Early Thinkers Research Articles

“Sturdy Boulders that Protect the Realm” Early Medieval Chinese Thinkers on Decentralized Governance

The period between the formal end of the Han dynasty in 220 ce and the reestablishment of unified imperial authority in the Sui-Tang period (late sixth century ce) is considered one of political fragmentation and recurrent military conflict. During three centuries, several kingdoms and short-lived dynasties were established and destroyed, either by military conquest or by court intrigues and coups. In this context, many political thinkers of the time looked back to the long rule of the Han as a time of peace and prosperity, and argued that it was the institutions of centralized governance that propped the dynasty’s long-lasting reign. Against this view, a handful of thinkers claimed that the Zhou-style system of investiture offered several advantages to secure the permanence of the ruling house and improve the governance of the realm. Among them, the Wei dynasty thinker Cao Jiong argued that the Zhou system was superior to centralized rule both in moral and military terms, while the Jin dynasty scholar Lu Ji discussed the benefits and problems of relying mostly on kin for controlling the realm. By identifying the key ideas in these writings in relation to the historical context of the early medieval period in China, I will challenge the longstanding assumption that post-Han thinkers advocated for the institutions of centralized administration over those of decentralized governance.

Seizures of Sleep in Early Modern Literature

This article argues that for early modern thinkers, sleep constitutes an other sovereignty—a power of seizure at the edge of sovereignty's claim to the total control over life through the threat of death. The discussion focuses in particular on The Jew of Malta , because in this play Christopher Marlowe draws on classical ethics and the political theology of sleep in order to conceive a form of biopower in physiological dormancy, a power whose potencies and opacities are likewise explored in Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew and Milton's Paradise Lost . Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Milton all think through sleep's capacities to elude the seizures of sovereignty and to cultivate rather than suppress vitality, thereby giving shape to an early modern desire to live beyond the claims of sovereignty.

Challenges of Food Security: Free Trade, Distribution and Political (In)Stability in Mid 18th Century France

The paper focuses on the history of food security in mid 18th century France. It explores why and how in the 1750s French economic thinkers began to argue that free trade was the best way to achieve “food security” for everyone, and also thought about distribution, availability and quality of grain. These thinkers maintained that agriculture would provide subsistence for everyone and every region, if interventionist regulations did not get in the way of continuous circulation of grain to all parts of the kingdom. The dearths that occurred in the kingdom thus seemed to be artificially generated starvations caused by unequal “trade-based and exchange entitlements” (Sen in Poverty and famines: an essay on entitlement and deprivation. Oxford University Press, Oxford, Oxford Scholarship Online November 2003, 1983). For that reason these early liberal thinkers held that the government should, therefore, transfer the authority over trading practices to the individual traders and speculators, who alone could create a balanced market through competing interests.

Is a New Consciousness Emerging? Reflections on the Thought of Ibn ’Arabi and the Impact of an Integral Perspective

Every era embodies a perspective or worldview. In a time of profound change, what is the worldview that describes our current era? At the frontiers of the culture an integral way of thinking has started to form. An integral model looks to incorporate and embrace knowledge into a unified framework, and to cast a new light on the transformational processes that are at work both in human consciousness and in the culture. Evolutionary principles such as directionality and the ceaseless movement toward increasing complexity and wholeness have influenced not only science, but now also psychology, culture, and spirituality. As we look back at the stages of our development in history with an ever-sharper lens and contemplate our present and our future, we ask: is a new consciousness emerging as we transition to an increasingly inclusive and holistic worldview? This article reviews some of the ideas of thinkers such as Ken Wilber, Jean Gebser, Michael Murphy, Teilhard de Chardin, and Sri Aurobindo, and suggests further ways of advancing integral thought by reviewing the work of one of the greatest early integral thinkers, Sufi mystic and spiritual giant, Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi, and his teachings on the Logos as a principle for emergence.

