class that
      stands above conflicts of economic and social interests.
 R. Hegel united Rousseau's general will (the manifestation of the 
      spiritual force forming the core of reality) and Burke's religious
      vision of history as a "divine tactic." 
 S. Replaced eternal system of unchangeable natural law with a
      rational unfolding of the Absolute in History.
       1. Reason manifested itself in social groups not individuals.
       2. Society seen as system of forces rather than community of 
           individuals.
       3. Highlighted importance of historical study of institutions but
           left individual actions as merely a "reflection" of social forces.
       4. Can be seen as giving rise to Marxism (a direct link), the English
           liberalism of Oxford idealists and the Italian fascists. 

Next week:  Liberalism -- Philosophical Radicalism
 
 
 

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 26

For episode 25, see here

The Theory of the Nation State: The Moderns

XXVI. Jean Jacques Rousseau and Rediscovery of Community
 A. Great gap between Rousseau and his contemporaries.
 B. Was a deeply divided personality, noble vs base, ideal vs real.

     "More than most men, Rousseau projected the contradictions and maladjustments of his own nature upon the society about him and sought an anodyne for his own painful sensitivity. (Sabine, 577)"

 C. Used contrast between the natural and the actual not as appeal to reason 
      but to attack reason.
 D. Against intelligence, growth of knowledge and Enlightenment progress,
      he set amiable and benevolent sentiments, good will and reverence.

     "What gives value to life is the common emotions, perhaps one may say instincts, in respect to which men differ hardly at all and which he imagined to exist in a purer and less perverted form in the simple uneducated man than in the enlightened and sophisticated."

 E. Based his values on "realities" of everyday life.
 F. Intelligence and science are dangerous because they undermine 
     reverence and faith.
 G. Pulled philosophy away from union with science and implanted 
      distrust of intelligence.
 H. Rejected systematic individualism and self-interest as virtue.
 I.  Took from Plato a general outlook.
       1. Political subjection is essentially ethical and only secondarily a
           matter of law and power.
       2. Community itself is chief moralizing agent and represents the
           highest moral value.
       3. Therefore fundamental moral category is citizen not man.
 J. Saw rights not as against community but within it.
       1. Natural egoist is fiction, some kind of community is inevitable,
           society is purely instinctive.
       2. Community has corporate personality, a general will.
       3. Government is agent for this will (could be radical or conservative).
       4. General will is the source of law and morals.
 K. The General Will
       1. Saw city-state as the best example of venue for the general will.
       2. Contract useful device even though government has no
           independent power; citizens exist as members of society,
           individuals have no rights except as members of the community.
       3. General will is the collective good of the community which is not
           the same as the private interest of its members.
       4. Men become equal within a society not because (per Hobbes)
           their physical power is substantially equal.
       5. Absolute authority of general will vis-a-vis indefeasible individual
           rights.
       6. When one is forced to obey general will, one is being forced to
           be free because one doesn't know his own good.
 L. Rousseau originated romantic cult of the group contrary to rationalist's
      cult of the individual.  
 M. In adapting the model of citizenship within the city-state to modern
      modern nation-state, Rousseau helped to recast it in such a form
      that national sentiment could appropriate it.
 N. Rousseau's impact
       1. Idealizing moral feeling of the common man led to Kant
       2. Full significance of idealizing collective will and participation in the
           common led to the idealism of Hegel.
       3. Descartes split reason from custom, Rousseau tacitly set it aside,
           Hegel tried to reunite them.
       4. Burke supplied missing content to "general will" by giving
           corporate life of England (custom and tradition) a conscious reality.

