Classical Thinkers Research Articles

The Problem of Stability in Classical Political Thought

For most classical political thinkers, a good political regime depends on the existence of virtuous rulers and citizens. Yet virtue is produced in environments that are fragile and unreliable. Thus a good political regime seems to be unstable, because its rulers and citizens are easily subject to corruption. I show here that classical thinkers from Plato to Cicero responded to this problem by developing four different (but not mutually exclusive) diagnoses of the causes of political corruption and proposing four corresponding prescriptions for how to ensure the stability of a regime’s capacity to promote the common good, which crystallized in what came to be called the “theory of the mixed constitution.” I argue that these classical reflections on how good political regimes can be made resilient to expectable but ultimately irremediable moral and epistemic failures of citizens and rulers still provide useful resources for thinking about the stability of a regime’s capacity to promote the common good, one which moreover stands in interesting contrast to many modern traditions of thought about the relationship between virtue and stability.

North Central Sociological Association 2009 Ruth and John Useem Plenary Address: Education for Democracy in Peirce, James, Dewey, and Mead

C. Wright Mills frequently referred to the tradition of sociological thinking as the intellectual foundation of the social sciences. He recognized, however, that though the classical thinkers understood the social and political structure of whole societies quite well, they had comparatively little to say about how the actual processes by which forms of social consciousness emerge. He therefore recognized the urgent need for a social psychology grounded in sound principles. Those principles, in his judgment and in mine, were best formulated by the American pragmatists: Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead. It was Charles Sanders Peirce who founded the American philosophical movement called pragmatism from the Greek word pragma, meaning action, practice, practical. He introduced die term in his first published article titled, to Make Our Ideas Clear. Somewhat later, John Dewey proposed that the aim of a good democratic education is to create a questioning individual. So our primary aim is to explore the means by which we can achieve clarity in our ideas and educate ourselves and our students toward the ideal of and self-critical thinking. Peirce himself suggested that another appropriate name for his pragmatic approach is critical commonsensism, so don't be surprised if the things I have to say are commonsensical. He begins his brilliant investigation with the concept of beliefs, which, he says, are really rules for action. Our beliefs are belief-habits. And like all habits, some have good for oneself and for others, while other habits have the opposite effect. That is why our mothers urged us to learn good habits and break the bad ones. Habit and consequences are, therefore, key concepts for the pragmatists. However, long before Peirce coined the term pragmatism, the pragmatic approach was evident in the classical tradition of social and political thought. Aristotle, for example, recognized that we are not born with virtues. Nature endows us with the capacity to learn the virtues and to know how to strengthen the virtues by means of habit. How do we become good or virtuous? There is only one way, says Aristotle. We become morally virtuous by forming the good habit of acting rightly. Aristotle demonstrated that we acquire and perfect the virtues by actually practicing them. We become just by doing just acts; we become temperate by doing temperate acts; brave by doing brave acts. It is by acting in dangerous situations and forming the habit either of confidence or of fear that we become courageous or cowardly. In a word, our moral virtues are formed in close correspondence with our patterns of action or conduct. Habit, conduct, and are, therefore, directly relevant to the project of becoming questioning individuals ourselves and helping our students to become clear thinkers about the human condition. As Aristotle suggests, it may be a part of our nature to ask challenging questions, as exemplified in the conduct of young children who quite naturally ask: Why? come? Regrettably, however, although it is characteristic of children to ask good questions and to see attempts to deceive them for what they are - as did the child who recognized that the emperor had no clothes - something soon happens in too many cases that inhibits and even squelches the child's natural impulse to ask challenging questions. By the way, impulse, as we shall see, is another key concept for the pragmatists. What is it that inhibits, weakens, or even represses the child's impulse to ask good questions prompted by reflection? The best term for the inhibiting factor is, I think, ideological indoctrination. Certain ideas as dogmas or articles of faith are inculcated, which the child is taught never to question, even though such ideas are contrary to the child's best interest and contrary to the interests of the group to which the child belongs. …