EU Institutions and the Drive for Peace: The Power of Ideas

This paper explains how international institutions contribute to peace among states in the international system. To do so, it reviews the various schools of thought that advance theories about the relationship between institutions and peace, and then focuses on the case of Europe. The main argument is that ideas are a core part of why institutions matter and how they shape state behavior. In particular, the idea of federalism has been one of the most influential and enduring ideas defining the trajectory of European integration. It is often recounted that early thinkers and leaders, especially the so-called founding fathers, debated whether federalism or functionalism was the path to take after WWII, and that they ultimately settled on the latter. Perhaps because the EU is only quasi-federal today, the origins and development of the federalist idea are rarely investigated. Drawing upon fresh archival research, this paper focuses on the early actors involved in spreading the notion that federalism was the best form of political organization to preserve the future of peace in Europe. The federalist movement in Europe became much stronger and more widespread than is often recognized, and it continues to influence what is possible today. The paper concludes that, partly as a result of this, EU institutions are enduring and legitimate, despite the numerous crises that Europe has faced in its development.

Ideology, socialism and the everyday: forgotten lessons from the inter-war years?

One of the great contributions of the Journal of Political Ideologies to the study of politics has been the emphasis it has given to recovering lost ideological traditions or subtraditions. With regard to the recent history of the United Kingdom, contributions to the Journal have long argued that there is far greater ideological complexity in British politics than is usually credited and that analysis of this complexity might throw up powerful arguments for contemporary political argument. In this essay, I take inspiration from that notion in order to establish whether a lost tradition of twentieth century British socialist thinking – that associated with a series of inter-war and mid-century thinkers who were sceptical of both modernism and the state – might throw new light on the failings of recent British Labour ideology, especially that associated with Ed Miliband’s failed attempt to secure victory in the 2015 general election. The essay contends that the arguments of these earlier thinkers – and especially their obsession with crafting a ‘socialism of the everyday’ – could have provided a vital warning to Miliband’s Labour, had it chosen to heed it.

İbn Haldun ve Matematik İlimlerden Bir İlim Olarak Mûsikî

In his book Mukaddima, Ibn Haldun (1332-1406) considers music as a science amongst the other rational (philosophical) sciences. According to Ibn Haldun, there are seven rational (philosophical) sciences and logic (Mantik) is first amongst them. Then follow the sciences of arithmetic, geometry, cosmography of mathematical sciences and music, natural sciences and theology. Ibn Haldun recognizes the science of music as one which determines the correlation of sounds to tunes in terms of numbers and investigates measurement methods. Its benefit is to teach the necessary range of singing tunes. Ibn Haldun is a significant Muslim scholar who studied music from all aspects. In Ibn Haldun’s 14th and 15th century work on music theory, one can access to important philosophical and practical information about music. The fact that he includes music under the categories of wisdom and philosophy is indicative of the position of music among early Muslim thinkers.

Tradition, Reason, and Qur’anic Exegesis in the Modern Period: The Hermeneutics of Said Nursi

ABSTRACTKey figures in modernist Qur’an exegesis include Sayyid Ahmad Khan (d. 1898) and Muhammad ʿAbduh (d. 1905). This article presents the exegetical principles of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (1877–1960), a Muslim thinker and a major twentieth-century Turkish scholar who is not necessarily to be labelled a ‘modernist’, on tafsīr bi-al-maʾthūr (tradition-based exegesis) and tafsīr bi-al-raʾy (reason-based exegesis) with special reference to the views of early Muslim modernist thinkers. It particularly refers to Nursi’s work on uṣūl al-tafsīr, Muḥākamāt (Reasonings), and his one-volume commentary, Ishārāt al-iʿjāz (Signs of Inimitability), in order to understand his method of tafsīr. The purpose of the article is to place Nursi within the historical framework of Qur’an exegesis and it argues that, while there are some similarities between ʿAbduh and Nursi since the latter is influenced by the former, the methodological differences are clear. While ʿAbduh’s method is text-based, Nursi’s is based on kalām (Islamic theology). While ʿAbduh is critical of the classical style tafsīr and linguistic discussions in tafsīr, Nursi can be considered to be a modern representative of the Ottoman exegetical school and a follower in the way of al-Zamakhsharī (d. 538⁄1144), Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606⁄1210) and al-Bayḍāwī (d. 685/1286).

