Unit-2 and 4 - Pta nhi mai kya upload kar rha hoon? bs mujhe documents dowlaod krne hai PDF

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Pta nhi mai kya upload kar rha hoon? bs mujhe documents dowlaod krne hai...

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Graduate Course

Classical Political Philosophy (Core Course) Contents Pg. No. Unit-2 : Antiquity (a) Plato (429-347 BC)

Dr. Nishant Kumar

01

(b) Aristotle (385 BC–322 BC)

Dr. Nishant Kumar

15

(a) Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)

Dr. Nishant Kumar

33

(b) John Locke (1632-1704)

Dr. Nishant Kumar

44

Unit-4 : Possessive Individualism

Edited by: Dr. Mangal Deo Dr. Shakti Pradayani Rout

SCHOOL OF OPEN LEARNING UNIVERSITY OF DELHI 5, Cavalry Lane, Delhi-110007

Unit-2 : Antiquity

(a) Plato (429-347 BC) Dr. Nishant Kumar Plato in widely recognized as one of the most significant political philosophers of Greek period. He was a disciple of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle and founder of Academy, one of the most popular institutions of learning in ancient Greece. He was born in an aristocratic family with both his parents being related to the class of nobles and rulers in Greece. The ideas of Socrates and Pythagoras had deep influence on his philosophy but most formidable influence was the political and social context of Greece during the years he was growing up. He was born just a year after the death of Pericles, the great Athenian statesman. This was also the period of the famous Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. Sparta finally defeated Athens because its superior military capacity and what followed in Athens was a period of political chaos that directly impacted Plato’s thought process and his disdain for democracy. But the most important event of his life that left deep scars in his memory and affected his philosophy was the execution of Socrates in 399 B.C. After Socrates’s death Plato, fearing for his own life, eft Athens and travelled around to places like Italy, Sicily and Egypt. He returned in 388 BC and founded the Academy, one of the oldest models of universities in the history of Europe. In this institution, students were trained in a number of disciplines which included biology, politics, astronomy, mathematics and dialectics. The influence of Socrates and Pythagoras was clearly visible in the curriculum. For example, mathematics was given so much importance that on the gate of the institution one could see inscribed, “Those having no knowledge of mathematics, need not enter here.” Plato was convinced that his ideas could be translated into real practical world if pursued efficiently. He had firm faith that his vision of producing a philosopher ruler could be actualized and in order to test this he agreed to tutor Dionysius, the new ruler of Syracuse in Sicily. However, his experiments did not bear desired outcomes and he returned disappointed. Later, as is widely known, in his writings one could see a drift from this position. In the last years of his life, Plato spent time lecturing at Academy and died at the age of 80 in 348/347 BC handing over the responsibilities of Academy to his nephew Specesippus. Important Works Plato produced several important works which dealt with different subjects. Gorgias dealt with the question of ethics in society; Meno discussed about the nature of Knowledge. In the Apology he presents the imaginative reconstruction of Socrates’s trial where he is presented as defending himself against the charges levelled against him of atheism and corrupting the minds of the youths in Athens; in Crito he forwards Socrates' justifications about the need to obey the laws of the state; and in Phaedo he reimagines the execution of Socrates and discusses about ideas like theory of forms, nature of soul etc. He also wrote other texts like 1