Next week:  Convention and Tradition -- Hume and Burke










 
 


 
 




 

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 20

For episode 19, see here

The Theory of the Nation State

XX. England: Preparation for Civil War
 A. Lines between rival political ideas not clearly drawn in early 17th Century
      England.
       1. No need to support royal absolutism with the theory of divine right.
       2. None had to seek theoretical defense for right to resist.
 B. Thomas Moore's Utopia (1516) was political satire expressing dislike of 
      growing acquisitive society.
       1. Harked back to Platonic conception of community of cooperative
           classes.
       2. Illustrated "looking back" from coming economic age.
 C. Richard Hooker argued that Puritan refusal of obedience to establish church
      was denying all political obligation.
       1. Reason was accepted universally as soon as it was understood.
       2. Law of reason was manifestly binding on all men.
       3. Man cannot satisfy all their needs in isolation and therefore form society.
       4. Ground of political obligation is common consent by which men agreed
           to be ordered by someone.
       5. Society could never withdraw its consent to authority it has set up after
           the fact.
       6. Ecclesiastical law of England not contrary to Christian faith and therefore
           binding -- as was all law -- upon all Englishmen.
 D. Calvinists and Catholics objected to royal supremacy in the Church as an 
      invasion of it's spiritual independence.
 E. Independents split church from state, seeing the former as a voluntary
     association.
 F. Erastianism of John Seldon saw the relationship between religion and the
     king in utilitarian, secularist and rational terms not common or typical
     for times.
 G. King, courts and Parliament each seen as having inherent powers, none
      claimed supremacy until the civil war.
 H. First conflict between king and courts over royal prerogative.
       1. Francis Bacon defended the right of the King to overrule the courts.
       2. Chief Justice Edward Coke argued for supremacy of common law over
           the King and Parliament.
      3. Coke saw law as indigenous growth within the realm that defined all
          rights and obligations.

Next week:  Thomas Hobbes


     

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 19

For episode 18, see here

The Theory of the Nation State

XIX The Modernized Theory of Natural Law
 A. Political philosophy released from association with theology in early 17th
      Century.
       1. Possible because gradual recession of religious conflict,
       2. Gradual secularization of issues of political theory,
       3. Secularization of intellectual interests bought on by the spread of
           scholarship to antiquity,
       4. Progress in mathematics and physical sciences.
 B. Althusius -- Calvinist, anti-royalist
       1. Separated jurisprudence and politics in reaction to Bodin
       2. Based natural society on contract
           i. contract explained relations between ruler and ruled (contract of
            government)
           ii. also explained existence of any group whatever (social contract)
       3. State is built up from series of contracts of lesser social groups 
           down to the individual level
       4. Sovereignty resided in the people as corporate body and could not
           be alien to it
       5. Government holds power for the sovereign
 C. Grotius -- Natural Law
       1. On the state, less clear than Althusius
       2. Importance was on conception of law regulating relations between
           states
       3. Sought to base common (natural) law in pre-Christian thought
       4. Argued against view of natural justice as motivated by
           self-interest and therefore merely a social convention
           i. appeal to utility is ambiguous since man is inherently social
           ii. maintenance of society is a major utility
           iii. peaceful social order is intrinsic good and conditions required
             for it just as binding as those which serve private ends
           iv. certain conditions or values must obtain if society is to persist
             and are thus necessary to man's nature
           v. these natural conditions are the basis of positive law of states
           vi. natural law no more arbitrary than arithmetic
       5. His attempt to rigorously ground reason part of move toward 
           "demonstrative" systems of philosophy
       6. Natural law seen as basis for social and philosophical geometries

Descartes' method (427): "resolve every problem into its simplest elements; proceed by the smallest steps so that each advance may be apparent and compelling; take nothing for granted that is not perfectly clear and distinct."

 D. Natural Law was introduction of normative element into law and politics.
 E. Contained possible ambiguities not immediately apparent.
       1. Differences between factual truth and logical implication
       2. Ambiguity between logical and moral necessity
       3. Critical analysis of these awaited Hume
 F. Unity of system based on some general agreement on what was
       important to insist on:
       1. Obligation to consent
           i. meant there were two parts to political theory -- contract and state
             of nature
           ii. this implied two contract, one as basis of the community and one 
             between the community and governing officials
       2. Human well-being required enlightened intelligence
       3. Middle class notion of individual human nature
       4. Society seen as mode for man not the other way around
       5. Relations in society less real than the individuals in themselves

Next week:  England: Preparation for Civil War