In this article we intend to establish the bases that Martín de Azpilcueta demonstrates his foundation of political authority to reflect on how this thinker articulates his argument to present the people as the original holder of the civil power by natural right. To achieve this objective it will be present how the author relates and distinguishes the ecclesiastical power from secular or civil power. So, it will be shown how the Spanish thinker establishes his foundation of popular civil authority by claiming that civil power legitimizes itself by having its origin in God because it is your natural order and it is given immediately to the community of mortals. According to the thought of Martín de Azpilcueta, it is possible to consider that the secular political authority has the people as its legitimate depository and results in the original equality of all men in public life. In order to accomplish the objective presented in this paper, we will specifically study Notabile tertium present in the work Martín de Azpilcueta called Relectio C. Novit de Iudiciis first published in Coimbra in the year 1548.
The problem of inequality is presented as a constant object of reflection in the philosophy of Rousseau, pervading several of his works. Seeking to analyze the relationship between social inequality and political corruption in Rousseau's thought, through the defense of the hypothesis that social inequality is a phenomenon responsible for the advent of political corruption, we intend, in this article, first, to examine the distinctions between natural inequality and social inequality, or establish their specific characteristics, as Rousseau understands each; second, to analyse how social inequality can produce political corruption, that is, to understand why inequality of wealth, in producing luxury, can thus engender political corruption, and thirdly, to show which are the most drastic consequences of social inequality in the republic. Thus, we aim to establish a fruitful debate and a consistent reflection.
This article points out that Henrik Enroth often seeks to reveal things that are not obvious. An invitation to manifest good political science is in that sense an invitation not only to hold anybody to things they want to stand up for, but also to implicitly discern what is especially important to say in political science right now. We may manifest walls around the points of contention, but these texts are actually surprisingly consistent: The main thread associates the good political science with life. Adapted from the source document.
By looking into the relation between democratic political regimes, Alexis de Tocqueville sees that an increase of commerce & industry, the ever-growing equality among citizens & the fact that each nation in the international community increasingly resembles each other, makes it intolerable for the democratic man to resort to war. Democracies do not like war & they mistrust the military spirit. War becomes rarer. But when it finally arises, its intensity & scope are totally unusuaI. Tocqueville finds the causes of this paradox in the very nature of democratic armies as well as in the defense of democratic liberty & the fundamental equality of all human beings. He is convinced that to secure a moderate democracy, the main challenge of democratic nations in international relations is to find the right balance between self-interest & great political principles. Adapted from the source document.
In Karl Popper's famous book, The Open Society and Its Enemies, appears the formulation social engineering. That is an unfortunate wording. There is nothing mechanical in Popper's political strategy. The keywords are rather piece-meal & trial & error. It is even possible to characterize Popper as -- up to a point -- anti-rationalistic. His warning that we should not think too much of our knowledge of the functioning of the social world & of our ability to make forecasts, reminds one of what a critic of the French Revolution like Edmund Burke had to say. We should start with the delivered institutions, diagnose what is working badly &, aware of possible error, try to improve it. That said, one is not surprised of meeting a strain of antipolitics in Popper's philosophy. Although Popper welcomes measures to clear away suffering & distress, it is uncertain how he would balance his negative utilitarianism against individual freedom. He is distrustful of political power. The idea that democracy gives the people the instrument of governing is an illusion. Democracy's point is to make it possible to dismiss a government (notice the parallel with his methodology, a government is a kind of hypothesis, the election an opportunity for falsification.) However, it is not Popper's political philosophy in a substantial meaning that makes him worth studying, but his theory of the critical discourse, a theory that is very relevant for a reformistic political strategy. The idea of the Popperian discourse is not to get the parties closer emotionally, not to reach a compromise, not even to convince, but for me to listen to & learn from the criticism of my hypotheses. People with divergent standpoints should not be kept out of the discourse, they should be welcomed. Popper admires Greek culture up to Socrates & he emphasizes its openness to influences from other cultures along the shores of the Mediterranean. That is in keeping with Popper's antinationalism. Nationalism fattens stupidity & is often the cause of devastating violence. In his later works Popper regularly uses an evolutionary model & his theory of language is no exception. He sets forth how the development of describing, language's third function besides expressing & warning, created the possibility of storytelling. Now, stories can be true & false, & that makes language's fourth function necessary, the function of argumentation, of proving or disproving of what has been said. Lying, however, is a wonderful invention. To lie, to say what is not, but could be true, is a nursery for fantasy & creativeness. 33 References. Adapted from the source document.
