La relación entre patrimonio y derechos políticos en la obra de John Locke ha sido ampliamente discutida. Por un lado, se encuentran posiciones como las de Kendall y Tully que atribuyen un carácter democrático a la concepción lockeana sobre la sociedad civil. Por otro, interpretaciones como las de Ashcraft que le asignan un sesgo revolucionario e igualitario, próximo a la concepción de los Levellers. Sin embargo, a la luz de una serie de documentos, es posible discutir estas interpretaciones, como ya (...) lo han hecho diversos intérpretes parcialmente. Se mostrará aquí que Locke supone que la discusión parlamentaria compete a quienes, representando a los diferentes sectores productivos, discuten la promoción de sus actividades y que los trabajadores, al no disponer de la formación necesaria para la discusión sobre los asuntos públicos, no son considerados para participar del ejercicio parlamentario sino sólo de una resistencia excepcional. (shrink)

Este trabajo estudia críticamente seis posibles límites a la apropiación privada, individual, unilateral y desigual en el estado de naturaleza descripto por John Locke. I) la restricción expresada bajo la forma de dejar suficiente y tan bueno en común para otros; II) la prohibición del desperdicio de los frutos perecederos; III) asociada a esta segunda condición pero aplicada a la tierra, la prohibición de cercar tierra cuyos frutos se desperdicie; IV) la limitación propuesta por Macpherson, según la cual es una (...) condición de la apropiación mezclar el propio trabajo de modo personal con el objeto; V) el principio de caridad como derecho del necesitado a los medios de subsistencia; VI) la limitación que advierte Simmons, según la cual es posible derivar del principio de caridad un derecho al auto-gobierno, esto es, a no ser esclavizado a cambio de brindar, como es el deber del propietario al necesitado, los medios de subsistencia. (shrink)

This article offers a combined reading of Karl Löwith’s and Leo Strauss’s critique of social theory from the point of view of the natural law tradition broadly understood. Within the context of a growing interest in revisiting social theory’s debt to natural law, the piece seeks to unfold the connections between the two traditions without searching to restore any kind of natural law. Rather, it looks at their relationships as one of Aufhebung — the suspension and carrying forward — of (...) natural law premises within modern social theory. The works of these two writers point against conventional wisdom within social theory: Löwith’s secularization thesis calls into question the view of the irreligious nature of modernity’s historical break as well as its faith in immanent progress; Strauss’s reconstruction of natural law (right) gives due credit to the non-religious origins of modernity but at the price of withdrawing even more autonomy from any modern claim to self-assertion. Although some compatibility is recognizable in their critiques, I shall also be arguing that their substantive results point to opposite directions. A critical distance must also be maintained from their interpretations in the spirit of reinvigorating the project of modern social theory. (shrink)

Beginning with an analysis of the problematic relation of ‘the particular’ to ‘the universal’ in canonical political texts, this paper explores a variety of frameworks for the study of classical Greek political thought. Specifically, after investigating the influence of Quentin Skinner’s contextualism, the paper examines the ideas, approaches, and methods of Bernard Williams, Leo Strauss, and Josiah Ober. I draw attention to each figure’s distinctive motivations for returning to ancient Greece and to the influence of particular political ideals on those (...) motivations. I also assess their strengths and weaknesses and offer a critical commentary on their chief ideas. Toward the end of the paper, I outline a novel dialectical framework for the study of classical Athens – one that emphasizes the remoteness of the ancient past and the contribution that our studies might make to self-knowledge. In sketching this framework, I focus on what I call ‘ethical Athens’, ‘philosophical Athens’, and ‘critical Athens’. (shrink)

