POLI 240 FINAL Flashcards
1
Q
Revolution for Arendt
A
- Liberation: throw off tyranny, moment of toppling regime (usually violent)
- Founding: creation of new order, power reformulated/manifest values of revolution to not reiterate the power structures that were fought against, revive participation in public sphere, establishes authority in Godless world where we don’t share same metaphysics/value systems, act itself creates authority. founding carries principles in itself, founding of principles needs to be guided by principles
2
Q
Freedom & Power for Arendt
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- Freedom: Collective action, “action in concert” participation in politics, a status, allowed power (similar to Aristotle, conflicts with Hobbes make it small/individual), nothing individual, must be used to keep them, Anything from violence isn’t freedom, POWER DIVIDED=POWER INCR.=FREEDOM: messy overlapping conflicting power is good
- Power: is in numbers, emerges from pluralism fighting/acting for collective project, form of freedom wrestled form Hobbes, not a zero sum gain, anything that isn’t free isn’t power its force
- Power & Freedom are a self-reinforcing cycle, always people who want to hoard power
3
Q
What are promises and why are they important for Arendt
A
Promising: generates new forms of power, more better is participation will disperse power to avoid tyranny, throw seeds everywhere, commitment to shared world, space of freedom, to survival of public realm for everyone to participate in protected by principles
- Covenants/Contracts Is Freedom/Politics: get together, make a promise tougher, extend fragile mortal self into future
- Promise: binds us together in non violent way
4
Q
Natality for Arendt
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Natality: founding is a political birth, we are a new beginning hence we have been endowed capacity of creating new beginnings
5
Q
Sovereignty + Authority According to Arendt + Succesful Example
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- Abolishing Sovereignty: tyranny, rule of will, people can become tyrants with will=arbitrary
- Problem With Authority: how to establish authoritative principles without God, how to bring diverse society together gather around certain authoritative principles, need something absolute to give authority to law (God, reason, history, progress, nature ← all have been insufficient) SOLUTION=SELF-ISSUING, create own foundations, own self-legitimizing, references/source
- America: constant abolition of sovereignty through Montesqieu separation of powers, Act of Foundation itself in America successful: “we hold”=act of collective articulation & using it to drive political principles
6
Q
Violence in Founding According to Arendt
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Can’t seep into founding/forming of new power with ideas/values/principles, must found in a principled manner that reflect the principles you want to found
7
Q
Should we scrap the canon or revive modernity’s purpose?
A
- SOLUTION: must merge reason with freedom through acts of critique, allows emancipation, speaking to power (Socratic self questions, humility, critique)
- Principle is not problem→ how it comes into world creates problems: must constantly seek it, transform it, idea is indestructible,
- Professors Opinion of the Purpose of Democracy: foster meaningful empathetic judgements of how we should live, puts us together to negotiate we should “ought” do this, solving Weber’s modernity issue, can’t give into nihilism, look into void confront decisions to escape, you must choose who you wanna be, unified story narrative
8
Q
Weber’s Iron Cage
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Iron Cage: increasing rationalization and bureaucratization of society lead to individuals becoming trapped in systems that prioritize efficiency and control over human agency and creativity
9
Q
Modernity According to Weber
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Modernity: crisis of meaninglessness without god/difficult to articulate meaning majority can subscribe to
1. Rationalization: process through which all spheres of life are administered and coordinated through rational calculation, process of administering life/making decisions through efficiency maximizing calculations, obsessed with means, instrumental rationalism (actions based on their effectiveness in achieving a pre-determined goal, focuses on the means to an end, efficiency and calculated action to reach the desired outcome)
2. Capitalism: efficient production, more profound structure of modern world, determines how we interact efficiently, rationalization intertwined with system: technological efficiency, calculation, instrumental rationalism +consumption dominates economic order
3. Disenchantment: secularization, expulsion of animism (magical thinking), loss of myth as explanation of natural world, loss of the socially integrative power worldviews based on religion, myth, cosmos functioning as the legitimation glue of premodern societies
10
Q
Dangers of Re-Enchantement
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Re-Enchantment Dangers: having an answer to everything, bringing fragments back together is often a violent reuniting of value spheres
11
Q
What has Science done to religion and society according to Weber
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- Science: traded God for rational calculation/scientific method which can’t tell use “why” “should” “ought” to act, can’t free us from burden of judgement
- Science Good: cause→ effect, calculations of efficiency, clarity means to achieving desired outcome (means not ends), must be silent
- Relation with Religion: Incompatible/fragments religion which brings people together/integrative=profound loss, can be one without foregoing the other