Marian Tolpin, A Latter Day Athena: From Classical Thinker to Self Psychologist

Marian wrote two virtually unknown articles engaging the figure of Athena, patron goddess of Athens, of war, wisdom, and weaving (the primary activity of Greek women). Her discussion of Aeschylus's Oresteia (Tolpin, 1969) shows her struggling with a classical psychoanalytic approach to the text, her spirit moving already to forward edge interpretations. In her article on H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), Freud, and Athena (Tolpin, 1991), she grapples with Freud's understanding that H.D. is like the “castrated goddess” figurine on his desk (a small bronze Athena who has lost her spear), and she transforms Freud's classical understanding of H.D.'s analysis to one that is profoundly self psychological. This article traces Marian's growth into self psychology through her discussions of these two Athenas, revealing Marian as a “woman of letters,” who engaged in a feminism that was never anti-masculine. Marian escribió dos artículos prácticamente desconocidos que tratan sobre la figura de Atenea, la diosa de Atenas, de la guerra, de la sabiduría y del tejer (la actividad principal de las mujeres griegas). Su discusión de la Orestíada de Esquilo (Tolpin, 1969) nos muestra su lucha con el abordaje psicoanalítico clásico al texto, y como su espíritu se movía ya hacia interpretaciones de los “movimientos de avance” (forward edge). En su artículo sobre H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), Freud y Atenea (Tolpin, 1991), Marian lucha con la comprensión freudiana de que H.D. es como la figura de la “diosa castrada” que Freud tenía en su mesa (una Atenea de bronce que ha perdido su lanza), y transforma la comprensión clásica del análisis H.D. en un análisis que es profundamente self psicológico. Este artículo traza el crecimiento de Marian en la psicología del self a través de su discusión de las dos Atenas, mostrando a Marian como una “mujer de letras” que se implicó con un feminismo que nunca fue anti-masculino. Marian a écrit deux articles peu connus au sujet du personage d'Athéna, la déesse patronne d'Athènes, de la guerre, de la sagesse et du tissage (l'activité principale des femmes grecques). Sa discussion de l'Oresteia d'Aeschylus (Tolpin, 1969) nous la montre faisant l'effort d'approcher le texte de manière psychanalytique classique alors que sa pensée est déjà en mouvement vers des interprétations d'angle d'avancée (“forward edge”). Dans son article sur H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), Freud et Athéna (Tolpin, 1991), elle se débat avec la compréhension freudienne que H.D. est semblable à la figurine de la “déesse castrée” sur le bureau de Freud (une petite statuette d'Athéna en bronze ayant perdu sa lance), et elle transforme la compréhension classique de l'analyse de H.D. par Freud en une autre profondément imprégnée de la psychologie du soi. Cet article retrace la croissance de Marian vers la psychologie du soi à travers ces discussions de ces deux Athénas, révélant Marian comme une “femme de lettres” engagée dans un féminisme qui n'a jamais été anti-masculin. Marian schrieb zwei letztlich unbekannte Arbeiten, die sich mit der Figur der Athena beschäftigen, der Schutzgöttin Athens, der Göttin des Krieges, der Weisheit und der für die griechische Frauen so wichtigen Webkunst. Marians Diskussion der Orestie von Aischylos (Tolpin, 1969) zeigt wie sie mit dem klassisch-psychoanalytischen Zugang zum Text kämpft. Ihre Ideen bewegen sich bereits in Richtung der “Foreward Edge Interpretations.” In Ihrer Arbeit über H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), Freud und Athena (Tolpin, 1991), setzt sie sich mit Freuds Verständnis, dass H.D. der Figur der “kastrierten Gottheit” auf seinem Arbeitstisch vergleichbar wäre (eine kleine Bronzefigur, die ihren Speer verloren hat) auseinander und verwandelt Freuds klassisches Verständnis von H.D.'s Analyse in eines, das grundlegend selbstpsychologisch ist. Die Arbeit verfolgt Marians Weg in die Selbstpsychologie anhand ihrer Diskussion dieser beiden Athenas und stellt Marian als eine “woman of letters” dar, die sich für einen Feminismus engagiert, der niemals männerfeindlich war. Marian ha scritto due articoli praticamente sconosciuti sulla figura di Athena, la dea patrona di Atene, della Guerra, della saggezza e della tessitura (l'attività primaria delle donne greche). La sua discussione dell'Orestea di Eschilo (1969) mostra come combattesse con un approccio psicoanalitico classico al testo, muovendosi già verso interpretazioni più avanzate. Nel suo lavoro su H.D., Freud e Athena (1991), si cimenta con l'idea di Freud che H.D. è come la figurina della dea “castrata” sulla sua scrivania (un piccolo bronzo di Athena che ha perso la sua lancia) e trasforma la comprensione classica di Freud dell'analisi di H.D. in una che sia profondamente orientata alla psicologia del sé. Questo articolo segue la crescita di Marian nella psicologia del sé attraverso la sua discussione di queste due Athena, rivelando come Marian fosse una “donna di lettere” coinvolta nel femminismo senza mai essere contro i maschi.

