Summary List of Concepts - History of Political Thought
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Course
History of Political Thought
Institution
Universiteit Van Amsterdam (UvA)
This list contains the main concepts and explanations needed to pass the History of Political Thought course. I got a 8,4 in this course. Great list to look up something quickl. Good Luck!
a. Presupposes that ruling is a skill that requires knowledge
b. Normative commitments:
i. Political desirability of order, unity, truthful politics, good
ii. Only experts know how to pursue good politics
c. Problems
i. What skills are required? Who gets to decide on qualification? Will experts rule
fairly? Will they be accepted?
d. Philosopher-king
e. Theocratic Epistemocracy = leader is religious and an expert, best city is multi-
national empire
i. Religion brings flourishing, common people to be educated to differentiate true
from false prophets
ii. Revelation = intellectual transfer from God to leader
1. what it means to be a leader, what works for community, leader is religious
f. Mass democracy may meet epistemocracy argument that only experts can achieve truth
and good rule because people are able to make good decisions in mass
g. Jury Theorem = majority rule leads to infallibility because voters have a better
than chance competence in binary questions
i. General will, mass democracy compatible with good rule argument of
apistemocracy
2. Ship of State = critique of popular democracy
a. Popular democracy leads to dissensus, self-rule leads to overconfidence in abilities,
ambitious lack expertise and deny existence of political expertise. They are dangerous,
list of concepts 1
, demagogues take over and the people are susceptible to flattery, and the masses call
demagogues skilled.
b. Popular democracy generates disorder and disunity and reign of false by undermining
truth of political expertise
c. Value-pluralism= existence of conflicting and incompatible values
i. Diversity and inconstancy of human emotions (heterogenous society)
ii. Plato: ship of state
iii. Mo: moral polarization found in state of nature
3. Sortition/Lottery = everybody has equal right/chance to participate in political rule
a. Elections are for oligarchies, and nobody is better than anybody, so sortition is fairest
4. Natural hierarchy = people have innate differences that reflect a natural hierarchy
a. Political life and division of labour should respect these natural differences
b. Natural slavery = natural inequality, war booty, fate, repayment, punishment
(Cugoano)
i. (consequentialism, good-making for the character)
c. Plato:
i. Eugenics = program to produce good rulers and soldiers and kill unwanted
and wear
ii. Platonic feminism = hierarchy is relatively symmetrical in both sexes
1. denies natural equality but any privileges given to men with X characteristics
should be given to women with X characteristics
2. Compatible with sexism
iii. Education can perfect people towards good, but natural hierarchy should be
enforced; in service of truth
d. Al-Farabi:
i. Best polity is religious and hierarchically ordered unity, functional order,
everything in service of flourishing
e. Mo:
list of concepts 2
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