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History of Political Thought - Summary of all lectures 1-12

Name: History of Political Thought - Summary of all lectures 1-12
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Author: Yasmijnovervelde

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Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU)

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Political Philosophy

Summary of all the lectures 1-12. Covers thinkers Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Tocqueville, Mill, Marx & Engels, Arendt & Rawls.

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History of Political Thought
Lectures samenvatting
Lecture 1 – Intro + Plato (L1)
Intro
Understand ‘history of political thought’ as the continual struggle of ancients & modems. Refers to
picture; the crowning. Symbolic.
1. What alternatives are there to liberal democracy? Dictatorship, theocracy (church),
technocracy, oligarchy, aristocracy, absolute monarchy. What is better? (Direct democracy)
Two important distinctions: Absolutism vs constitutionalism & anchients vs. moderms
2. What is better: doing injustice or suffering it? Stealing a bike or having your bike stolen?
Enslaving someone or being slaved?

Socrates
Is the lead, formulates Plato’s ideas. Mill: ‘most virtuous man’. His mom was a midwife and he used
that word maieutics, elenchus & irony. Elenchus: used during dialogue, ‘ping-pong answers’. Irony:
‘the only thing I know is that I know nothing’, to bring out the truth. Sometimes taken too seriously.
He questions opinions or doxa -> aporia (state of despair). Because he questioned people’s opinions
so much they go into a state of despair. Vs. main opponents: sophist, were consultants, were hired to
do trainings in rhetorics, to win debates, speak better etc. Socrates exposed them, made many enemies,
he was tried in court for impiety + corrupting the youth, eventually the death sentence in 399 BC.

Plato
Was born an aristocratic, was destined to go into politics. But he was an unsuccessful political advisor.
Became Socrates pupil. Eros = strong desire, to go into either politics or philosophy, chose for
philosophy. Wrote 35 dialogues, 13 letters or less. He was the founder of the Academy. Was both
admired and despised (by Popper: fender of totalitarian ideas). Whitehead: ‘the safest general
characterising of the European philosophical tradition is that it is a series of footnotes to Plato. 1
dialogue stands out; Politeia (means constitution or regime, form of government). Politeia book 1:
setting: kind of theatre, drama unfolding. Drama is in the bad arguments. Setting in book 1: festival –
city. The philosophical place: between festival and city or religion and political, his dialogue’s do not
take place in either, they start the dialogue in between. Dialogue is important to deepen the argument.
‘The forceless force’.

Key question
Turns to one key question in the entire book: what is (political) justice? (& does justice make you
happy?) in book 1 answered by 3 people: Cephalus (old man, religious), Polemarchus (his son,
followed Socrates) & Thrasymachus (opponent Socrates). Cephalus: keep promises, speak truth
(Socrates doesn’t agree). Polemarchus: harm enemies & benefit friends (Socrates also argues
insufficient). Thrasymachus: everyone knows, very simple: interest of the stronger, plus: injustice is
beneficial (Socrates responds with weak answer, argument isn’t entirely of the table). Problem: reply
to Thrasymachus?

Politeia book 2
Reply to the cynics. ‘Might makes right’. Problem is deepened: two friends of Socrates: Glaucon &
Adeimantus resume the argument. Deepened the position to make a better discussion. Question to
Socrates: is justice a good in itself? Or is it only good if it brings good consequences? Or both? All
values in the world fall under one of these categories. They tell a story: Rings of Gyges (ring with a
stone makes invisible/visible, without consequence), who would not want to have such a ring?
Because injustice gives good benefits. This is the example of the happy unjust man, happily unjust is
possible. Imagine: unhappy just man (Jezus).

Way towards a solution
Let’s study the in a different way; study justice on a larger scale, like in the state, study justice in the
state, then in the soul. Best regime: kallipolis (beautiful city). More than analogy: his most

,fundamental idea: the character of the state depends on the character of its rulers and vice versa.
Makes it hard to be a good person in a strict regime. Is interrelated.

Lecture 2 – Plato II
Recap lecture 1
Relation Socrates – Plato? What’s the book’s main problem? What is the proposed way towards a
solution?
Readings Politea:
Book I: setting + problem: what is justice?
Book II: deepening: absolute good? + state/soul analogy
Book IV: four virtues in city and soul
Three rulers:  selection & breeding
Rulers education & training
Auxiliaries common possession of goods, wifes, children
Workers

State Virtues Soul
Rulers Prudence Reason
Auxiliaries Courage Spirit (thymos)
Workers Temperance Desires
Harmony = justice = harmony

Book VII: allegory of the cave education of philosopher kings
Allegory of the cave: 1. Phenomena (appearances). 2. The good 3. The forms/ideas 4. Philosopher-
kings. “Unless said I philosophers will become kings in our states or those whom we now call our
kings and rulers take to the pursuit of philosophy seriously and adequately, there can be no cessation
of troubles dear Glaucon for our states, nor I fancy for the human race either.