To understand the political theory—and especially its alleged modernity—of Ogy Sorai, one of the most important philosophers of Tokugawa Japan, we need to understand the pivotal role that heaven, gods and spirits play in this theory. This is no easy task. This article will start with an analysis of the reasons of this difficulty: the numerous tensions and contradictions found in Sorai's remarks on the subject. Refusing to ignore one side of the story, refusing (...) also to reach too quickly a verdict of inconsistency, it also questions the rare attempt at a unified interpretation undertaken by Maruyama Masao. The article suggests that the solution is to understand that Sorai needs to speak from two different perspectives on the Way: the external perspective of the sages who grasp the relationships between the Way and the natural world as purveyor of the raw materials the Way is made of, and the internal perspective of commoners who must accept everything that is in a Way. This permits us to rescue the positivist interpretation of Sorai advanced by Maruyama and much criticized in recent years. (shrink)

Prior to 1651, Hobbes was agnostic about the existence of God. Hobbes argued that God’s existence could neither be demonstrated nor proved, so that those who reason about God’s existence will systematically vacillate, sometimes thinking God exists, sometimes not, which for Hobbes is to say they will doubt God’s existence. Because this vacillation or doubt is inherent to the subject, reasoners like himself will judge that settling on one belief rather than another is epistemically unjustified. Hobbes’s agnosticism becomes apparent once (...) we attend to his distinctions between the propositional attitudes one might adopt towards theological claims, including supposing, thinking, having faith and knowing. (shrink)

I propose to examine here, at the outset, what I call the asymmetry in Thomas Hobbes's thought between his treatment of civil war and war between states, that is to say, between the departure from the state of nature - when that is a condition prevailing between individuals - and the permanency in the state of nature when it forms a condition existing between states. Secondly, I will address the Kantian progression beyond this asymmetry through the dual introduction of the (...) idea of progress and of ‘cosmo-political’ peace. The attention given in recent years by Habermas to the Kantian idea of perpetual peace [Habermas, 1996], the recent events in Kosovo and Chechnya, and their implications for the shape of an international penal tribunal to judge crimes against humanity, invigorate the questions of civil peace and of rights which transcend state frontiers. (shrink)

This essay presents a skeleton of a potential conceptual framework for human flourishing in a free society. Its aim is to present a diagram that illustrates the ways in which its topics relate to one another and why they do. It argues for a plan of conceptualization rather than for the topics themselves. It emphasizes the interconnections among the components of the schema presented. It sees an essential interconnection between objective concepts, arguing that all of the disciplines of human action (...) can be integrated into a paradigm of human flourishing based on the nature of man and the world. (shrink)

This article explores the origins of the problematic of political community by considering it in relation to the founding principles of `modern thought'. These principles are identified with the extirpation of moral values and ends from nature, in keeping with the rise of a `disenchanted' and mechanical scientific world-view. The transition from an `ancient' to a `modern' world-view is elaborated by drawing upon the work of Hans Blumenberg and Leo Strauss. The `demoralization' of nature, it is claimed, projects the formation (...) of the political commons into the space of history, a space within which community must be produced via artifice on the part of the willing subject. This Leitbild of modern community is examined through a reading of Hobbes's Leviathan which, it is claimed, stands as the founding attempt to remember the political commons from the sphere of human immanence, without recourse to natural or theological externality. However, it is argued, nature occupies an intermediary and ambiguous position in Hobbes's thought, at once transcended and reinscribed into political life as a `hedonist anthropology' that defines the human animal. Further, Hobbes's insistence that conventionally produced standards need be misrecognized as necessary and non-contingent undermines their legitimacy from the standpoint of human autonomy. This failure to break decisively with the appeal to nature leads to a political community that is at best a simulacrum, far removed from the vision of ethical unity that characterizes the classical conception of the polis and political life. Yet, it is argued, Hobbes's strategy nevertheless presents the key to subsequent attempts to complete a political `revolt' against nature, as developed in the thought of Rousseau, Kant and Hegel. (shrink)

This article looks at the problems of the co-determination of the political within western metaphysics and political reflection, and considers solutions that are figured in terms of failure and incompletion. The focus is on the relation of the political to political modernity, its defenders and attackers, and those who seek to overcome the opposition.