- Disintegration of Unified Worldview: rationalism+disenchantment fracturing social structures, value spheres (good+true), compartmentalizing institutions irresolvable conflict follow different patterns of rationalization
- Polytheism/Value Pluralism: multiple gods, world views, conflict b/w different institutions (poli, econ, science), modes of evaluation that give different rational schemas of development, good in one is bad in the other, equally valid values that can be in conflict with each other, and there’s no single, universal, or hierarchical ordering of them
- Secular Dis: conflict is intensifying b/w incompatible value spheres, we can’t be certain anymore if “war is beautiful” or not “good”, “who to follow”
12
Q
Polytheism/Value Pluralism
A
- Polytheism/Value Pluralism: multiple gods, world views, conflict b/w different institutions (poli, econ, science), modes of evaluation that give different rational schemas of development, good in one is bad in the other, equally valid values that can be in conflict with each other, and there’s no single, universal, or hierarchical ordering of them
13
Q
Pathologies of Modernity
A
Pathologies of Modernity: deviation from natural healthy state
1. The Last Man: tame man, beliefs he is goal of history, commodious, no creative potential, tragic loss of creativity
2. Civilization: we no longer have anything left to fear in man; that the maggot [Gewürm] ‘man’ is swarming in the foreground; that the ‘tame man,’ the hopelessly mediocre and insipid man, has already learned to feel himself as the goal and zenith, as the meaning of history, as ‘higher man
3. Leveling: democracy seeks to level out society, brings bottom up+top down, prevents top from achieving greatness, repressing and taming human instincts, limitations on lives. Commodious life has made us cowardly
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14
Q
Nietzsche Critique of Progress, Reason & Democracy
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- Critiques: living in a society that sedates you, revealing dark side of values we consider good that hold society in place, system requires overhaul & total crique
- Progress: counter to Kant/Hegel, critiques it for constraining spontaneous non-linear creation,
- Reason: reason tames creativity, power of repression/self-control, makes us cautious, social strait jacket, lost capacity to be great, we must reject guilt that constrains us
- Democracy: culture of equality in masses, bring bottom up but top down, can’t stand out too much, diminution and leveling of man is greatest danger “the retarding influence exercised by the democratic prejudice”, kills creativity by promoting a leveling society
15
Q
What does Nietzsche Want with His view on Modernity
A
Looking for bridge to the future, could we still transform morality into something less repressive/Bourgeois, finds the slave morality interesting, wants to keep the spontaneity and creativity of noble morality, everything you do is good cultivates creativity/freedom/joy/spontaneity take what you want
Will to reach for greatness is essence of life:
* Noble Morality retains creativity, slave morality retains complexity
* Embrace Will of Power: start with yes, aspect of noble morality to be kept, dance with the devil, sticky mud produces most beautiful flower, creative principle made non-violent, spontaneous creative democratic power & founding
16
Q
Slave Morality
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Slave Morality (REACTIVE TO VALUES): slaves to morality, Christianity, morality pressed onto the oppressed, cowardly for following rules for ease & comfort limits progress, instituted democratic culture that level greatness, meek merciful, doesn’t stand up for themselves, limited in creativity, motivated by resentiment of the powerful, interesting complex part of humans
17
Q
Ressentiment
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Ressentiment: a deep-seated, often unconscious, feeling of resentment or hostility, particularly directed towards those perceived as the cause of one’s suffering or perceived inferiority, leading to a distorted value system
18
Q
What makes a man calculable for Nietzsche
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Morality of Mores (manners, etiquette): we become rule followers, governable tamed by Leviathan, with the social straight jacket man was made calculable, cannibalized creativity (ex.etiquette, manners)
Guilt: we must have it as a sign that you remember your promises, modern society based on promises (social contract, covenants, laws) that bind future actions of society
1. Memory/Remembrance: let go of natural forgetfulness, torture used to discipline civilize modernize
2. Torture: gave us discipline, civilized us, tames Noble morality
3. Rational=Control and calculate over future & ourselves make contracts and promises possible
19
Q
Noble Morality
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Noble Morality (CREATORS OF VALUES - Achilles): impossible to return to, a system of values where the strong, powerful, and self-affirming individuals determine what is “good” and “bad,” prioritizing strength, ambition, and self-actualization, benefits rulers, motivated by joy, and viewing weakness and humility everything other than them as “bad”, while what is “good” is anything associated with them, spontaneous creativity to craft world with joy even if it is killing or conquering or violence
- Joy for violence: Enemy is your opportunity to give poets something to sing about, Achilles isn’t interesting without Hector to fight how much reverence has a noble man for his enemies! For he desires his enemy for himself, as his mark of distinction
20
Q
Where do our morals come from?
