Political philosophy: core concepts and theories

¶ … tripartite theory of political power? Compare and contrast Plato and Aristotle's political philosophy. According to Professor Dennis Dalton what is "The Break?"

Because of the American tendency to bifurcate conceptions of morality and the soul from political structures, it can be at times difficult to grasp the political philosophy of Plato, whereby the nature of the human soul and Plato's ideal political "Republic" are integrally related. For Plato the human soul was merely the state writ small. Both had the same inherent structure or form. "The just man will not be any different from the just city with respect to the form itself of justice, but will be like it" (The Republic, 435b).

Plato's idea republic or city-state thus has three classes. But every person's soul had a dominant feature. One's role in the state depended upon which quality one's soul possessed in greatest amount. For instance, the leading rulers of the state were known as the guardians. These people were protected by the auxiliaries or militia against the lower 'hands' or levels of the state apparatus in the form the craftsmen and farmers, whom represented the third and lower functions of the soul.

Thus according to Plato, there were three classes of the state because the human soul had three parts, a calculating part, a warlike or angry part (439e-441c) and a desiring or striving part. (437b-439c). The tripartite city corresponded to the tripartite soul (440d-441c). The angry parts or the army controlled the herds of the sheep-like working classes, while the army protected the calculating or ruling parts. (440d). The ability of humanity to go war thus protects the calm and ruling governance head, and controlled the base desires of the grasping hands.

Aristotelian theory in contrast said that the soul was a unified whole but had many parts. Aristotle agreed that the soul politically structured like a society of person with each part of the soul performing some distinct function. But these functions were numerous. Also, rather than privileging certain classes of human beings, Aristotle was more inclined to stress the organic similarity of the different yet equally necessary functions of the human body, soul, and political body, rather than positing a necessary hierarchy. (Aristotle, On the Soul, 412a5-412a10)

The great break in political philosophy that Dennis Dalton speaks of is not so much between these two philosophers, but Machiavelli's decisive break with classical political philosophy, infusing realism in Plato's idealism and Aristotle's more biological analysis of the political and moral human body.

If Thomas Hobbes, James Madison, Aristotle and Machiavelli were alive today, how do you think they would advise president Bush the current situations of the American occupation of Iraq and the proposed June 30th transition of power to a new Iraqi government council?

Hobbes' world of chaos without a dominant rule of authority would seem to mirror the current political situation in Iraq. However, Hobbes, because of the instability that inevitably occurs with a change of regime, would not have supported the invasion of Iraq in the first place. Hobbes supported a strong chief executive, and chiefly feared not a world under the thumb of a tyrant, but of the potential excesses of republican or legislative governance. Thus, he would suggest that Bush forestall the transition of power and establish a new head of Iraq that would support American self-interest in the region. This was part of George Bush's duty as a leader of America -- to ensure his own stability as a leader and also to importantly ensure that no further Iraqi dangers to American interests. The future Iraqi leader should have strong support, but more importantly also a strong army to enforce that leader's will.

Machievelli would be more likely to stress Bush's need personally, to keep up his own personal political stability. He would be less concerned with theoretical overviews about the nature of governance then helping Bush remain in power as a leader. He would suggest Bush placate opponents of the Iraqi War with surface rhetoric and flatter America's supporters in the United Kingdom. Bush should least pay lip service to the United Nations and to governance of the Iraqi people. But behind the scenes, the Italian realist would whisper to Bush, how it was necessary for the stability of Bush as a world leader of America to make sure that those who came to power were carefully chosen and would uphold American interests.

Machiavelli, in contrast to Hobbes, might be slightly more nervous about foreign entanglements and the damage this could to do Bush's image at home and abroad and might have advised against the war to begin with -- although now Bush had embarked upon these interests, he should free himself of such entanglements to create as strong and desirable a world image for himself as possible. Madison, in contrast to both leaders, would frown upon Bush's efforts as a leader of the American nation, and stress the need to avoid foreign entanglements of a long-standing nature, and to preserve the institutions of democratic governance.

How do the ideas of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau compare and contrast?

The democratic British philosopher John Locke, in his 1680 essay on "Two Treatises of Government" wrote first and foremost to stress that the legitimate enforcement powers of government upon the populace comes from the analogical parental power of a father over his children. In other words, all human beings should be free to choose their livelihoods and courses of their lives, for better or for ill, and although the government may check some of those impulses when they infringe upon the rights of other human beings, all citizens have basic rights to governance and property and control over their own actions that a state cannot infringe upon without a legitimate purpose.