On psychodynamics of personal value-judgements - Nietzsche's theory of resentment and its reception by Karl Jaspers and Kurt Schneider.

A hundred years ago when Karl Jaspers was introducing psychological understanding to psychiatry the founder of the school of Heidelberg spoke of Friedrich Nietzsche as one of the "greatest" psychologists. Especially his theory of resentment with its core thesis unconscious prejudices were influencing our behaviour was able to illuminate the complex structure of human will. Taking into account this horizon of psychiatric history of ideas the presentation wants to persecute the following three questions: 1) Why the postulate which Nietzsche was giving on cultural prejudices of our thoughts, feelings and acts was so provocative so that many of the classical thinkers of psychological understanding were taking it up according to the needs of their disciplines sociology, psychology, psychiatry and philosophy? 2) What were the results of this inspiring theory which could be especially seen in the works of Karl Jaspers and Kurt Schneider? In other words: What were the aspects in which they agreed in their reception of Nietzsche and what were the points in which the two psychiatrists of the school of Heidelberg differed in the way they took the theory of resentment into account for their psychological understanding? 3) What could be the actual significance of the historical fact that Nietzsche and in his footsteps Max Weber were taking deep influence on psychiatric thinking around 1900?

Linguagem e ideologia: embates teóricos

Neste ensaio são comparadas reflexões teóricas sobre o modo como ideologia e linguagem se interligam. A finalidade desta análise comparativa é ilustrar o quão podem ser divergentes as explicações acerca da relação entre essas duas instâncias. Constam, da seleção bibliográfica realizada, pensadores clássicos (ALTHUSSER, 1985; PÊCHEUX, 1995, 1997; BAKHTIN, 1999) e contemporâneos (THOMPSON, 1995; EAGLETON, 1997).

Feminist Practice Meets Feminist Theory

It is always welcome to have a smart, committed feminist engage seriously with big questions of social and political all the more so when her work takes the variety of writings considered feminist seriously enough to them a central part of her project without simultaneously limiting herself only to those works. Zerilli's Feminism and the Abyss of Freedom puts thinkers as different from one another as Hannah Arendt and the Milan Women's Bookstore Collective, Emmanuel Kant and Monique Wittig into the same paragraphs, if not the same sentences. Moreover, her argument also offers a Eurocentric impulse to push American feminists past the stale equality-difference debate and the anxiety about collective action by women that seems to accompany it here. As a person who works on European feminism, I especially appreciate this attention to feminist writings about collective action that have not received the attention in the United States that they merit. Finally, Zerilli deserves a third round of applause for taking the rhetorical work of claims-making as the serious political action that I also think it is. Rather than taking political arguments as merely theory, she considers them as efficacious in their own terms, as means of making political subjects and actions real-izable by opening up new spaces in which struggles can and do occur. To meaningfully grant her those three kudos, this essay outlines the sense of her argument for those who have not yet read the book, as well as evaluates some of her claims. To do so, I take up each of these three praiseworthy contributions in more detail. I then turn to ask a few questions about the limits of her arguments, particularly as they might apply to creating the actual spaces for action that she expects political claims to do. The first thing to note about the work of feminist theoretical reflection that Zerilli offers is the scope of the previous work that she draws into her frame of reference. What Zerilli actually means by the of freedom is the radical uncertainty about the outcomes of their actions that challenges all actors who seek to make a difference in the world. But a second abyss addressed by Zerilli is the gulf usually seen between the philosophical concerns and approaches with which she deals. On the one side, she anchors herself in two of the classic authors of nonfeminist political philosophy, Emmanuel Kant and Hannah Arendt. On the other side, she builds directly upon two classics of contemporary European feminist theory - Monique Wittig's Les Guerillieres (1969/1985) and the Milan Women's Bookstore Collective's manifesto (1987). This latter book was actually translated into English under the title of Sexual Difference (1990), but as Zerilli points out, would more properly have been called What's Wrong with Rights. Stretching herself across the vast gulf between the classic thinkers on politics and second-wave feminists who attempt to theorize from their political practices, Zerilli attempts to provide a bridge strong enough to support liberatory feminist political claims. To construct such a structure

What Keeps the Earth in Its Place? The Concept of Stability in Plato and Aristotle

Symmetry as it is applied today is a modern concept; hence it is implausible to ascribe this concept to classical thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle. How then should one interpret discussions in antiquity on the stability of the Earth? In this paper we analyze the arguments in order to see how they ‘work’. While both Plato and Aristotle invoked the concept of likeness, Plato also depended on the concept of equal balance, whereas Aristotle depended on the concept of natural place. But in neither case did they appeal to symmetry.