A
- Morals/Values are determined by power, the powerful determine what is good by associating it with themselves: power determine what is good by associating it with themselves, associate what is bad with those who are not them
- Power drives history, not reason or class struggle
- The Good: There is no value that is eternally good (opposing the ancients), story told by whoever is stronger
- Our Current Morals are Rotten: has our morality put us to sleep, living at expense of the future, living more comfortably/commodiously/cowardly
21
Q
Methodology of Nietzsche
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- The Genealogy of Morals: written attack on bourgeois morality(outgrowth of Christianity), modern man is sick/diseased using Genealogy as a diagnostic tool, philosophers can see behind the facade/stories of the majority/herd that tames us and why they came about, peeling onion, historical analysis of philosophy, follow idea to the end of a string, philology and restructuring it to find something new to interpret
- Polemic (Textual form): struggle/strife/conflict written attack, fighting words against Bourgeois morality (Marx against Bourgeois economy)
- Genealogy (Unpeeling Onion): philosophical analysis inspecting historical origin of ideas, appearing to be historical analysis, follow an idea like a thread all the way back through history, linguistic detective work, seeks himself=modern man shameful places people are scared to look, uncovers a scandal of who we are and how we’ve become modern people, smallness and loss of creativity +capacity for greatness
- Aphorism: poetic statement about an observation, prose, not poetry but serves same function, esoteric, pithy statements, text becomes a work of art. Rumination: ability to think deeply while reading writing, needed to engage in aphorism
- Exaggeration
22
Q
Enlightenment Hypocrisy Marx Observes
A
- Promise of universality+popular democracy, fruits seen only by bourgeoisie property owners, halfway revolution, promised equality but did not deliver → SOLUTION: communism
- Ideology: false claims of universality (ex.Enlightenment, Philosophy), conception of liberty to consolidate power, didn’t include lower class in theories,
- Liberalism: “You must, therefore, confess that by ‘individual’ you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property” (CM 486)
- Freedom: “By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of production, free trade, free selling and buying” (CM 486).
- New Modes of Oppression: eradicated feudal oppression, created oppression masked as freedom, economic, capitalism, * The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class
23
Q
Species Being
A
Capitalism constructed notion of individualism when humans are intrinsically interconnected/interdependent, denies species being which needs to be reinstated
24
Q
Capitalism + Issues
A
Capitalism: mode of economy and use free wage labor to buy/sold commodities in free market, everything get commodified, creates exponential unchecked growth, transforms not only the economy but human culture. Commodity: can be bought & sold in capital. Capitalism Produces Revolutionary Movement: New Metabolism of Nature put on steroids, profit motive, infinite unchecked growth, transforms experience of humaneness, fast moving culture unbearable, your consciousness is a super product of capitalism
1. Workers can no longer sustain themselves on their own: pushed into factories, dependent on wage giver
2. Alienation of labor: workers become an appendage on a machine they never see the product of their labour, emerges from separation of underclass from soil, change division of labor, never see product of labor v. artisanal
3. Exploitation of Workers: exploitation (the theft of time from workers), the value that workers contribute is not reflected in their wage, by paying workers a low wage, factory owners profit off their surplus value. Exploited Labor: theft of time from workers, valued added doesn’t comeback, wage is determined by market price, not your work/productivity/time. Solution: worker owned factories, profits go back to workers
25
History According to Marx
* **Historical Materialism**: every era shaped by MODE OF PRODUCTION~type of economy, metabolism of nature, how we take care the necessities of life as a society (Capitalism, feudalism) defined by who owns the means of production, relation to land changes
* **History**: explain how we got here and potential for change, we are all products of history, contrasted to start with the state of nature of Ancients. Dialectics: inherent conflicts “iminent to the base”~CLASS CONFLICT, world we live in today is the triumph of a particular class
26
Base Superstructure Model
**Base Superstructure Model**: economic structure of society determines its political and intellectual history, protects the power of ruling class & broadcasts their power, world shaped to fit the ruling class, power hides the superstructure, embedding values that serve their interests into culture+thought
* **Base~Economy & Mode of Production**: structure of economy determines political, social, cultural life, economy is fundamental, everything in society springs from economy
* **Epiphenomenal**: offshoot of what is fundamental, economy is determining power, politics, intellectual life, The state is less powerful than economy, politics_state are epiphenomenal
1. **False Consciousness**: belief in the ideology that doesn’t serve you, our consciousness is a product of superstructure “ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class
2. **Religion**: ruling class manipulates religion to serve their interests, happiness is in the afterlife, comforts the lower class & religion soothes the pains from people being exploited, working hard=amazing afterlife great tool to maintain power & helps grip people “Religion is the opium of people”
3. **State**: simplistic way of understanding state
27
Bourgeois Crisis/Contradiction of BSM
Bourgesoie gathers proletariat in factories where they can communicate about exploitative nature of the capitalist system, so one day they can revolt and destablize entire system, self-induced downfall due to internal flaws.