Theatetus, Promenades, Sophist, Philebus, and Timaeus, but his most important philosophical contributions remain to be Republic, Laws and Statesman. Methodology Plato's methodology can be argued to be deductive, teleological and dialectical. In Deductive method a philosopher first determines the general principles and then relates it with particular observations. It stands in contrast to inductive method where the general conclusions are reached based on observation of particular phenomenon, its analysis based on comparisons with similar occurrences. However, scholars like Nettleship have claimed that Plato does not stick to one of these and appears to use inductive method as well, particularly in ideas where he derives theory based on practices. However, unlike Aristotle there is no consistency in Plato in terms of the method being used. Plato also uses teleology in his thinking. Teleology means “the object with an objective”. It assumes that everything that exists consistently tends to move towards the desired goal that is inherent part of its nature. So, the goal being the important aspect here, it defines the trajectory for philosophical enquiry. This method is easily visible in Plato’s explanation of state. Plato's dialectical method was inspired by ancient Greek tradition but more particularly by Socrates. Constant questioning is an essential part of this method as highlighted in Plato’s Republic. It flows from the idea that all knowledge is contained in our souls and the only challenge is to realize it by trying to extract it in process of thinking about questions being raised. Socrates and Plato Death of Socrates had a great impact on Plato. Socrates influenced him to such an extent that most of his dialogues are written as conversations between Socrates and other notable citizens of Athens. Socrates is the main protagonist of Plato’s Dialogue. In fact, since Socrates did not leave any writing of his own, much of what we know today about Socrates, through the Platonic corpus. Plato was deeply influenced by Socrates’s views on virtue and his method of dialectics, which is explicitly evident in his own writings. Sophists, the main philosophical rivals of Socrates opined that virtue consisted in the ability to acquire those things that get you pleasure like wealth, honor, status, etc. So, they believed that knowledge was also an instrument to gain power that could lead to pleasure. For Socrates, on the other hand, virtue was the basis of happiness and virtue entailed in developing excellence or the capacity to achieve higher ends of life. He argued that knowledge gave us that capacity and taught us how we ought to live our lives, so knowledge was the supreme virtue. In fact, he maintained that it was the sum of different virtues like courage, wisdom, etc. he further held that all knowledge was contained within ourselves and the need was to realize that knowledge through right method. So, he stressed at apriori knowledge of all primary virtues and the method that he suggested to eject this knowledge is that of dialectics. George Sabine in his book A History of Political Theory (1973) argued that the core idea of Republic was inspired by Socrates’s doctrine that virtue is knowledge: “The proposition”, 2

Sabine wrote, “that virtue is knowledge implies that there is an objective good to be known and that it can in fact be known by rational or logical investigation rather than by intuition, guesswork, or luck? The good is objectively real, whatever anybody thinks about it, and it ought to be realised not because men want it but because it is good”. By producing Republic Plato gave this doctrine of Socrates a significant place in the history of political philosophy. Theory of Forms Influenced by Pythagoras, Plato in his philosophy treated the universal idea as the perfect and whole truth and placed it abov e the particular or the part. The principle that logically follows from this position is that the particular or the part is to be viewed in the perspective of the whole. That is, to comprehend truly the particular, the nature of the whole needs to be known first. His theory of Forms or ideas taken from the Greek word “Edios” is integrally related to his idea of Knowledge. Like Socrates, Plato also held that knowledge can be attained and that it had two important characteristics: firstly, this knowledge was certain and infallible; and secondly, it needs to be differentiated from what is only appearance. True Knowledge, therefore was permanent and unchanging, and was identified by Plato (as in Socrates), with the realm of “ideal” as opposed to the “physical, material world”. In his view “Form”, “Idea”, and “Knowledge”- they constitute what is “ideal”, whereas that which we perceive through our normal sense of sight, through the eyes, is “actual”. He therefore differentiates between what is “ideal” and what is “actual”; and what are “forms” from what are merely “appearances”; and therefore, also between what constituted “knowledge” and what constituted “opinion”; and between “being” and “becoming”. For him it was the world of “ideas” or “forms” that was eternal, fixed and perfect. Plato differentiated between the visible world (doxa) or the world of senses from the intelligible world (episteme). Doxa was seen as the world of opinions or becoming, whereas true knowledge lay in the world or being or forma represented by episteme. He admits that opinion is much above ignorance. Yet, it cannot be equated with knowledge. Opinion cannot naturally be infallible. Knowledge, on the contrary, is infallible irrespective of time and space, that is, it universally applies in all times and territories. Thus, the object of knowledge is the whole truth or reality which, different from the particular, is the general which always is, that is, unchanging that transcends the barriers of time and space. The stages of development of knowledge, is explained by Plato through the analogy of the divided line (to be elaborated and explained in class). Plato further argues that it is impossible to locate this reality in the world of senses which is subject to change. Transcending the particular and the domain subject to sense, this idea belongs to transcendental world where it reveals itself as a holistic, endless, indestructible ideal. According to Plato, this eternal and universal idea is the reality around which the process of knowledge revolves. It is not possible to have this knowledge through sense perception. As Plato comments in Book 6thof his Republic, those are philosophers who were able to grasp that which is always invariable and unchanging. In a way Plato insisted that the 3