Language and the game of chess

AbstractThe comparison between a game, in particular the game of chess, and language, has a long tradition in philosophy and in language sciences. Greimas was thus following in the wake of his predecessors Saussure, Hjelmslev, and Wittgenstein when he put forward a semiotic view of this analogy. I shall review and comment on the texts of these three earlier thinkers as a way of introducing the views of Greimas and examining the shift in his thinking and the position he adopts. An interpretative reading of the brief article he devoted to the question enables us, moreover, to underline what the semiotic action of theorising language actually consisted of, in its method and epistemology, and also to show that underneath the demand for scientificity lies a “quête inquiète” The expression belongs to Denis Bertrand, who very rightly states: “This is why the formalism of Greimas cannot be separated from an ethic. The articulation of significations is inseparable from an unquiet quest for meaning” (Bertrand 1993: 16). (unquiet quest) regarding the “paraître imparfait” (imperfect appearance) of meaning.

On Women and Beasts: Human-Animal Relationships in Sixteenth-Century Thought

We are used to the view that historically “what counted as fully human always depended … on a sharp contrast with ‘the animal’.” As a consequence, “[w]omen and slaves, in being denied full humanity, were therefore necessarily partaking in animal nature.” Questioning this view, this essay traces how some early modern thinkers defined the relationship of human beings to animals generally, and, more particularly, how they saw the relationship of women, slaves, and animals in the human household. The picture presented, while being far from complete, aims to show that Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century thinkers had nuanced arguments to offer when they discussed the relationship of human animals to nonhuman animals, and the relationship of nature and culture, neither of which were presented as clear cut opposites. At the same time, the equation of women with animals and slaves was not something that was commonly found in Sixteenth Century philosophical treatises, which might lead us to rethink our own ideas about equating one disenfranchised group with the other.

Section I. From Early Thinker to Social Scientists

Section I. From Early Thinker to Social Scientists

Beyond Diels-Kranz: The New Loeb Early Greek Philosophy

Beyond Diels-Kranz: The New Loeb Early Greek Philosophy JOHN PALMER The publication of a Loeb Classical Library edition of the evidence for early Greek philosophy is a major event in classical scholarship.* In these nine volumes, running to well over 4,000 pages, André Laks and Glenn Most undertake to present in an accessible format the principal evidence for the Greek philosophers of the 6th and 5th centuries BC. They have been assisted in this massive project by Gérard Journée, Leopoldo Iribarren, and David Lévystone, who receive special credit on the title page; by several scholars who have provided special assistance in the preparation and translation of texts in Arabic, Syriac, Armenian, and Hebrew; and by numerous others who have provided comments on individual chapters or who have been consulted on particular points. The editors and their assistants are to be commended for their exemplary execution of such a vast and difficult task. They have succeeded in producing what is far and away the best available edition of the texts of the early Greek philosophers with accompanying English translation. (With the simultaneous publication of Les débuts de la philosophie: Des premiers penseurs grecs à Socrate [Paris: Éditions Fayard, 2016], they have also produced the best edition with accompanying French translation.) More than that, their edition effectively supersedes Hermann Diels and Walter Kranz’s Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, which has long held sway as the standard edition of the Presocratics, *André Laks and Glenn W. Most (eds. and trans.), Early Greek Philosophy. 9 volumes. Loeb Classical Library 524–32. Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 2016. arion 25.3 winter 2018 but it only does so because Laks and Most have respectfully taken Diels-Kranz as their model. The collection is not without its flaws, some of which will be addressed here, but these are mostly negligible in comparison with its innumerable merits. Laks and Most have set such a high standard with this work that it is hard to imagine that we will see a better general collection on early Greek philosophy in our lifetimes. Laks and Most generally avoid referring to their subject as “Presocratic” philosophy. The term “Vorsokratiker,” first employed in Johann August Eberhard’s Allgemeine Geschichte der Philosophie (Halle, 1788), was eventually used by Hermann Diels to demarcate, not a chronological period of philosophy prior to Socrates, but that constellation of early thinkers whose mode of philosophical activity was not influenced by Socrates and the changes he wrought to philosophy’s self-conception. “Presocratic” philosophy for Diels was thus roughly equivalent to the phase of ancient philosophy prior to the rise of the philosophical schools. Nonetheless, the term is awkward and has unwelcome temporal and historiographic connotations, rightly noted by Laks and Most. Not all the figures in these volumes were active before Socrates, nor is it historically accurate to contrast them all with a “Socratic” approach to philosophy, despite Cicero’s famously influential characterization of Socrates as having brought philosophy down from the heavens to earth (Cic. Tusc. V 4.10–11). Laks has very usefully discussed both the ancient antecedents and modern deployment of the notion of “Presocratic” philosophy in his Introduction à la “philosophie présocratique” (Paris 2006), now translated by Glenn Most as The Concept of Presocratic Philosophy (Princeton 2018). Laks’s conclusion there that the common history of the transmission and survival of their writings is one of the least contestable criteria of an otherwise problematic identity serves as background to the editors ’ characterization of the object of the present volumes as the philosophers prior to Plato “who are transmitted in the form of fragments” (vol. i, p. 7). The collection’s entire first volume is devoted to introduc188 beyond diels-kranz tory and reference materials. Included are a preface explaining the organizational and editorial principles governing the presentation; a list of abbreviations; a more general bibliography than the ones provided in the introductions to individual chapters; a two-way concordance between Laks and Most’s set of textual identifiers and those employed in DielsKranz ; a useful index of references in the collection to the early Greek philosophers outside the chapters devoted to them, followed by a more...