28
Bourgeoisie v. Proletariat
**Bourgeoisie**: represents interests of capital “class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labour”
**Proletariat**: “modern working class… who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour - power in order to live”represents the interests of labor, should be able to sell their free labor, doesn’t mean they should be forced to sell their labor=means of production of their own, Marx calls on them as universal that fights in all classes, hopes they see their true interests & hopes they gain class consciousness, true revolutionary class. Have numbers, could win the world, blow apart bourgeoise capitalism, already happening in industrialized society
29
Communist Revolution
No flaws in base, no conflict of classes because becomes one shared class, communal ownership of property to address social inequalities, emerged under socialism, makes Lockean project into a communal project, abolish bourgeois pvt property, Marx doesn’t want to take everything, but just capital, not peoples homes but financial part that can sell it
* Marx is exposing how power works slowly develop class consciousness: know what is in their best interest (good working conditions, end child labor, better wages), larger numbers=power to end superstructure
* Communist Revolution Marx envisioned never happened: the superstructure and ideology was stronger than it was, states it should only occur in industrialized society, authoritarian regimes mobilized revolution that were influenced by manifesto, can’t be disentangled whether these regimes stem from authoritarianism or communism
30
Enlightenment + Progress + Ambiguity
* **Enlightenment**: era of reason & progress, revolution of Bourgeoisie, absolute hierarchy was challenged, idea of progress emerged, coming out of darkness, imagery of shedding out light revealing truth, coming out of shackles, liberating from predetermined truths, subjecting them to reason, mistook their power as truth, courageous enough to use own understanding to break down legitimacy of institution, majority will be unable
* **Enlightenment Progress**: Leads to progress + freedom through reason, temporal modes of thought, critique, continual path, not destination
* **Crime Against Humanity**: those who prevent progress, rulers restricted form preventing progress
* Ambiguity Legacy in Enlightenment: hope in equality & independence, but only a small portion of class sharing power and have freedom, must be a property owner+your own master to be involved in politics, but everyone can participate in discussion in the public sphere
31
Public v. Private Reason
* **Private Reason**: your job, passive capacity (ex.Hustle, Supervision), certain public rights that use reason you don’t have that same right in private capacity (ex.Military Soldier must obey general)
* **Public Reason**: a cosmopolitan, say your opinion, rights in public you don’t have in private
32
Public Sphere + Freedom for Kant
* Birth of **Public Sphere**: public forum for free discourse, land arguments, emerged out of bourgeoisie revolt, use reason, place to discuss ideas, propel society forward, no censorship will lead to enlightenment, ideas will get out and lead to progress → enlightened society, requires freedom of press, written word is more important, we have sacred right to engage in public,
* **Freedom**: ability to freely discuss your ideas in public sphere, capacity to engage in public critique, moving into a world that is universally available
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Kant Nature + Rights of Man
**Nature of Human**s: naturally born with reason, only some have courage to throw of chains and seek truth through their reason
**le homme**," or "man" in English, is a rational being, distinct from animals, capable of reason and self-determination,
**Freedom**, as a fundamental human characteristic, is also an a priori principle=not something we learn through observation but is inherently understood by rational beings
**Rights of Man:** Kant says we all have human right to enlightenment, monarch/rules cannot prevent it nor engage in censorship, they must advocate for free press, we have knowledge of God’s laws reachable through reason, new language of human rights/not natural rights, not basis of God and fully engaged in reason
34
Tutelage + Kant Destroyer Explanation
* Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred tutelage, Tutelage/Immaturity: unmiendigkeit, guardianship, nonage - you don’t speak for yourself+trust authority, immaturity
* Scientific Revolution of Philosophy: Critiques on limiting knowledge, spectator of French Revolution, under scrutiny, wanted firmer footing for reason leading to restricted domain of philosophy
* Greater Destroyer of Thought: using reason, no one can know what nature is telling us and kills mortality, soul, god philosophy, Aristotle’s telos, rigorous scientific approach to philosophy, redefined what we are capable of knowing & how
* Religion: Hobbes & Rousseau entangling Christianity, breaking down authority of the church/divine right of kings
35
Popular Sovereignty + Body Politic
* **Popular Sovereignty**: inventing the people macrosubject that governs itself, emphasis on common good, how can humans form common will and self govern
* **Body Politic**: people as macrosubject guided by general will=will resonable (voluntas (will) v ratio (reason)) becomes sovereign, people authorize themselves, above the law b/c they are the law
* Legislative Acts=Will of Body **Self-Legislation = AUTONOMY**, Sovereign=DEMOS: subject and author of laws through legislation, signing own death warrant
* No law can bind Sovereign=Body will of people has absolute power, Censorship Required: religion is problematic, obey civil ruler or priest
36
General Will v. Will of All + Issues
* General Will (constant will): one indivisible coherent will behind legislation, united by common good for the whole body, not satisfying the majority, for the organism to endure flourish overtime, perspective of citizen, should not be constrained, can never be wrong
