An informative pic for /lit/Plato advocated for more centralized system and unitary ideals; Aristotle advocated for political pluralism and a partnership of clans (which is the basis for a partnership of states in decentralized models).
>>24783826Maximum occupancy in Plato's system, under ideal conditions of civic unity, was 5040 people.
>>24783826Western understandings of decentralization comes from the institutional weakness and pluralism of the Dark and Middle Ages. Something which emerged organically, out of folk cultures rooted in the earth and context, not constructed by some philosophers from a different civilization from a thousand years ago that westerners didn’t even know about until we got their texts them from the Byzantines and Muslims. And when we finally got ahold of their works it was mostly academic monks that cared about them and whoever was in the universities of the high Middle Ages for a while until it spread outside of those confines during the early modern era. It wasn’t even until basically the last hundred years that a lay person in the west could read the works of these two.
>>24783881This is about the discussion -- not as an accident of history -- but its lineages as a debate.
>>24783826I wouldn't opposed Plato and Aristotle as opposites; they have much in common.Neither would support a Rawlsian or Nozickian liberal democracy. I think it's the nature/supernature divide in the early modern period that led us on that path. With that, all spiritual goods become an isolated sector governed by grace (particularly in Protestantism, but in the post-Reformation Roman Church as well). Election comes to be understood individually. The state then is not there to fulfill the good (telos) of man, the rational animal, but to help manage the allocation of finite goods that diminish when shared (as opposed to spiritual goods that increase when shared). Ethics becomes framed in terms of the desires/needs of the individual as over and against the community, rather than the pursuit of "becoming like onto God," which assumes that the Good is always diffusive and that virtue communicates itself outward by nature (think Plotinus taking in orphans).That's what gets you a state whose primary purpose is enabling the individual to be an individual, either by being a minimalist referee in the marketplace (conservative liberalism) or else by enabling the individual to become more individual and sever all links with custom and community they do not assent to (progressive liberalism).Both Plato and Aristotle, by contrast, ground their politics in a strong notion of man's telos and the polis as fulfilling that telos. That means there *isn't* an irresolavable pluralism. When Aristotle celebrates the "commonwealth" he is celebrating the self-determining, self-governing coalescence of the citizenry around a common good, not a pluralism where individuals chase their own privatized conception of the good in such a way as to support each other's individual pursuits (or at least avoid conflict). Recall that for Aristotle democracy is the most degenerate form of government, rule by the many for the good of the many. The modern ideal, even Fukuyama's moderated version, is still his degenerate "rule of many for the selfish pursuits of each," as opposed to the ideal "rule of the many for the good of the one (the polis itself)."
>>24784058Plato's system has no lineage beyond two corner cases. You can be a time capsule kept in vitro, like North Sentinel, or get designated as a cult and eradicated by a version of the FBI if you try to live that way within some larger political system.
>>24784288Aristotle opposes Plato's unitary model to a partnership of clans, that is a difference.Then there's Aristotle's denial that political and economical have the same science, that's a difference.Aristotle denies the rule of a wise man with his food argument, that's a difference as well.
Aristotle's water argument makes many less corruptable to few and one, meaning peer review is better.Food argument denies the philosopher king of Plato, which has for the most part set the foundation for democratic input.Aristotle also seems to prefer convention of these estates on the customs and laws rather than the need for arbiters.These are differences I think people should be keen to acknowledge.
By political pluralism, I don't necessarily mean individualism*
>>24784401It is not about historical lineage of events of and persons, but of ideas and debates.
