Samenvatting
Summary POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND DEMOCRACY (FSWB-3051)
notes of lectures and required literature
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Voorbeeld 3 van de 24 pagina's
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Voorbeeld van de inhoud
LECTURE 1: Foundation of democracy and the polisWhat is philosophy?
● Philosophy = love of wisdom/knowledge → desire knowledge
● Political philosophy = love of knowledge for politics
● Politics = arises when ppl try to form community despite disagreements w fellow people
(Terpstra, 2012)
○ Conflict, confrontation and struggle → politics not abt consensus
○ Group of ppl disagree abt their common interests and agree on decision
● Politics vs Political (Rosanvallon)
○ Disagreement essential for politics
○ Politics abt struggle, conflict and disagreement abt essential questions and values -
moral dilemmas abt social justice and fairness
○ Politics = decision making despite disagreements
○ Political = having different opinions
Democracy
● Increase of usage of word ‘democracy’ in dutch parliament – from 1814-1890 to 1910-1920
● As a concept democracy is everything but self sufficient
● How we now understand democracy quite novel
● Authors use it as fashionable term
● Netherlands
○ 1870-1945 can be publicly against democracy
○ Before 1870 it was disputable to be in favour of democracy
○ After 1945 became impossible to be against
● Democracy was seen as anarchy, chaos, despotism
● Being called democrat was in the 19th century almost now what ppl call populist
● ⇔ how we understand democracy is contested and context dependent (time and place)
Political philosophy and democracy
● Aristocracy, oligarchy, technocracy, democracy, monarchy, tyranna
● But if there are so many different ways to rule, why democracy?
● Which problem will always haunt democracy more than other systems?
○ Representation
■ Ruled by a few
■ How to represent so many by a few individual
■ Legitimacy
● Normative theory (of the many, not the few) → to design constitutional state aiming that all
citizens can participate equally to political decision making by means of humane and
pluralist conflict-regulation process (Dierickx, 2001)
● There is no democracy without division, it asks what it means for conflict and disagreement
to be dealt in a respectful and civil manner (JW Muller, 2019)
○ Essentially contested concept → part of process of democracy
○ Relates to concept of politics
● Does that mean democracy is a free floating concept?
○ Yes → contingency
○ No → have clear boundaries
● John Dunn → democracies are ‘imperfect, unfair and unequal’
,De Dijn, A. (2020). Freedom: An unruly history. Harvard University Press.
Chapter 1: Athens - Plato the Republic
● Narrative starts in Greece (sparta, soeza, athens)
○ Athens are classical textbook example of democracy
● Greek idea of self rule became historical point of ID formation against persian threat of
occupation and wars
● When greeks defeated persians their particulatity was celebrated especially their reign
● Herodotus (historian) portraits greeks as freedom minded spirits against persians as more
hierarchical autocratically ruled
● Greek understanding of freedom implied that individual freedom cannot be understood
without collective freedom
● Nevertheless greek freedom cult was important intellectual imperative in history of thought:
“importance of greek cult of freedom as intellectual construct cannot be overstated as an
identification of freedom w democracy has had a long lasting impact on western political
thinking”
● Freedom was important device but not accessible to many like we know it today - they were
strongly exclusionary for slaves, women and metioks such as aristotle
● Women in the public sphere had a marginalised status in the exterior
● Showed how greeks thought abt how to be free and how to institutionalise it
● Greeks interpreted freedom mainly as opposite against slavery
● Greeks interpreted freedom mainly as self rule instead of free from state intervention
● Popper (1945): “when we say that our western civilization derives from the Greeks we ought
to realise what it means. It means that the greeks started for us that great revolution which
it seems, it still in its beginning - the transition from the closed to the open society”
● Irony philosophers were critical of democracy as ideal form of gov
○ Aristotle: democracy vs politeia → institutional design of values would be more
productive
○ Plato: democracy not a system of wisdom
■ But who should rule?
■ Emphasises freedom but also human happiness as most important
virtue/value to rule in different models
■ Collective freedom offered by democratic regimes are necessary
precondition for preserving individual independence
■ Critical bc cannot trust intellectual capacity of citizens of democracies
■ Analogy of cave: only the ones seeking for truth and wisdom can rule
Own notes
, ● Greeks were “free” // Persians were “ruled and enslaved”
● Perhaps invented concept of political freedom
○ Freedom as political value
○ Not the same as our conception of political freedom (ie: limited government, bill of
rights, written constitution, separation of powers)
● Democratic conception of freedom = a free state was a state in which the people controlled
the way it was governed; it was not a state in which government interference was limited as
much as possible
● Greeks believed in freedom — ability to control the way they are concerned
○ Crucial for preservation of personal security and individual preference
○ Individual freedom cannot exist without collective freedom
● Political organisation
○ Greeks differed from their neighbours bc they were free
○ Persians and Egyptians = richer and more sophisticated
● Thracians and Scythians = fiercer warriors
● Oligarchs: opposed democracy in principle and propagated the idea that a small elite of
wealthy and wellborn citizens should govern
○ Democracy, they argued, was not really the rule of all. Rather, it gave undue power
to the poor, who in every society constituted a numerical majority over the rich →
tyranny by the poor
○ “The common people do not want to be slaves in a city with good government. They
want to be free and hold power. Bad government is of little concern to them “
● Sophists: professional educator who toured the Greek world, offering instruction in subjects
including politics and ethics and conveying more practical skills like rhetoric → bc of growing
political importance
○ Every kind of government is designed to benefit those in power
○ Athenian democracy gave predominant power to one social group—the less well-off
—thereby excluding others, particularly the wealthy, from power
● Plato
○ Human happiness > freedom and individual independence
○ Best possible regime not democracy but ruled by the ‘best man’ - person most likely
to lead his subjects to a good life
○ The Republic: outlandish ideas about the political danger of poetry and song, the im-
portance of mathematical knowledge for political leaders, and the proper position of
women in politics
○ Legitimate political regime → regime acted in the interest of both rulers and ruled
alike
○ Rejected
■ Oligarchs → politics was not just abt power & the elites/wealthy have bare
passion for wealth so not fit to rule
■ Democracy so conducive to individual independence was problematic →
man can take advantage of situation and establish personal rule
○ Best regime: rule by philosopher-king. He wanted political power to be given to
leaders who, from an early age, were rigorously trained in, among other subjects,
martial arts, mathematics, and astronomy & learn philosophy
LECTURE 2: Foundation of politics
Chapter 2: the Republic and the Empire
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