* Will of All: aggregate of private interests/desires/wills, haunts the social contract, heavily constrained, can easily be wrong, may not coincide with general will
* Not all issues have a common good, disagreements over common good, too geometric in a crazy world, If the general will diverges from your perspective you are wrong and may be forced to be free, Domination Persists: How do we know what the common good is:
37
Rousseau on Liberalism
Critique of Liberalism: citizens aren’t committed to public good, only individual rights, state is more susceptible to conquest/failure
38
Rousseau Recrafting Bones of Hobbes
Recrafting Bones of Hobbes into new MACROSUBJECT with own arbitrary will
**Will**: Demos as macrosubject activation common good through one unified will
* H: Freedom is an act of will=last appetite in deliberating “a declaration of [the general] will is an act of sovereignty and constitutes law” (70)
* R: “a declaration of the general will is an act of Sovereginty and constitutes law”
**Indivisibility**:
* H: Sovereign is indivisible to avoid factional conflict, only 1 will allowed, must be unified “a kingdom divided in itself cannot stand
* R: No deliberation as people are easily persuaded through propaganda to make bad decisions, reason perverted, people focus on private good, Common good is eroded by private desire/space, vote in silence, body politic can only have one general will
39
Right to Revolution According to Locke v. Hobbes
**Locke:** Right to revolution against tyranny: if they take your property, force without right, revoke consent take force in own hands, only God is the judge if the right exists, CAUTIOUS OF USE OF FORCE
**Hobbes**: sovereign dissolved only when sovereign fails to keep peace & everyone gets right of nature back. **Authorization**: everyone created and authored everything sovereign does and cannot be retracted, giving the power of Attorney, differing to consent which can be retracted
40
Sovereignty According to Hobbes
**Sovereignty**: unifies all power on Earth modelled after the omnipotence of God, should follow laws of nature to stay in power,
* Enforce peace & security: unlimited right, taxes, conscription
* Issue+Make Civil Law (positive): state makes actual law to seek peace by will, natural law guides
* Controls Doctrines+Censorship: take control of ideas, religious disagreement, church doctrine, wants secular state with iron grip over church to avoid civil war
* Indivisibility: unification of rule
41
Power + Freedom + Goodlife for HObbes
* **Power**: to reach & preserve individual goals and fleeting happiness you need power continuously one needs power, humans are power hungry by nature, is a zero-sum game/scarce resources (+1 or -1, winner or loser) insights destabilization
* **Freedom** is dangerous/Liberty is not participation in rule: to be ruled and rule in term causes disaster as everyone wants to impose own Summum Bonum on everything, trying to undermine political authority (dangerously dividing rule), must be crystal clear no take backs, young readers favor tumults & licensus (act without licence/authority) believing they can & ought to run the government better calling sovereignty into question
* There is **no universal Sonnum Bonnum **(Highest Good): misguided & dangerous view that the good life, the purpose of polis, can be agreed upon, it doesn’t exist, leads to violent disagreements/polarization, gave legitimacy to state accumulation of economic wealth
42
Freedom + Goodlife for Aristotle
* Political **Freedom**: is a status, participating in rule “to rule and be ruled in turn”, capacity & opportunity to take part in rule, not just being left alone to do whatever one wants found only in a well-ordered state which is constitutional governed with good laws+aims at highest good Summum Bonnum helping citizens achieve the good life
* **Good Life:** a life of liberty=not being left along/participate as a citizen, able to help govern yourself
43
Socratic Method + Dialogue
* **Dialogue**: theatrical, pushes questions to readers, questions their beliefs, pursue one idea & rabbit hole chasing threads
* **Philosophic wisdom** is the pursuit of knowledge, experience, and good judgment to live a good life
* **Socratic Method**: a conversation that picks a part a person, constantly restless questioning of all pre-given truths skepticism, like a Gadfly, neglects body, goes around trolling/questing/irritating people especially those with wealth+status, attack their beliefs ideas, exposing hypocrisies, teach virtues illuminating on what you don’t want to talk about
44
Politics v. Philosophy + Western Tradition
* **Politics** (polis - Greek ancient city-state): activities related to gov or state, acquisition & organization of power, Realm of Action
* **Philosophy** (philia + sophia - Greek love + wisdom): love/seeking of knowledge/wisdom/truth for its own sake, Realm of Thinking
* **Tension**/Contradictory Relationship: natural conflict, one is about unveiling the lies to find the truth, the other is about creating a mask of lies for power
* **Western Tradition**: ideas that justify your world, power & politics, you hold implicitly, their creators and contexts
45
Citizen + Political Death for Socrates
* **Citizen**: official legal (differs) member of a political community seen at the time as the only way to live the goodlife=reach one’s telos
* **Political Death**: give up citizenship, stripped of belonging to a state, existential emergency
46
Aristotle's Methodology - Treatise, Analysis, Telos, Ruling Component
* **Treatise**: system builder, systematic investigation/scientific methodology, not random mess of thoughts, collector of specimens+observations to find patterns that explain how the universe works
* **Analysis**: method of identifying components/parts of difference complex entities, breaking it down into parts until it can’t be further broken to understand its composition, how it compares to other entities, how else it could be, how it ought