HANNAH ARENDT: O QUERER E A LIBERDADE

This paper aims of this to describe, from Hannah Arendt’s pointof view the theoretical and historical route that provide the emergence of one at the three faculties of the spirit: the faculty of the will or want. Drawing initially on ancient Greece, the paper also deals with contributions of classic, mediavel and modern thinkers. In a retrospective approach Arendt examines the perception and installation process of the faculty of the will, by correlating it with the advent and consolidation of the linear conception of time, essencially from christian origins, against the background of cyclical conception of time, from Greek origins. It also reflects about the clash between the faculties of will and thinking, by following the controversy between Saint Tomas Aquino and Duns Scotus about the subject. Finally, thepaper links the faculty of the will to the idea of freedom which is rationale of human condition.

Durkheim y Simmel, ¿Las dos vías de la sociología?

Simmel and Durkehim, whose 150 anniversary of their births we celebrate this year, represent apprently two opposing modes of doing sociology, and two conceptions of society. Precisely for that reason, they invite contrast and comparison. Though differences between Simmel and Durkheim in style, findings, method and subject matter remain obvious, there are also considerable coincidences and a substantial degree of convergence in their approach. This commemorative essay attemps to identify these elements and top show how both classical thinkers can, indeed must, be integrated into the common ground upon which contemporary sociology thrives and advances.

A Celebrated Trilogy on Friendship

A Celebrated Trilogy on Friendship Authors Agnaldo Garcia Raquel Ferreira Miranda PDF Article info Impact Citations How to Cite Published at 30. June 2008 https://doi.org/10.5964/ijpr.v2i1.21 Issue: Vol. 2 No. 1 (2008) Section: Book Reviews Share: Z Garcia, A., & Miranda, R. F. (2008). A Celebrated Trilogy on Friendship. Interpersona: An International Journal on Personal Relationships, 2(1), 127-130. https://doi.org/10.5964/ijpr.v2i1.21 More Citation Formats ACM ACS APA ABNT Chicago Harvard IEEE MLA Turabian Vancouver Download Citation Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS) BibTeX PlumX Dimensions Views: Total Abstract PDF 189 128 61 Downloads: Download data is not yet available.

Imaging Islam: Intellect and Imagination in Islamic Philosophy, Poetry, and Painting

AbstractThis essay introduces the pioneering approaches of four classical Muslim thinkers (Ghazali, Biruni, Farabi, and Ibn 'Arabi) to the understanding of Islam and of religion more broadly, together with the subsequent artistic mirroring of their perspectives in two later masterpieces of Islamic mystical poetry (a ghazal of Hafiz) and painting (an illustration of the same poem by the early Safavid artist Sultan Muhammad). The discussion begins with the ways each philosopher's distinctive emphases on the relative roles of intellect, inspiration, and imagination highlight different but complementary dimensions (social, political, ritual, intellectual, and spiritual) of religious life and experience. The concluding section then illustrates how, just as in Plato's Symposium, each of those archetypal philosophical outlooks are powerfully dramatized and memorably integrated in the most influential poetic and artistic traditions of the Islamic humanities.

A New Argument for Morality: Machiavelli and the Ancients

Machiavelli is best known for his bold realism, and The Prince is a self-conscious alternative to the moral teachings of Christian and classical thought. The author demonstrates, however, that most of Machiavelli's famous maxims are in fact derivative from ancient authors. Given the similarities between The Prince and classical texts, Machiavelli's realism must be reexamined. The author analyzes chapter 3 of The Prince to show that Machiavelli appropriates the decisive rhetorical strategy of many religious texts by appealing to an inevitable fear as the basis for his new moral outlook. If Machiavelli appropriates the methods he criticizes in others, then this article serves as an invitation to read both Machiavelli and classical thinkers with a renewed and genuine interest in the originality and realism of each.