The notion of public opinion as a process cannot be limited solely to the empirical basis of a theory, it must also focus on the position that this notion occupies with respect to the interpretation of society. Jürgen Habermas's approach to public opinion stems from his classic work on Bourgeois Advertising. Habermas constructs the Normative Theory of Democracy, which is based on the communicative conditions in which a Discursive Formation of the Opinion and Will of a public formed by the citizens of a State can take place as an unfolding of the analyzes about the public opinion. In this argumentative way, Habermas takes up the historical-philosophical project of modernity, attributing to the public opinion the function of legitimizing the political domain through a critical process of communication based on the principles of a rationally motivated consensus. The scope of this article is to make explicit the constitutive elements of the habermasian reflections on the Rational Formation of Opinion and Will, since it is from this primordial concept that we can understand the legitimation of the Rule of Law. We will trace what led the habermasian reflection to seek the conditions of an authentic participation of individuals in a public space, where there is responsibility and solidarity in the execution of the solutions of the problems of a community, and its consequent unfolding that leads to the theory of political power.
A reading of David Hume with the intent to highlight components of a reformistic approach to social change. The well-known formulation about "reason as the slave of passions" poses the first problem. In spite of this, it is maintained that reason plays a decisive role in Hume's theory of knowledge as in his practice as a political philosopher. Connected with this problem is Hume's skepticism, which is based on the discovery of the logical impossibility of inductive inference. However, this theoretical skepticism does not lead to defeatism regarding the possibility of improving knowledge & society; it just leads to modesty &, paradoxically, to an even more important role for reason. A parallel to Hume's criticism of induction is his demonstration of the impossibility of deducing values from facts. Again, it is necessary to notice the difference between his theoretical position & his recommendations for politics. The task of the historian is to give a causal explanation of social institutions &, on the basis of this, point out values inherent in the institutions. This gives the instrument for a rational discussion of maintaining or reforming the institutions. Obviously, Hume is a relativist, but not in the usual & careless meaning of individual or collective subjectivism. Values are produced by men in a historical process, but as they stand before the historian & the politician, they are as objective as facts. Finally, it is worth mentioning that Hume with his view of the importance of an informed & critical discussion of social problems comes close to critical-rationalism. 28 References. Adapted from the source document.
This paper aims to explore the articulation of Marxism, psychoanalysis & political theory in the particular reading of Ernesto Laclau. Consequences in two main areas are analyzed: discourse theory & political philosophy. This author reconfigures the conceptual basis of hegemony & ideology from an original position close to the Althusserian tradition (by means of deconstruction, Foucauldian archaeology & Lacanian Psychoanalysis) to a standpoint that he himself has described as post Marxist. In that frame, his conception of discourse makes a claim for a renewal of the concept of hegemony, giving up the Marxist topic of base & superstructure. Adapted from the source document.
Can humanism be post-colonial? What is Africana Philosophy? Who is Lewis Gordon? This paper presents some typical elements of the Jamaican philosopher Lewis Gordon's thought and relates it to the field of Africana Philosophy. For this purpose, it seeks to delineate its theoretical influences and the usage of concepts, such as theodicy, bad faith and reason to understand anti-black racism. In this sense, the following argument pivots on Lewis Gordon's singular contribution to different areas of study, especially political philosophy, social sciences and the humanities. Keywords: Lewis Gordon; Africana Philosophy; Post-colonial Humanism; Existential Phenomenology. ; O humanismo pode ser pós-colonial? O que é a Filosofia Africana? Quem é Lewis Gordon? Este artigo apresenta alguns elementos típicos do pensamento do filósofo jamaicano Lewis Gordon e relaciona-o ao campo da Filosofia Africana. Para tanto, procura delinear suas influências teóricas e o uso de conceitos, como a teodiceia, a má-fé e a razão para entender o racismo anti-negro. Nesse sentido, argumenta-se em torno da contribuição singular de Lewis Gordon para diferentes áreas de estudo, especialmente filosofia política, ciências sociais e humanidades. Palavras-chave: Lewis Gordon; Filosofia Africana; Humanismo Pós-colonial; Fenomenologia Existencial.
In developing his materialist conception of history, Marx creates, at the same time, a critique to the Hegelian thought next to a critique of political economy. Those critiques are mainly concentrate in his works written throughout his youth, in particular 'The Misery of Philosophy'. Based on this work of Marx, the present paper aims to discourse on the metaphysics of political economy, whose critique is directed mainly to Proudhon responding to the work 'Philosophy of Misery', in which Proudhon tries to provide, in a metaphysical bias, the bases for the social problems, applying the Hegelian dialectic to the method of political economy. For Marx, the Proudhonist ideology, which is expressed in that work, is totally reformist and utopian. In contrast to the Proudhonist thought, and explaining simultaneously the foundations that constitute the theory of social being, which is woven by the capitalist mode of production, Marx publishes in 1847 his work 'The Misery of Philosophy' in response to Proudhon's 'Philosophy of Misery'.