journey from “appearances” to “forms” was only possible by following the path of education, the culmination of which could only be reached by philosophers. According to Plato, a philosopher was one who was in a constant quest of truth. His earnest logging and effort to understand truth or reality leads him to develop a theory of knowing and philosophy begins with what is called epistemology. Thus, according to Plato, a true philosopher is always in search of what is real or true. On the other hand, ordinary people who are not philosophers treat whatever they see through senses as reality though it is only apparent reality. Their idea of knowledge is like that of the group of men in chains confined within a stony cave. Since they are chained, they are unable to make any movement of their body, not even able to shift their shoulder. There lies in front of them the wall of the cave and behind them is a burning fire. As an effect of the light behind, they see shadows on the front wall. As it is not possible for them to cast their eyes in any other direction, they are compelled to watch these shadows in front and they continue thinking this false and illusive shadow as real. However, one prisoner’s chains break and he tries to move around. He feels immense pain. With a lot of efforts, he tries to escape the cave but the light at the entrance makes him uncomfortable. He wants to run back and has to be dragged out of the cave. Once he gets out, he is almost blinded by the light of sun. So, he starts looking at shadows of animals and plants in water and then directly at each of these creations and he realizes truth is different from what he saw and believed so long inside the cave. At last, he looks at the sun and realizes that it is the cause of all that we can see, or the highest source of knowledge. On the basis of this poetic narrative, or allegory of the cave, Plato concludes that those who are denied philosophical vision are like these men chained and confined in the cave. On the contrary, to a true philosopher, the process of knowledge begins by differentiating the real from the apparent and then, to search for a universal idea in a super-sensible, superintelligible and transcendental world. Plato had conceived the Forms as being hierarchically arranged. In fact, the whole perception of Knowledge and process of its attainment is arranged in the form of stairs that each seeker of true knowledge needs to travel in order to unravel and reach the zenith or the supreme form, which according to Plato is the “form of Good”. This highest level of knowledge, like the sun in the allegory of the cave, sheds light on all other ideas. This hierarchy of different levels of knowledge is explained by him using the Divided Line analogy. In this Plato imagines a vertical line divided into four equal parts. The two parts in the lower section falling in the visible world or doxa. Of these, the lowermost part denotes eikasia or the field of mistaken beliefs or superficial appearances (example: The perception that sun rises in east ad sets in west). The higher plane of knowledge in the doxa represents the pistis or the world of empirical realities or common sense developed on sensory experience (example: The realization that sun does not rise or set, it is earth’s rotation that makes it appear as such). The upper two levels form part of the intelligible world or episteme. Of these the lower level is of dianoia or the stage of discursive thought and mathematical reasoning (example: Knowledge of geometry, arithmetic). The highest among all these is noesis or the stage of true knowledge or forms the topmost point of it being the knowledge of 4