* **Telos** (DNA): aim, ends, internal purpose, goal, full potential, required to understand analysis-breakdown into components
* **Ruling Component**/Rule (Nucleus): pushes compilex entity to telos, Reason (ought to be Ruling Component): rationality, Appetite: impulses, Thumos: spirit, righteousness
47
Nature + Human Nature for Aristotle
* **Nature**: tends this way in nature, order that unfurls/gives things its telos, is what ought to be=is normatively good/best
* People as a **political animal** (zoon politikon) are the smallest unit of the polis
* City States are natural (like a beehive), by nature humans should be part of state to reach Telos
* Evidence is **Logos** (speech): we can talk about the goodlife, truth, justice, beauty, virtue, not just babbling, puts us beyond animal → man as political animal (zoon politikon)
* **A-polis (stateless)**: one without a state by nature (can’t live with others) is a beast or god
48
Doctrine of Natural Slavery v. Institutional/Legal Slavery
**Doctrine of Natural Slavery**: (1) some people are naturally slavish/marked out by birth to rule and some to be ruled, (2) written in constitution of universe, idea of hierarchy in natural world/hierarchy is natural, if people were born equal doctrine of slavery wouldn’t be justified.
**Institutional Slavery:** born from slaves or lost a just war, both sources have issues, can’t fully justify slavery/create institution to fit natural slavery
49
Types of Rule According to Aristotle
* **Constitutional (Political) Rule** associated with rule of law, rule among freeman, type of government, Constitution: makeup of state/government, way of ordering, how distributed, what is in control, what is telos/end goal of community, shape of the rule, each regime has some kind except for tyranny
* **Kingship**/Monarchy: best perfect person, most ideal, least attainable
* **Tyranny**: worst person, worst form, rules everything - anti regime, reverse of constitution, arbitrary rule, master’s will, unpredictable, for the good of on individual
* **Aristocracy** (aristoi=best people): rule of the best, virtue is rare, hard to move power to right people, baked on wealth & merit, next best least attainable, mix of democracy & oligarchy that tends to oligarchy
* **Oligarchy**: rule by the rich, truly degenerate becomes dynasty=hereditary rule without rule of law
* **Polity**: rule of the many, mix of democracy (equality) & oligarchy (distinction/merit/useful inequality) that tends towards democracy most committed under rule of law
* **Democracy** (Demos-people/citizens): rule by the free/citizen, most tolerable of the deviant, spreads burden of knowledge+virtue, pooling rule, fill gap, majority rule as decision rule
* **Demagogues** (Popular Leaders): a charismatic popular figure voted into power, rules by decree instead of set of laws, will of the people channeled through them is unrestrained by laws and tries to remove institutions in the way holding tyranny at bay, overrides them and refers all to popular assembly/rallies non-deliberative non-rational, emerges when rule of law breaks down in democracy and the people become tyrants, self-interested (ex.Trump)
50
Critique of Ancients for Hobbes
Thus must redefine freedom/liberty: 1)felicity left alone to pursue continuous success not being harmed or non-intervened in private sphere 2)safety from threats
1. **The State is Not Natural/Doesn’t Respond to Breakdowns of Civil Order/Civil War**: take political authority for granted as if it was naturally occurring (nature isn’t purposeful no certainty of telos), in actuality humans tend to civil war, Thus state must be brought by artificial engineering of indivisible states to starve off chaos with an awestrucking political authority/power to keep obedience or else face a nasty, brutish and short life. NATURAL → ARTIFICIAL
1. **There is no universal Sonnum Bonnum (Highest Good):** misguided & dangerous view that the good life, the purpose of polis, can be agreed upon, it doesn’t exist, leads to violent disagreements/polarization, gave legitimacy to state accumulation of economic wealth
1. **Freedom is dangerous/Liberty is not participation in rule**: to be ruled and rule in term causes disaster as everyone wants to impose own Summum Bonum on everything, trying to undermine political authority (dangerously dividing rule), must be crystal clear no take backs, young readers favor tumults & licensus (act without licence/authority) believing they can & ought to run the government better calling sovereignty into question
51
Hobbes' Modern Methodology
**Modern Methods**: revolutionary, rationalism, new slate of scientific theories, find solid set of principles & make indisputable deductions, proving by interfering breaking nature & reproducing exact same results
* **State is Artifice** (ars=craft, make=farce): engineered using reasoning to keep us alive as men are naturally chaotic/civil war/bloodshed, not natural=man made. Leviathan/Commonwealth: biblical sea monster, monstrous entity, awestrucking to tame and make people obedient, wielding military+religion+people (not territory yet)
* **Conquering Nature**: nature tied to femininity as women are linked to many natural cycles of life that can’t be tamed (menstruation, reproduction), nature is different at times at conflict from human endeavors thus peace must be artificially engineered
* **Mechanistic + Materialist Approach to Nature**: nature & humans are machines, with components that make it work, our mechanism responding to external stimuli pushing on us creates a cause and effect. NATURE IS A GUIDE → TOOL
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Human Nature + How to Keep Covenants according to Hobbes
Humans are natural seeking:
* **Felicity** (Eudaimonia → Felicity): “continual success in obtaining those things which a man from time to time desireth…” (VI, Felicity). “continual progress of the desire, from one object to another…” (XI, What is here meant by manners).