Logic is concerned with the design or structure of arguments. It describes the forms of valid argument and is concerned with the public presentation and reception of arguments. Hence it has a close connection with politics and the public sphere, and with rhetoric as the science of persuasion. Philosophers have analysed the objective conditions of validation, that is, the justifiability of assertions about the world. This quest for objective and scientific validity in argumentation about the nature of reality dominated much (...) of the development of logic in the 20th century. Logical arguments are held to be successful as a result of the ‘force of reason’ rather than because one's opponents have been bribed or coerced. Logic involves the study of the abstract, deductive moves in argumentation rather than an empirical study of how actual arguments are conducted. However, there is also a tension between rhetoric and philosophy; Plato drew a clear distinction between knowledge and persuasion. Logic is intended to give security to the former. The historical drift of logic is towards abstraction, especially the use of mathematical forms of representation. The study of logic is an important component of any project on encyclopaedic knowledge, that is, with knowledge that circulates in the public sphere, but the globalization of culture has raised an important problem about the universalistic claims of traditions of logic, namely, are there different forms of logical reasoning? (shrink)

This article argues that, contrary to conventional wisdom, Xunzi’s and Hobbes’s understandings of human nature are qualitatively different, which is responsible for the difference in their respective normative political theory of a civil polity. This article has two main theses: first, where Hobbes’s deepest concern was with human beings’ unsocial passions, Xunzi was most concerned with human beings’ appetitive desires ( yu 欲), material self-interest, and resulting social strife; second, as a result, where Hobbes strove to transform the pathological (anti-)politics (...) of resentment into the politics of recognition by creating rational egalitarian citizenship under the all-encompassing constitutional sovereign power, Xunzi attempted to nourish human beings’ basic appetitive desires ( yu 欲) by instituting a li 禮 ordered civil entity. This article concludes by showing how Confucian civility that Xunzi reconstructed by means of the li 禮 can effectively deal with unsocial passions. (shrink)

This paper examines the theoretical ideas of Friedrich von Hayek, arguably the key progenitor of the global economic orthodoxy of the past two decades. It assesses Hayek's thought as he presents it: namely as a form of liberalism. Section I argues that Hayek's thought, if liberal, is hostile to participatory democracy. Section II then argues the more radical thesis that neoliberalism is also in truth an illiberal doctrine. Founded not in any social contract doctrine, but a form of constructivism, neoliberal (...) thought at its base accepts the paradoxical need to "discipline subjects for freedom", however this might contravene peoples' natural, social inclinations. The argument is framed by reference to Aristophanes' great comedy, The Birds, whose off shore borderless empire ironically prefigures the dream of neoliberal social engineers, and their corporate supporters.
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John Locke é conhecido, sobretudo, por ser um dos fundadores do liberalismo. No entanto, pesquisas recentes apontam para novas interpretações do pensador inglês. No caminho dessa tendência, o objetivo deste texto é analisar os elementos republicanos na "Carta sobre a tolerância" de Locke. John Locke is mainly known for being one of the founders of Liberalism. However, recent research points to new interpretations of the English thinker. On the way of this trend, the aim of this paper is to analyze (...) the republican elements in the "Letter on Toleration" of Locke. (shrink)

This essay examines the relationship between Eric Voegelin and Leo Strauss in order to show the central themes necessary to elucidate their philosophical positions. The essay reveals the centrality of the figure of Plato as a point of departure to understand the agreement and the disagreement concerning fundamental questions (such as the way of reading ancient texts, the importance of the historical perspective or the importance of the study of the past in order to orient the modern science) which revolves (...) around the issue of the relation between revelation and philosophy. The work concludes with an identification of the common core of both thinkers that allows us to understand their differences (homogeneity or heterogeneity of reality and the human) and, moreover, identifies both perspectives with a «foundational» (Voegelin) or «negative» (Strauss) interpretation of Plato’s thought. (shrink)