“form of Good”. This is achieved by knowledge and practice of dialectics, which is even more difficult than mathematical reasoning and not all people can reach to this stage of true knowledge and only philosophers have that required capacity to reach the knowledge of Good or idea of Good. So, he is also building a case thereby to argue that only philosophers are capable to differentiate between true and apparent reality and judge between right and wrong as this vision is achieved through the highest form of knowledge that they have achieved. Philosopher Ruler Who is a philosopher? Plato held that the philosopher was “one who loved wisdom, had a passion for knowledge, was always curious and eager to learn”. He was a lover of Truth and one who had raised himself to such level of consciousness and knowledge that could never falter from the path of righteousness. Why should philosopher rule? “Until philosophers are Kings, or the Kings and the Princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one .... cities will never have rest from their evils- nor the human race, as I believe- and then only will this our state have possibility of life and behold the light of a day” – Book V of Republic. The theory of the philosopher ruler was the linchpin of Plato’s ideal state. According to him, a good ruler was responsible not only for preservation of the subjects’ lives but also to transform it. Influenced by Socratic dictum that virtue is knowledge, Plato believed that political ills and injustice could be eradicated, if knowledgeable people are put at the helm of city-state’s politics. They are the one who had knowledge of the idea of the good, justice, beauty, truth, courage and the other moral attributes. Forms could only be seen by those with a rational mind as only they had the potential to reach to the highest level of consciousness. Not only did the philosophers have the right kind of knowledge, they were best suited for the job of ruling because they had no private interests. Plato did not allow his guardian class anything private and developed theory of communism of wives and property to keep the free from corruption or nepotism. Plato insisted that unlike popular belief, philosophers did not stay in isolation, rather were willing to actively participate in activities of society including politics if their role was respected. According to him a philosopher could make a good legislature as he had the idea of Good and shall frame laws accordingly. He compared statecraft with soul-craft and held that the field of politics had to be ethical with expertise required in attaining welfare of people. A philosopher by virtue of his education and training would develop virtues necessary for the field. They shall have calm approach, a sound mind and a good character. They also inculcate the qualities necessary for a good ruler which included high mindedness, courage, discipline, truthfulness, public 5

spiritedness, wisdom and devoid of economic considerations. Plato is sure that as we reach out to best of doctors in case, we fall sick, the sick polity also needs experts who can improve the condition of society through expert knowledge, training and positive approach. This person for Plato can only be a philosopher and he is therefore sure that only philosophers can make good rulers. Justice in the State and Individual Plato argued that the state was nothing but the ‘individual writ large’. He firmly believed in an organic theory of the state. Therefore, although Plato took the state as the province of his analysis, his theory of justice does not begin with state but with individual. What is the basis of justice in the life of individual or for the matter, what makes a man just? It was with this moral question related to individual life that Plato began his theory of justice. However, he was convinced that there was no fundamental difference between an individual and the state except in extent, that is, according to him state was a magnified form of the individual, and as he believed that it was always convenient to analyse the nature of a thing whenever it was larger in size, he began with the life of the state instead of the life of individual in order to find out an answer as to what justice was. In Republic Plato presents his theory of justice as a product of a discussion between different characters like Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thasymachus, Glaucon, Adeimantus and Socrates. Socrates, as Plato’s representative voice, invites and involves others on the question and engaged them through dialectics. In the process Socrates is presented as demolishing the idea of justice forwarded by all others through deep questioning. First, he denounced the claim of Cephalus and Polemarchus (father-son duo) that justice was concerned with giving every man his due or “doing to others what is proper” (as according to Cephalus) or “doing good to friends and harming enemies” (as argued by Polemarchus). Plato considers that this traditional theory of justice had its own worth in morally compelling men to pay everyone’s due and lead an ethical life accordingly. But he looks skeptically at the suggestion that this principle could be followed at all times. The principles of justice need to be universal and equally applicable for all and it is here that Cephalus and Polemarchus’s views have its limitations. He also rejected Thrasymachus's (who was a Sophist) idea of justice whereby he claimed that justice represented the interests of the stronger. Similarly, he also refuted the idea of Justice forwarded by Glucon and Adeimantus. Rather, for Plato justice was related to the inner nature of the man and could not be conformed through external law. Just state according to Plato aimed at common good and therefore cannot be serving the interest of the strong. Justice, in its English translation, gives the resemblance of the word 'Dikaiosyne', used by Plato in Greek. This word has a more comprehensive meaning ‘justice’ as understood in English. 'Dikaiosyne' would mean “righteousness” and also reflects a sense of social bonding. That is the reason that Plato's idea of justice neither legal nor judicial, nor is it related to concepts like rights and duties as in ca...