War without End(s): The End of Clausewitz?

This article argues that both anti- and pro-Clausewitzians have tended to base their views on an incomplete understanding of Clausewitz. We claim that the so-called ‘new wars’ do not require a new analytical paradigm, as is suggested by anti-Clausewitzians like Martin van Creveld and John Keegan. But this does not mean that the prevailing pro-Clausewitzian discourse cannot be challenged. Clausewitz, as is well-known, employed a dialectical method of arguing in extremes. But whereas we suggest that Clausewitz sought to situate actual war between extremes, the modern discourses share the mistake of seeing the extremes as incompatible alternatives. We argue that a deeper understanding of Clausewitz's theory, and in particular his views on the state, on policy and politics, as well as on his so-called ‘trinity’ of competing forces of war, provides a framework for analysis that is still valid. This also implies that the attempt to replace Clausewitz with another classical thinker, Sun Tzu, may not be necessary; it may in fact be unproductive. Our approach furthermore suggests that a strong strand in anti-Clausewitzian discourse, which sees the new wars as endemic and marked by irrational, barbaric, and purposeless violence, is at least partly mistaken. The wars of the future may be endless, but they are unlikely to be without ends.

Karlo Otto Apelio neokantizmas: kaip galima šiuolaikinė normatyvioji etika?

Straipsnyje svarstoma šiuolaikinės normatyviosios etikos paieškos galimybė, pasitelkiant Karlo Otto Apelio tokio bandymo pavyzdį ir supriešinant jį su Jürgeno Habermaso diskurso etika bei Maxo Weberio ir Karlo Raimundo Popperio politinės moralės projektais. Autorė pripažįsta, kad Apelio pastangos suteikti šiuolaikinei etikai vieningą normatyvinį pagrindą iškrenta iš bendros į vertybių pliuralizmą linkstančios šiuolaikinės etikos perspektyvos. Kita vertus, jos manymu, siekiant išsaugoti Kanto etikos formaliuosius aspektus, jo transcendentalines intencijas, galima nepastebėti svarbių Kanto etikos turinio aspektų. Mūsų galva, formalus procedūriškumas ar normatyvumas neišsemia Kanto etikos galimybių.

Jan Patočka: Critical Consciousness and Non-Eurocentric Philosopher of the Phenomenological Movement

This chapter constitutes a preliminary and humble attempt to answer the following question: How to make sense of the vast number of Patocka’s writings, themselves dispersed in most cases in the apparently modest form of exegetic exercises on works of classical thinkers, ancient (e.g., Plato, Aristotle) or contemporary (Husserl, Heidegger)? The reply we risk to propose is: Patocka’s reflections represent perhaps one of the most fruitful philosophical endeavors within the wider phenomenological movement to confront the crisis of modern civilization which Patocka calls “Over-civilization and its internal conflict”. Recapturing and renewing in a new direction Husserl’s diagnosis of the crisis of European civilization, Patocka was one of the first European philosophers—a philosopher of the Other Europe—to have emphasized with lucidity the necessity of abandoning the hitherto Eurocentric propositions of solution to the crisis—for example Comte’s positivism and its variants, Marxism and bourgeois liberalism—when he explicitly raised the problems of a “Post-European humanity”. In advocating an understanding of the history of European humanity which is different from Husserl as well as Heidegger, Patocka is able to direct his philosophical reflections on history back to the formulation of a more profound phenomenology of the natural world insufficiently thematized in Husserl and absent in Heidegger (at least the Heidegger of Sein und Zeit).

PARADIGMA TRADISIONALIS DALAM PEMIKIRAN POLITIK ISLAM MODERN

As a traditionalist political thinker in modern era, Rasyid Ridha (1865-1935) had shown a relation between caliphate system and modern Islamic state system. He tried to formulate ''tradition" to answer political problem in modern era. Until the value of civil authority and humanized law included/formulated in Islamic state model which draft by him. He believed that the caliphate system could unify Islamic society in one leadership.An idea drafted by Ridha about ahl hal wal aqd institution and caliphate was more thrive than the thinkers before (classical thinkers), especially on competency, characteristic and the duties of caliphate and ahl hal wal aqd. A number of Ridho's idea had repeated classical thinker's thought, but Ridha able to modify it with the social reality. Ridha had made effort to set his ideas with writing activities and political movement to maintain caliphate tradition in Islamic state.