POST-CONDITIONALITY REGIMES, EU-AFRICA RELATIONS AND THE ENGLISH SCHOOL OFINTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Abstract This article introduces the English School approach to the debate on EU-Africa aid and development relations. Liberal institutionalist, neo-colonial, moral economy and post-structuralist approaches have dominated the analysis of these relations so far. The purpose is to examine EU-Africa relations through the English School’s concept of imperial systems especially with a view to explaining the rise of post-conditionality regimes in Africa. Post-conditionality presents a puzzle for the other existing approaches to EU-Africa relations whereas the concept of imperial systems is well-placed to address it. The emphasis is on the early thinkers of the School, Martin Wight and in particular Adam Watson. We seek not only to demonstrate the relevance of Watson’s arguments to understanding post-conditionality but also explore how this situation is legitimised discursively through references to equality between Europe and Africa and to world society. Keywords: English School, Africa, EU, post-conditionality, hierarchy ----- Bibliography: Ruacan, Ipek Zeynep: Post-conditionality regimes, EU-Africa relations and the English School of International Relations, ERIS, 2-2016, pp. 20-37. https://doi.org/10.3224/eris.v3i2.03

Croisement, permutation: sur un schéma récurrent d'explication de l'erreur dans les philosophies de l'âge classique

In this article the Author analyzes a recurring schema among early modern thinkers as they reflect on the manner in which error occurs. It can be called the explanation of error by permutation or crossing. First, there is quick formal presentation of what is to be understood by these expressions. Then, several examples are shown of this mode of explanation of error, primarily in Descartes (along with some references to Malebranche and Spinoza). This is followed by a discussion of a thinker in whom this schema is particularly evident in a number of domains - Pascal. The aim is to suggest that this configuration has in his writings not only a descriptive function with respect to error as a fact, but also a heuristic role. The Author ends with some reflections on the signification of the presence, and recurrence, of this schema among early modern philosophers when they address the question of error.

The Collective Soul

This article examines R. Zvi Yehudah Kook’s reading of two earlier thinkers who were influential in the formulation of his thought—the Maharal of Prague and R. Avraham Azulai. I argue that his creative and unique reading of these texts exemplifies a fascinating dialogue he held with earlier sources, which he interpreted and infused with his own theological postulates. Here I explore his theory of the unique nature of the Jewish soul, in both its collective and individual manifestations. The connection between R. Zvi Yehudah’s approach to interpreting earlier Jewish theological texts and that of his father, R. Avraham Itzhak HaCohen Kook, will also be discussed.

