Our Great U.S. Culture War Series, No.7a.
In this first of two pieces in the seventh of our series – Our Great U.S. Culture War. We discuss the requirements for a Republic. They are non-negotiable.
Plato
Citizen Responsibility
Up to this point we have been looking at the responsibilities of leaders in the proper formation of government. Plato believed in the philosopher king while his student Aristotle believed in the rule of law and the proper formation of a constitution consisting of the laws, traditions, and habits that together form the nature of a …
Why We Call It Political Science
Let us dive a bit deeper into Aristotle’s view of politics and how it differed from his teacher Plato. Previously we saw how Aristotle disagreed with his teacher Plato that only a philosopher king could properly rule. Aristotle believed that humans were inherently flawed and that reality required just laws to be supreme in order to …
Aristotle and the Types of Constitutions
We already saw how Aristotle, and Plato before him, saw the possibility of arranging the city state with rule either of the entire population of citizens, the few, or a single person. Each of these arrangements could be either good or bad. In an organization of the many, democracy would naturally lead to tyranny while polity (rule …
Aristotle
Earlier we saw that Plato believed that democracy would inevitably lead to tyranny. He believed this because he believed that the nature of man was immutable, and that the those in the ‘iron and bronze’ levels of society would be driven by their desire for the accumulation of wealth, and that those in the ‘gold and …
Plato on Democracy
We generally think of Athens as the birthplace of modern democracy. It was in fact, far more directly democratic than the United States is today. Individual citizens were given the power to vote on individual issues, not just for political leaders. And politically ambitious citizens, who were not aristocracy, sometimes made it to high-ranking positions. To be clear, only free …
The Modern Plato
As I was responsible yesterday for your overconsumption of wine, perhaps I can offer amends today. Remember that in the discussion of the nature of a chair, Plato hypothesized that the form of a chair existed separately from the existence of any particular chair or of the craftsman who make them. That form did not depend on space or …
What is Good
In my last article I mentioned that Plato lamented the Sophists use of language as a game, rather than as a tool to get to Truth. Since Plato, and his student Aristotle, had a major effect on both our modern scientific thought process and philosophical view of the world, it would be worth it to …