Reproaching heaven: The problem of evil in Mengzi

At first glance, the problem of evil has little place in Chinese thought. At least two assumptions associated with the classical European problem of evil are foreign to a Chinese context. If we take the tema "evil" in contrast to the merely '"oad," that is, if we give evil ontological status as a real force, then classical Chinese thinkers have no conception of evil, and thus no need to account for its origin. The second assumption connected to the problem of evil is God's creation of the world ex nibilo. If God is the total and complete cause of all that exists, God must be responsible for everything, including the bad things. Without a conception of creation ex nihila, early Chinese thinkers need not attribute evil to any divine being. Even in a European context, though, requiting a conception of evil as a positive force and the creation of the wodd ex nibilo defines the problem of evil too narrowly. Most thinkers in the European tradition responded to the problem of evil by denting the ontological status of evil. Those who maintained the benevolence of God denied his creation of evil by equating evil with nothingness or lack. Augustine developed this denial o f evil in response to Manicheanism and versions of his account are taken up by Descartes and Leibniz, among others. Even those who responded to the problem of evil by denying the existence of a benevolent deity tended to reduce evil from a real ontological category to a mere human label, as, for example, Spinoza does. Creation ex nibilo remains more consistently central to the problem but again seems unnecessary. Kant, for example, saw the problem of evil as

Fighting for “Freedom”: The End of Conscription in the United States and the Neoliberal Project of Citizenship

This paper investigates the termination of conscription in the United States as a neoliberal project to reconstruct national citizenship. It examines how scholars of the “Chicago School” worked towards the termination of the draft through the 1960s, as foundational to their fight for (individual, economic) freedom. In their quest to liberate citizens from big government, Milton Friedman and friends theorized the state's right to take life as a fundamental political problem. Friedman conceptualized conscription as a form of tax, quantified its cost to individuals, and slated its practice to be dismantled. The end of conscription was something of a “first victory” for the early neoliberals, and as such, it was a key project through which they defined neoliberal notions of freedom and models of citizenship. Through debates about conscription, they came to distinguish themselves from both contemporary Keynesian alternatives and classic liberal thinkers. This reconfiguration of the state's biopolitical right to take its citizens' lives for national defense has contributed in important but understudied ways to the contemporary polarization of citizenship. In the context of the broader restructuring of work and welfare, neoliberal “social” policy is increasingly militarized, targeted towards socially and spatially marginal soldiers who work for their welfare. The end of conscription has been a central and unexplored element of the dismantling of “universalism” in the realm of social policy, the introduction of workfare, the militarization of social welfare, and the reintroduction of notions of a deserving and undeserving poor. The conflict with which we have to deal is indeed a quite fundamental one between two irreconcilable types of social organization, which, from the most characteristic forms which they appear, have often been described as the commercial and the military type of society … The army does indeed in many ways represent the closest approach familiar to us to the second type of organization, where work and worker alike are allotted by authority and where, if the available means are scanty, everybody is alike put on short commons. This is the only system in which the individual can be conceded full economic security and through the extension of which to the whole of society it can be achieved for all its members. This security is, however, inseparable from the restrictions on liberty and the hierarchical order of military life—it is the security of the barracks. (Hayek, 1944, p. 131, The Road to Serfdom) Of all the statist violations of individual rights … the military draft is the worst … It negates man's fundamental right, the right to life, and establishes the fundamental principle of statism—that a man's life belongs to the state, and the state may claim it by compelling him to sacrifice it in battle. Once that principle is accepted, the rest is only a matter of time. (Rand, 1967, track 2, “The wreckage of consensus”) A personal story will perhaps make my point. Sometime in the late 1960s I engaged in a debate at the University of Wisconsin with Leon Keyserling, an unreconstructed collectivist … He was doing very well with the audience of students as he went through my castigation of price supports, tariffs, and so on until he came to point 11 … That expression of my opposition to the draft brought ardent applause and lost him the audience and the debate. Incidentally, the draft is the only item on my list of fourteen unjustified government activities that has so far been eliminated—and that victory is by no means final. (Friedman, 1962, Preface to Capitalism and Freedom)