* **Power**: to reach & preserve individual goals and fleeting happiness you need power continuously one needs power, humans are power hungry by nature, is a zero-sum game/scarce resources (+1 or -1, winner or loser) insights destabilization
* **Diffidence**=distrust in fellow human beings, puts people in competition, anxiety unease in the company of others, developed when people cannot trust government to enforce rule of law
Make people keep their covenants & promises with:
1. **Pride**:honor word is bond, Issue: undependable, not universal, virtue of the few connected with other unencouraged behaviors (power huger, capitalism/buying people, vainglory, dangerous young licensus men in polis)
1. **Fear**: reckoned upon, scared enough will obey, dependable peacemaker, universally susceptible
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Liberty + Goodlife for Hobbes
* **Liberty**: non-interference to pursue individual conceptions of the good, absence of external impediments, as long as not hurting anyone, Commerce is greatest freedom=liberalism, commodification: intrinsic values gone, nothing sacred, people bought and sold
* **Commodious life**: comfortable at ease without fear of violent death, humanism
* **There is no universal Sonnum Bonnum (Highest Good):** misguided & dangerous view that the good life, the purpose of polis, can be agreed upon, it doesn’t exist, leads to violent disagreements/polarization, gave legitimacy to state accumulation of economic wealth
* **Freedom is dangerous/Liberty is not participation in rule**: to be ruled and rule in term causes disaster as everyone wants to impose own Summum Bonum on everything, trying to undermine political authority (dangerously dividing rule), must be crystal clear no take backs, young readers favor tumults & licensus (act without licence/authority) believing they can & ought to run the government better calling sovereignty into question
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State/Right/Law of Nature/War/Commonwealth According to Hobbes v. Rousseau v. Locke
**Hobbes:**
* Right of Nature (Gun): freedom to do anything
* Law of Nature is the set of rules that guide people to preserve themselves we all of individual universal/right to self-preservation which we surrender to sovereign and becomes replaced by the state when signing social contract
* State of Nature/War: no laws except for laws of nature (God) discernable by reason, liberty, no licence, injustice can occur, the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short, equality of death & sleep, bodily animal, continual fear & danger of violent death, no injustice until state alw exists, no place for technology, arts, progress, knowledge, society, EXIT STATE OF NATURE → SOCIAL CONTRACT using covenants as a tool to construct Leviathan, reason tells us to self preservation which peace ensures, instrumental reason is the reckoning of consequences
**Rousseau:**
* State of Nature: state of equality, trade in natural freedom for exchange for liberties
* State of War: emerges form quarrel over property (land, resources, etc,)
* Human Nature: born innocent free masters of themselves, cannot be subjected without consent
**Locke**:
* State of Nature: Duties to oneself & others preservation, “ought’ normative order to law of nature, everyone is own judge, jury executioner. Want for a common judge to settle conflicts. Peaceful with no government, a want of a Common Judge (ex. Uncolonized Americas)
* State of War: War with no government, unjustified use of violence without right is arbitrar
* Commonwealth: common judge, law
* Law of Nature: our reason gives us access to dividend commands of justice, or else go to hell
* Human Nature: acquisitive like to acquire things/objects gather own property, peaceful good born a blank state born free with reason, mini gods to transform earth
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Civil Religion Issue for Rousseau
Christians too devoted to afterlife, rather than focused on present world, needs to be more rational, so dangerous got in trouble for this chapter, gives sanctity to law, Rousseau uses it as a motivation for law. Religion is a threat to social unity: allegiance b/w church and state, separation of powers incites conflict, fight for one v. Romans say fight for on=fight for all
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Republicanism + Founding According to Rousseau
1. **Civic Virtue**: commitment/distinguishing/live+dying for/participation in to the public good Vir=man, (virtue) manly decisiveness austerity related to civic, glory tending to republic, good deeds for the republic
1. **Rule of Law/Constitutions**: sets what respublica is and structures
1. **Founding** - Republican Freedom (Rousseau is republican): power producing with acts of founding
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Difficulties with Establishing Democracy
* How are the boundaries of a democracy decided: inclusion of women, minorities
* Democratic Paradox: act of exclusion at the heart of democracy, liberalism and democracy at a tension, limiting each other
* Condition of Prior of Unanimity: difficult to establish unanimity in democracy, to have legitimacy of legislation & regressing back down decision ladder
* Commitment: how do you get them committed and not go for self-interests
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Social Contract Hobbes v. Rousseau