Let me give an example:Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf -- I believe in his criticism of parliamentarianism, that Hitler is criticizing Aristotle.>Does anybody honestly believe that human progress originates in the composite brain of the majority and not in the brain of the individual personality?- HitlerWhen Hitler says >Does anyone honestly believe that human progress originates in the composite brain of the majorityIt seems like he's taking a knock at Aristotle's food argument: because the food argument suggests that human progress does come from the concord of many and their progressive communication as an assembly of hosts.I think a good example of seeing human progress in the composite brain of the majority apart from Aristotle's food argument, but perfectly illustrates how it leads to democratic thinking:The Ancap example of the Free Market.The rule of the Free Market is thinking along Aristotle's food argument: many contributors bring more food to the table, advancing and laying the foundation of their communication and friendship enables more advantages and discoveries. --That seems like a very Aristotelian bent to me. ...The stress on Decentralization itself... is IMHO another Aristotelian attitude taken to, stressing plurality of states and hosts rather than a more unitary method...
De Jouvenel, who goes after his teacher Alexis de Tocqueville, is probably the perfect example of how covertly Aristotelian the advocates of decentralization are.Here's an example of how Aristotle's partnership of clans & Aristotle's difference of political & economical science plays into that:De Jouvenel / Monarchical vs Senatorial>According to which of these two hypotheses is adopted, the conclusion is reached that the "natural" government is either the monarchical or the senatorial. But from the time that Locke utterly smashed up Filmer's fragile structure, the earliest political authority was considere to be the senate composed of fathers of families, using the word "families" in the widest sense.>Society must, therefore, have presented two degrees of authority, which were quite different in kind. On the one hand is the head of the family, exercising the most imperious sway over all who were within the family circle. On the other are the heads of families in council, taking decisions in concert, tied to each other only by consent, submitting only to what has been determined in common, and assembling their retainers, who have outside themselves, neither law nor master, to execute their will.De Jouvenel's distinction of Monarchical vs Senatorial here is the clearest homage to Aristotle. The distinction De Jouvenel uses here is the same Aristotle uses.Aristotle:>The rule of a household is a monarchy, for every house is under one head: >whereas constitutional rule is a government of freemen and equals.It follows through from Aristotle's reasoning, Whole comes prior to the part in his teleology -- that the political rule is distinct from economical rule -- that monarchy is economical unit (household unit) and political is for freemen and equals (the partnership of clans) -- political community is greater than the family or household, so monarchy is a lesser estate and only proper for economic utility, and among the freemen and equals must be "one among equals" -- a good example of this is how the Pope in Catholicism has preeminence over the Bishops, but in Orthodoxy the Pope is considered one among equals with no jurisdiction over them.
Rousseau, for instance, says royalist writers have always preferred Plato's view that political & economical have the same science over Aristotle's view that they differ.Why?You acknowledge they have the same science, then royal rule is justified far better because if a royal can govern himself and govern his estate, then that royal is well on his way to governing the state.But if you take Aristotle's outlook (the food argument) and acknowledge that political and economical have a different science -- then 1st if the royalty are going to have any know-how they are bound to democratic input, then also there's a concession that Monarchy is not really proper for political rule to begin with.Understanding that difference is a very big difference.
>>24783881Anyways, the common conventions about the Middle Ages and Decentralization are, in fact, Aristotle's political input in practice. A big promoter of this idea is Alexis de Tocqueville who appeals to the ancient constitution of Europe -- that constitution Tocqueville refers to is aligned to Aristotle's political ideas, the stress on decentralization is exactly that.De Jouvenel - Republic of Old>The republic of old had no state apparatus. It needed no machinery for imposing the public will on all the citizens, who would have had none of such a thing. The citizens, with their own wills and their own resources – these latter small at first but continuously growing – decide by adjusting their wills and execute by pooling their resources. >We do not find anywhere in the ancient republic a directing will so armed with its own weapons that it can use force. There were the consults, I may be told. But to start with there were two of them, and it was an essential feature of the office that they could block one another's activities. >Only those decisions were possible on which there was general agreement, and, in the absence of any state apparatus, their execution depended solely on the cooperation of the public. The army was but the people in arms, and the revenues were but the sums gifted by the citizens, which could not have been raised except by voluntary subscriptions. There was not, to come down to the essential point, an administrative corps.>In the city of old, no public office is found filled by a member of a permanent staff who holds his place from Power; the method of appointment is election for a short period, usually a year, and often by the drawing of lots, which was called by Aristotle the true democratic method.>It thus appears that the rulers do not form, as in our modern society, a coherent body which, from the minister of state down to the policeman, moves as one piece. On the contrary, the magistrates, great and small, discharge their duties in a way which verges on independence.>How was a regime of this kind able to function at all? Only be great moral cohesion and the inter-availability of private citizens for public office.Consider De Jouvenel's here:>It thus appears that the rulers do not form, as in our modern society, a coherent body which, from the minister of state down to the policeman, moves as one pieceHe's moreso complaining about modernity and Leviathan, but that is also contra Plato:It is Plato's ideal that society should form a coherent body which moves as one piece, that Plato expounds upon in Book 5 of Republic -- and which Aristotle is opposed to, by the examples De Jouvenel puts forward.If this difference isn't understood, I think a lot is being missed out if take Plato and Aristotle wholly from an Eclectic standpoint.