Arthur O. Lovejoy and the Challenge of Intellectual History

Men and ideas advance by parricide, by which children kill, if not their fathers, at least beliefs of their fathers, and arrive at new beliefs.Sir Isaiah Berlin1I was supposed to wind up study of mine, and become Lovejoy of my generation-that's silly talk of scholarly people.Saul Bellow2To become the Lovejoy, with implication that each generation could only have one, was ambition of Moses Herzog in Saul Bellow's novel, written a few years after he had won Nobel Award for literature. Herzog presents life of a professor who has as many sexual escapades and as much personal angst as he has scholarly interests, too unfocused to be another Lovejoy. Bellow's novel is full of letters to Nietzsche, Heidegger, and other modernist minds who brought Western intellectual life to a standstill, posing a lasting question mark about possibilities of knowledge. Bellow taught in program of Committee on Social Thought at University of Chicago. His colleague and close friend Allan Bloom also taught in that program. But when Bloom wrote best seller, The Closing of American Mind, he cited Nietzsche and Heidegger as part of German disease that did so much to subvert academic thought, supposedly turning students into zombies, walking air heads responding only to vacuous visual stimuli and mind-numbing music, with Rock n' Roll blasting through a Walkman and having effect of a masturbational fantasy.3While Bellow's epistolary novel interrogated modernist thinkers, Bloom's popular tract of times cited many classical thinkers as a countervoice to modernists-Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Augustine, Aquinas, Dante, Hobbes, Kant, Lessing, Schiller, Locke, and Rousseau. Such minds also figured prominently in works of Arthur O. Lovejoy. But recitation of such names leaves impression that Lovejoy concerned himself only with main currents of European intellectual history. On contrary, two of his most important and often neglected books are The Thirteen Pragmatisms and Reflections on Human Nature* There one finds profound meditations on two vital episodes in history of ideas in America: Enlightenment and philosophy of pragmatism. Perry Miller, arguably America's greatest intellectual historian, skipped over Enlightenment as he proceeded to study Puritans and then transcendentalists, and he never seemed to have much interest in pragmatists.5 But what Lovejoy had to write on Enlightenment and pragmatism is richly ironic.The pragmatists claimed to have liberated modern thought from easy assumptions of Age of Reason, and today's poststructuralists charge that eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinkers deceived themselves in looking to advent of knowledge as an answer to presence of power. Lovejoy's books offer a different take entirely, making us aware that it is modernist thinkers who may be deceiving themselves with dubious promises of pragmatism and arrogant conceits of poststructuralism and deconstruction, whose proponents claim to be first masters of suspicion. In many of Lovejoy's works, nothing is resolved and everything is left suspended in a state of honest suspicion.Lovejoy was comfortable with contradiction, and hence more in tune with Augustine, who looked to depths of human consciousness for spiritual knowledge, than with Aquinas, who believed evidence for God and human freedom could be found in reason alone. Nowhere is Lovejoy's affinity for emotions of consciousness better seen than in his several essays on romanticism, both English, French, German, and even its origins in Chinese aesthetics and Confucian ethics. It was not reason and notion of order and regulation that appealed to Lovejoy but spontaneous promptings of nature springing forth without reflection or design. He delighted in quoting Voltaire against classicists and scholastics. …

The Third Moment in Law and Development Theory and the Emergence of a New Critical Practice (Introduction)

The study of the relationship between law and economic development goes back at least to the nineteenth century. It is a question that attracted the attention of classical thinkers like Marx and Weber. And there were some early efforts to craft policy in this area; for example, under the Raj, some English Utilitarians tried to put Jeremy Bentham’s ideas about law and economic progress into practice in India. But it was only after World War II that systematic and organized efforts to reform legal systems became part of the practice of international development agencies. Initially, development agencies turned to law as an instrument for state policy aimed at generating economic growth. Starting in the 1980s, interest in the role of law in economic development grew, but it was an interest in law more as a framework for market activity than as an instrument of state power. This book argues that, starting in the mid-1990s, development practitioners approached law in a fundamentally new way – as a correction for market failures and as a constitutive part of “development” itself. As a result, “the rule of law” has become significant not only as a tool of development policy, but as an objective for development policy in its own right. This book charts the history of this growing interest in the legal field, explores the shifting rationales behind development policy initiatives, and explores in detail the newest – and most surprising – of these rationales. To do that, we trace the history of a body of ideas about law and economic development that have been employed not just by academics but also by development practitioners responsible for allocating funds and designing projects. In this introduction, we refer to that body of ideas as law and development doctrine. Although this doctrine has academic roots in economic and legal theory, it is a practical working tool of development agencies.