Early Influences on American Government Flashcards
Socrates
Socrates (~470 B.C.E. to 399 B.C.E.), was one of the most influential philosophers in history and is best known for his development of the Socratic Method.
Plato
Plato (420s to the 340s B.C.E) was a philosopher in Classical Greece and the founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. He was a pupil of Socrates and was concerned with understanding the true, objective nature of reality, a branch of philosophy called metaphysics. He is famous for “Theory of Forms” and “Republic”.
Plato’s Theory of Forms
The Theory of Forms or Theory of Ideas is a viewpoint attributed to Plato, which holds that non-physical (but substantial) forms (or ideas) represent the most accurate reality. According to this theory, ideas in this sense, often capitalized and translated as “Ideas” or “Forms”, are the non-physical essences of all things, of which objects and matter in the physical world are merely imitations.
Plato’s “The Republic”, “The Laws”, and Mixed Government.
Plato wrote about the importance of mixed government, an idea that is fundamental to both the development of the separation of powers and the Constitution. In “The Republic” he lists the pros and cons of oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny and concludes in his later work, “The Laws”, that a mixed government of three elements is the best option.
Aristotle
Aristotle (384 to 322 B.C.E.) was a pupil of Plato, and many of his ideas centered around matter and motion. In this way, Aristotle’s views were considerably scientific. In regard to politics, Aristotle conceived of the city as being the natural political entity and the center of political activity. The purpose of the city was to enable citizens to lead a good, fulfilling life.
Aristotle, “The Politics”, and Separation of Powers.
Aristotle further developed Plato’s mixed government and developed the idea of the separation of powers. Aristotle believed that all forms of government declined and evolved into different political forms. Monarchy (tyranny) is replaced by aristocracy (oligarchy). Aristocracy is replaced by democracy. Democracy would revert back to Monarchy. He concludes, in “The Politics” that in a mixed government there should be separation of powers between three branches, each representing the aforementioned forms of government.
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 B.C. to 43 B.C.E) was a Roman philosopher, politician, lawyer, orator, political theorist, consul, and constitutionalist.
Cicero’s Influence European and American Government
Cicero’s greatest achievement is his attitude towards natural law which can be seen as the foundation of later European natural law theories on the concept of inalienable rights. His thoughts on constitutionalism was also influential.
Renaissance
The Renaissance is a term used to describe the revival of classical Greek and Roman ideas and culture that took place between the 14th and the 17th centuries in Europe.
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an intellectual movement which dominated the world of ideas in Europe in the 18th century. It was humanity’s growth into intellectual maturity. Kant and others claimed that, through scientific inquiry and an emphasis on reasoned discussion, mankind was finally able to think for itself rather than appealing to the authority of the Church, Greek philosophers, or other sources of supposedly revealed truths. Sociocultural constructs created or revived during this movement where freedom of the press, the rule of law, the health of dissent, pluralism, and tolerance.
Social Contract Theory
In both moral and political philosophy, the social contract is a theory or model that originated during the Age of Enlightenment and usually concerns the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual. Social contract arguments typically posit that individuals have consented, either explicitly or implicitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler (or to the decision of a majority) in exchange for protection of their remaining rights. It was a complete 180 in how monarchies were viewed up until this point. Many 18th-century writers based their political philosophy on this idea, such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.
Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert
They undertook an enormous project attempting to document industrial innovation, discoveries in natural science, and all knowledge in general. This project resulted in a wildly successful book, the Encyclopédie, first published in the 1750s.
Encyclopédie
Encyclopédie was an enormous project by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert first published in the 1750s attempting to document industrial innovation, discoveries in natural science, and all knowledge in general.
Baron de Montesquieu
Baron de Montesquieu’s (1689-1755) abhorrence of despotism and governmental corruption caused him to create the philosophical justification for a common feature of modern Western government: The separation of powers and the checks and balances system. These were meant to keep one branch of government from getting more powerful than another. (See also: Aristotle, “The Politics”, and Separation of Powers.)
David Hume
David Hume (1711-1776) was essentially Voltaire’s philosophical adversary. While Hume believed in the importance of empiricism, he denied the existence of any knowledge that didn’t place the human experience at the center of reality. He argued that a person’s personal experiences are as close as one can hope to get to the true reality of existence.