The philosophical thought of Dai Zhen and Chinese tradition

This article examines the philosophical ideas of Dai Zhen (1724–1777), a prominent classical scholar and thinker in the Confucian tradition. The writer argues (i) that what triggered Dai Zhen’s criticism of Neo-Confucianism, especially Zhu Xi’s School of Principle, was his perception that its ideas were used to oppress people; (ii) that he derived this perceived oppressive function from the philosophical error of taking li, principle, as a subjective entity, which people could define at will, rather than as an objective feature of reality; and (iii) that he considered this error as a deviation from the early Confucian thought of Confucius, Mencius and others caused by Buddhist and Daoist influence. Convinced that the Confucian Classics contained the fundamental truths about human beings and our place in the universe, the idea that these classics contained serious errors was unthinkable for Dai Zhen. In this sense he still operated within the confines of a totalitarian intellectual order. Yet, he was as concerned with the abuse of power in the name of Confucianism as with philological errors. While he would not have questioned the authority of the classics, it is striking how he insisted that their interpretation must be determined by intellectual criteria rather than dynastic power. In this respect Dai Zhen anticipated an essential feature of modern thought, and so it is not surprising that he caught the attention of seminal early modern thinkers such as Zhang Taiyan, Liang Qichao, Wang Guowei, Liu Shipei and, especially, Hu Shi.

A Comment on “What Is Wrong with the West’s Economies?” by Edmund Phelps

Why is it so difficult to make the world a better place? This note claims that “just”, “justice”, and “morality” are scientific issues, not a matter of opinion. David Hume suggested that the moral stance cannot be drawn from empirical facts. Adam Smith recognized that somewhere inside us there is an “impartial spectator” who tells us when we do wrong or when we see wrong to be done. This note welcomes Mr. Phelps to the realm of those great early thinkers though he misses the link to them. We suggest that it is the human evolution which has imbedded the feelings of justice inside us into the chemical and hormonal systems in our body, in our nerve system and in our brains. Here economics, moral philosophy and biology meet each other. It is not the capitalism or the globalization which ought to be blamed. Indeed, it is hard for many to admit but the world indeed has been changing into a better place! What is wrong with the West’s Economies today? Very much is still wrong, indeed. There is too much inequality, too much unjust, and people are unhappy. If there is a battle between the good and the bad, the good guys hopefully win. However, they need a thorough analysis!

Hobbes, Galileo, and the Physics of Simple Circular Motions

Hobbes tried to develop a strict version of the mechanical philosophy, in which all physical phenomena were explained only in terms of bodies in motion, and the only forces allowed were forces of collision or impact. This ambition puts Hobbes into a select group of original thinkers, alongside Galileo, Isaac Beeckman, and Descartes. No other early modern thinkers developed a strict version of the mechanical philosophy (not even Newton who allowed forces of attraction and repulsion operating at a distance). Natural philosophies relying solely on bodies in motion require a concept of inertial motion. Beeckman and Descartes assumed rectilinear motions were rectilinear, but Galileo adopted a theory which has been referred to as circular inertia. Hobbes’s natural philosophy depended to a large extent on what he called “simple circular motions.” In this paper, I argue that Hobbes’s simple circular motions derived from Galileo’s belief in circular inertia. The paper opens with a section outlining Galileo’s concept, the following section shows how Hobbes’s physics depended upon circular motions, which are held to continue indefinitely. A third section shows the difficulty Hobbes had in maintaining a strictly mechanistic philosophy, and the conclusion offers some speculations as to why Galileo’s circular inertia was never entertained as a serious rival to rectilinear inertia, except by Hobbes.

The Aristotelian Criticism of the Liberal Foundations of Modern State

The paper discusses some fundamental differences between Aristotelian and modern conceptions of the state. It focuses its attention on the early liberal thinkers, such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, and contrasts the theory of state developed by them with the classical republican ideal described by Aristotle. As I will demonstrate main differences come down to (1) distinct ideas concerning the state’s origins (and especially human motivations behind establishing the state), (2) divergent convictions about the role of the state and its ethical dimension; and finally (3) different beliefs concerning basic feelings and passions which sustain existence of political community. I argue that on the basis of Stagirite’s philosophy it is possible to question whether civic association described by the precursors of liberal political thought is actually the state. In conclusion, I signalize the problem of serious limitations of contemporary liberal democracies (or even their internal contradictions) resulting from their attempt to follow an ideal of an ideologically neutral state.

Social Economy as an Extension of the Austrian Research Program

Although the origins of the Austrian school are usually tied to Carl Menger, an argument can be made that its genuine origins rest within the writings of the early classical liberal thinkers, particularly Adam Smith. Boettke (2007), for example, argues that although Austrian economics is outside the mainstream of contemporary economic thought, it is squarely within the "mainline" of thinking that begins with Smith and runs through the development of political economy in its various forms to investigations into the economics of social institutions and the study of entrepreneurship.