This theme of the Middle Ages and its laudable decentralization was first promoted by Alexis de Tocqueville -- De Tocqueville is mostly responsible for promoting that theme.And Tocqueville's big appeal is covertly that idea of Aristotle's partnership of clans: hence his stress on the Nobility most of all and opposition to centralization by Absolute Monarchy (which, like in Aristotle's constitutionalism, believes that monarchical rule is improper for political rule).
Hobbes' Leviathan might be the very foundation for modern states -- it might not be an idea of statehood built on the Summum bonum or highest good, but arguably I'll point this out just to show the importance of understanding this difference.Hobbes Leviathan promotes a kind of State Corporatism (State as one individual) like Plato advocates.Plato Republic:>And the city whose state is most like that of an individual man.>The best governed state most nearly resembles such an organism.Check. Hobbes makes the State like that of an individual man.Plato Republic:>so the entire city may come to be not a multiplicity but a unity.That is also confirmed in Hobbes' Leviathan: for Hobbes his State is more than just a partnership of clans bonded by a common idea, like Orthodoxy is.In Hobbes words:>This is more than Consent, or Concord; it is a real Unity of them all, in one and the same PersonAnd>The error concerning mixed government has proceeded from want of understanding of what is meant by this word body politic, and how it signifies not the concord, but the union of many men.Now consider also:Plato Laws:>That the man who receives the portion should still regard it as common property of the whole StateWhich is also found in Hobbes Leviathan:>Propriety of a subject excludes not the dominion of the Sovereign, but only of another subject.OrWhat about this community of pleasures and pains that Plato writes about in Republic? Where everyone feels mine and thine together.Plato Republic:>And there is unity where there is community of pleasures and pains–where all the citizens are glad or grieved on the same occasions of joy and sorrow?>And the chief cause of this is when the citizens do not utter in unison such words as ‘mine’ and ‘not mine,’Hobbes Leviathan reduces all wills, that is, all mines and thines, unto one will in unison:>that may reduce all their Wills, by plurality of voices, unto one Will:The measure of the State for Hobbes in a way is Plato's community of pleasures and pains.>But in a Common-wealth this measure is false: Not the Appetite of Private men, but the Law, which is the Will and Appetite of the State is the measure. So while it is true that De Jouvenel for instance is complaining about Modernity and Liberalism, De Jouvenel is also complaining about the true lineage of Plato's ideas in modernity in a way: that modernity is more centralized is in a way a fulfillment of Plato's ideas of more corporatist and unitary government.
Plato's Republic, Hobbes Leviathan, Italian Fascism, and North Korea Juche, they all advocate more unitary and corporatist politics.
>>24783826The thread is interesting, but I think you're both treating these things with too much haste and missing things for the sake of a thesis, and also too focused on today such you're applying a later conceptual apparatus on thinkers to whom they ill fit.>>24784288This anon gets it, and the response at >>24784468 misses the forest for the trees.