Social contract ought to engineer peace through true equality and transform human nature (pvt men → good citizens) transforms human nature, human’s traits/conflict is develop in civilization+property rights, not natural, not Hobbes exchange liberty to become slaves of the sovereign, not through fear “There is peace in dungeons, but is that enough to make dungeons desirable?” (54, I.4)
**Goals**
- R: 1) Establish a legitimate contract: turn force into right based on reasonable principles, 2) Freedom: establish autonomy + popular sovereignty, 3(Equality: we all become own masters. Process: complete alienation into macrosubject bound to general will, temp give up rights for perfect equality, recovery of all freedoms indviduality protected by all people, becomes individual citizens share sovereing power
- H: using covenants as a tool to construct Leviathan, reason tells us to self preservation which peace ensures, instrumental reason is the reckoning of consequences, common power to keep them all in awe, is to conferre all their power and strength upon one Man, or upon one Assembly of men, that may reduce all their Wills, by plurality of voices, unto one Will, give up rights
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Workmanship Model
Workmanship Model of Ownership=Dominion/Dominus=Mastery: God made us=owns us, we are workmanship of God made in his image as mini gods given Earth in common, top of Hierarchy
1. Start with Ownership of Own Body=Workmanship
1. Mixing Labor with Land: added ourselves to the land, extended ownership, annex, like an appendage=we own it, like Hobbes’ understand it=reproduce it - Whose Labor/Slavery/Wage Worker: no ownership over work by consent/contract to alienate labor to master, animals are tools made by God for humans in exchange for money (money system is accepted by tacit “unspoken” consent)
1. **Provisos** (limits) on Ownership: allowed to take as much as Earth you want as long as
1. Enough Good - There is enough in good condition left for others to be able to preserve themselves: others are excluded once you annex Earth
1. Spoilage Condition - can use without spoilage or else becomes common good, spoilage loophole is money
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Rousseau Methodology
1. Triumph of Reason - Enlightenment: deduction, no unproven knowledge, building unbreakable arguments, every truth to be challenged
1. Geometry of Democratic Legitimacy: engineer a social contract/legal gov where everyone obeys the laws they give themselves and have the same liberties as before, how can we submit to laws yet remain free? - democratic legitimacy, shared collective will, we collectively become authors of the law, self-legislating people autonomy
1. Private Desire=Public Will: citizen transforms desires into common good desire through a union of understanding
1. Moving through ALIENATION: industrialization, relations replaced by contracts, weakened relations
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Freedom According to Arendt, Nietzsche, Marx, Kant, Rousseau, Locke, Hobbes, Aristotle, Socrates
- Property rights
- Ruling Class tool of domination
- Collective Action + Participation in Politics
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Goodlife According to Weber, Rousseau, Hobbes, Aristole
- Collective Participation in rule
- Individual ideals, dangerous to be pursued in public
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Power according to Arendt v. Hobbes
Power: to reach & preserve individual goals and fleeting happiness you need power continuously one needs power, humans are power hungry by nature, is a zero-sum game/scarce resources (+1 or -1, winner or loser) insights destabilization. Should be condensed into one person,
Power: is in numbers, emerges from pluralism fighting/acting for collective project, form of freedom wrestled form Hobbes, not a zero sum gain, dividing increases power
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Liberalism according to Weber, Marx, Rousseau, Hobbes
- Not enough to contain conflict of value spheres
- Only for ruling
- Danger to public good
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Sovereignty according to Arendt, Rousseau, Locke, Hobbes
- Tyranny
- Macrosubject that everyone signs onto, becomes apart of it a cell
- Consent to it, people won't be willing to submit to leviathan
- modelled off of god, unifies all power
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Modernity for Arendt, Weber, Nietzsche
- Revival of modernity through critique, reason, founding
- Meaninglessness, alienation
- Last man, leveling
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Revolution According to Arendt, Marx, Rousseau, Locke, Aristotle
- Abolishing tyranny and founding a new order
- Historical cycle of class conflict
- Republicanism founding
- Only have right if taking away property
- Only have right if sovereign isn't able to protect you
- Fully wipes
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Philosophy & Politics Relation According to all authors
- **Complements:** philosophy into practice/change/social revolution, not just interpretation, opens eyes Up until now, “philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.”
- **Tension:** Socrates flips from defense → prosecution of polis trying to escape giving an account/justification of its power & existence exposing truth. The unexamined life isn’t worth living for a human being (Apology, 42)