Book VIII: four corrupt regimes / Book IX: the tyrant; the just are happier than the unjust
Kallipolis: Love of:
Aristocracy Wisdom
 Timocracy Honor
 Oligarchy Money
 Democracy Pleasures
 Tyranny Self
Political AND moral decline (regime > man)
Democracy: “To begin with. Are they not free? And is not the city chock-full of liberty and freedom
of speech? And has not every licence to do as he likes” “it is obvious that everyone would arrange a
plan for leading his own life in the way that pleases him”
‘This is the most beautiful of polities as a garment of many colours, with every type of character
would appear the most beautiful”
“A delightful form of government anarchic and motley assigning a kind of equality indiscrimately to
equals and unequals alike”
Democratic man: “Such a one expends money and toil and time no more on his necessary than on his
unnecessary pleasures” “turning over the guard house of his soul to each as it happens along until it is
sated as if it had drawn the lot for that office an then in turn to another disdaining none but fostering
them all equally” “day by day indulging the appetite of the day” ”and there is no order or compulsion
in his existence but he calls this life of his life of pleasure and freedom and happiness and cleaves to it
to the end”

Book IX: the tyrant; the just are happier than the unjust
Three conclusions: 1. tyrant is most unhappy; the more just the happier. 2. Among lovers of wisdom,
honor and money only the first one can judge the other two and hence must be believed. 3. Rule of
reason gives pleasure to all parts of the soul while the alternatives do not.

, Conlusions
Plato defends:
 Moral and political absolutism
 Intertwining of rulers & regime
 Aristocracy – indeed epistocracy:
 Justice as harmony
 Justice as giving happiness

Lecture 3 – Aristotle
(book I-IV meest belangrijk) Background: defined by two contrast: 1. Macedonia & Athens, he grew
up with royalty, wealthiness, teacher of Alexander the Great. As an adult moved to Athens, was an
outkast because of dialect etc. He flew Athens when there was anti-Macedonian critics. Empire
politics vs city-state politics, Aristotle’s was about empire. 2. Academy & lyceum, he was thought at
Academy, but teached at lyceum, his own school, set in contrast to the Academy.
Wrote on logic, human soul, animals, economics, extremely versatile but all connected. So man
scientific disciplines. Started from empirics (daxa = opinions that people have). He thought there has
to be something to other’s opinions. You can call him founder of political science. Finally he distinct
his subject under theoretical reason & practical reason. Political knowledge for him is what
constitution do we have to establish.

Philosophical background
Painting difference: Plato holds book philosophy pointing upwards, Aristotle holds book Ethics
downwards, illustrates the difference.
Distinctions:
Substance / form: also distinction in states
Potentiality / actuality; can be shaped into one
Forms immanent, not transcendent; within your body is the form of you as a human; but being a
human being was somewhere else (refer to triangle’s L2); forms are in the things. This is distinction
where Plato & Aristotle begin to differ.
Similarity between the two: Plato; objective values do exist.
Aristotle argues that everything in nature has a purpose; everything has an end. Telos = end, purpose
(vb; acorn > oak tree) teleogy is not predictive or deterministic. Normative requirement can be
derived; people are ought to fulfil their job, duty to make children, because nature demands that.

Politica book I
Polis exist by nature and is prior to the individual. Nowadays politics: individual first, city comes
after. Aristotle: people are born into a polis, again nature demands that and that defines them. Man is
by nature a zoon politikan (man is by nature a social and political animal). Difference between people
and the rest of nature; loros (=reason). They have a themos: all human acts & associations are good.
Ethics: individual; eudaomonia (happiness)
Politics: common; the good life, justice
Polis exists not for mere life; but for good life > virtue.
Distinction between doing the minimum and the maximum, and the good polis aims at the maximum.

Virtue (arete)
= excellence , you can speak of the virtue of human being. Someone who is good at being a human
being, fulfilling all potential. But; virtues must be practiced and trained ‘second nature’ to be a good
human. Virtues come in two types; intellectual and moral. Every virtue is a mean. (between two
extremes; between too little and too much) Vb: courage: cowardness vs recklessness.

Natural order: example
God villages together: city/state (polis) = autarky
(Free) men all households together: village

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