In his dissection of the 1998 tobacco settlements, W. Kip Viscusi provides a window on how the ostensibly liberal public philosophy behind the modern American regulatory state betrays its foundational commitments. Animated by a moralizing concern with preventing harm to self, and a leftist antagonism towards corporate capitalism, “progressive liberalism” at first foundered in its war against the tobacco industry in the face of traditional liberal counterarguments about individual autonomy, knowledge of risk, and choice. Only when progressive liberals translated their (...) paternalist impulses into science‐centered arguments about ignorance and addiction, which involve barriers to autonomous choice and harm to others, did they succeed in turning the legal and regulatory tide against smoking. This dynamic raises questions about the future of individual autonomy in a science‐centered, progressive‐liberal modern polity. (shrink)

En su comentario a la Ética a Nicómaco, Averroes se ocupó del pasaje donde Aristóteles distingue entre las cosas que son justas por naturaleza y aquéllas que lo son en virtud de la ley. Su comentario es particularmente breve, pero plantea algunas dificultades importantes, como su alusión a un derecho naturale legale, que, según Leo Strauss, vendría a ser simplemente un derecho positivo de aceptación general. En este artículo se busca caracterizar lo justo natural y lo justo positivo en el (...) comentario de Averroes y mostrar el alcance de la variación de los criterios propios de la justicia positiva. (shrink)

Philosophers of education tend to mention Max Weber's social theory in passing, assuming its importance and presuming its comprehension, but few have paused to consider how Weber's social theory might consciously inform educational theory and research, and none have done so comprehensively. The aim of this article is to begin this inquiry through a pedagogical reading of Weber's social theory. The basis of my inquiry is Weber's claim in ‘Science as a Vocation’ that the moral purpose of scholarship is met (...) when it provides persons with ‘self-clarification’ and a ‘sense of responsibility’. Using this claim as guide, I make two arguments. First, I make the interpretive argument that Weber's descriptive social theory can be reconciled with his normative remarks about pedagogy. Second, I make the critical argument that Weber's conception of education not only withstands objections, but that it can also help us to discern blind-spots obscured by the objectors' intellectual positions. Ultimately, I conclude that Weber's social theory should influence educational scholars, particularly, by serving as a sober guide for persons who would do well to interrogate the purposes of their work in a time and place where the practice of education is stuck between two undesirable purposes, increasing bureaucratisation and charismatic reform. (shrink)

Many scholars in recent years have focused their efforts on revealing the connection of philosophy and authority. Basically, from Nietzsche onwards, philosophyhas witnessed ongoing efforts for “will to power” by some philosophers and of course this motivated many philosophers to take part in politics. Nonetheless, thismoot point engendered a serious risk and not only contrasted with the Socratic contributions, but also paved the way for the advent of a new way of making politics where philosophy and scientific prestige are being (...) manipulated following certain interests. By comparing the US and Argentinian climates, this paper explores to what extent philosophy can and must remain independent of politics. Even though one might think of Heidegger as a clear example of this relationship, there are many other philosophers who were interested in politics and committed to political parties. One of the aspects that characterizes this new way of politics is the theatrification of reality, and philosophers are part of this process. To some extent, the prestige given to scholars for their contribution to society is being conferred to some privileged groups to gain more legitimacy, precisely in a world where the classical institutions are gradually declining. (shrink)

Este artículo estudia la aplicación de la ley de la naturaleza en el estado de naturaleza. En este sentido, se analizará la definición abstracta de libertad, su correspondencia con el concepto práctico de libertad natural y la oposición de este último con la esclavitud que supone nacer sometido a un gobierno despótico. Posteriormente, se considerará la potestad de infringir castigos bajo pena capital y su derivación, a través de la guerra justa, en la figura de esclavitud legítima. De este modo, (...) se plantearán las tensiones que surgen al contrastar la crítica del absolutismo y la conquista con la legitimación de un poder privado despótico. (shrink)