Another sample is from Plato's Laws.Plato agrees with Hobbes on the necessity of arbiters rather than a partnership of clans by mutual assent conducting laws and communicating that way.Plato Laws:>Athenian: And every man surely likes his own laws best, and the laws of others not so well.>Athenian: The next step will be that these persons who have met together, will select some arbiters, who will review the laws of all of them, and will publicly present such as they approve to the chiefs who lead the tribes, and who are in a manner their kings, allowing them to choose those which they think best. These persons will themselves be called legislators, and will appoint the magistrates, framing some sort of aristocracy, or perhaps monarchy, out of the dynasties or lordships, and in this altered state of the government they will live.Hobbes: The Sixteenth, Of Submission To Arbitrement; [OR, the NECESSITY of an arbitrary power]>And because, though men be never so willing to observe these Laws, there may nevertheless arise questions concerning a mans action; First, whether it were done, or not done; Secondly (if done) whether against the Law, or not against the Law; the former whereof, is called a question Of Fact; the later a question Of Right; therefore unless the parties to the question, Covenant mutually to stand to the sentence of another, they are as far from Peace as ever. This other, to whose Sentence they submit, is called an ARBITRATOR. And therefore it is of the Law of Nature, "That they that are at controversy, submit their Right to the judgement of an Arbitrator."
>>24784639Teleology, or defining things by their ends, is more Aristotelian in concept, though.Plato states from the beginnings and is more ontological than teleological.
>>24784639>you're applying a later conceptual apparatus on thinkers to whom they ill fit.De Jouvenel is using instances of Aristotle's Politics to criticize modern states.In ways which Plato wouldn't agree with: again, the idea of a state as one person is Plato's concept originally, later modernist people like Hobbes adapted to that, but that doesn't negate that Plato originally contrived this.
Consider, for instance:Karl Popper's Open SocietyHe says that Plato helped inspire many totalitarian regimes of the modern day.
>>24784651>>24784654Again, you're rushing past what's more essential. Re-read the anon at >>24784288:>When Aristotle celebrates the "commonwealth" he is celebrating the self-determining, self-governing coalescence of the citizenry around a common good, not a pluralism where individuals chase their own privatized conception of the good in such a way as to support each other's individual pursuits (or at least avoid conflict). Recall that for Aristotle democracy is the most degenerate form of government, rule by the many for the good of the many. The modern ideal, even Fukuyama's moderated version, is still his degenerate "rule of many for the selfish pursuits of each," as opposed to the ideal "rule of the many for the good of the one (the polis itself)."And there's absolutely teleology running all through Plato, especially in the Republic.
>>24784678I think the Catholic Church vs Orthodox Church in terms of hierarchy is a good example of this difference in centralization vs decentralization in terms of Plato and Aristotle.The Catholic Church is a more corporatist hierarchy with the Pope's jurisdiction on the top. It is more unitary like Plato advocates.But the Orthodox Church hierarchy is between bishops with no higher authority among the bishops. It is an autocephalous church.Let's go back to what you're referencing: >he is celebrating the self-determining, self-governing coalescence of the citizenry around a common good, not a pluralism where individualsOk, self-governing -- that is exactly like the Orthodox Church's hierarchy, it is pluralistic among the bishops, but it is not individualism, but a partnership of clans -- I don't mean individualism, but multi-party systems vs one-party systems.The Catholic Church is like a one-party system: it isn't a multi-party system where partnerships converge, but rather descends from the unity of the Pope.Catholic Church is more centralized as opposed to the Orthodox Church. It is also more unitary. Whereas the Orthodox Church seems to built on Aristotle's political ideals for its hierarchy.
Orthodoxy is a good illustration of how Aristotle advocates a partnership of clans (political pluralism / multi-parties) united around a common good -- not as a unitary body -- but as a concordant kind of body.
