Politics, Science, and the Art of Interpretation

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The papers in this panel turn to classical political theory to investigate how best to understand politics and the character of political science. Our first two papers consider Aristotle's political science. Pangle investigates how Aristotle's evaluation of political rule and its aims differs depending on whether he likens politics to an art or a praxis: whereas conceiving of politics as an art emphasizes the happiness of the ruled, conceiving of it as a praxis sees political rule as an "opportunity to put one’s excellence into activity in the best way," and therefore as good primarily for the ruler. Although both frameworks seem to justify monarchy, Pangle argues that each is incomplete on its own and in tension with the other. Attention to the deficiencies in each framework and their proper reconciliation points away from monarchy to republican self-government.
Where Pangle asks how Aristotle's political science understands the nature of political rule, Owen asks how Aristotelian political science stands in relation to his natural science. He argues that when Aristotle's political thought is viewed in relation to his natural science, a puzzling connection between the two emerges, rooted in an ambiguity regarding human nature. On the one hand, Aristotle's natural science sees human beings as "the most complete of the works of nature." On the other hand, nature leaves human beings fundamentally incomplete, requiring us to use intellect and habit to go beyond nature to remedy the deficiency. Aristotle's presentation of the relation of political philosophy to natural science reflects this ambiguity. Is political philosophy not only part of the same enterprise as natural science, but also its culmination? Are the two fundamentally separate? Owen argues that, for Aristotle, political science and natural science are deeply intertwined, and yet can never fit together as a harmonious whole.
Herold examines the political thought of Cicero and his evaluation of Epicurean philosophy, which had its origins in Greece but became popular among leading citizens in the Rome of Cicero's day. Epicureanism seems to ground its hedonistic account of human nature and its rejection of political participation as significant for human happiness in an atomistic natural science. It thus offers a connection between political philosophy and natural science that appears far more straightforward than in Aristotle's presentation. And yet, Cicero shows that the Epicurean psychology is, in crucial ways, untenable and its relation to natural science more fraught than it initially appears. Herold suggests that although Cicero presents a critique of the soundness of Epicureanism and of the civic effects of its growing popularity, he takes both its political and its natural philosophy more seriously than scholarship on Cicero usually acknowledges. Attention to his critique of Epicureanism as a popular philosophy also reveals his unique contribution to the history of political thought.
The ambiguities about how best to understand politics and nature extend also to interpreting the texts of classical political thought themselves. If, as scholars of political theory now recognize, many of the most important texts in the history of political thought were written esoterically, what does that mean for how we should read them? Is it possible to develop a methodology of esoteric reading and interpretation? Drawing on Aristotle's claim that not only science but also arts "can be examined with an eye to enumerating the principles of excellence in their practice," Hawley proposes a set of principles that can guide the interpretation of esoteric texts. If, as classical political philosophers in particular seem to have believed, the structure and method of writing is fundamentally connected to and reveals something about the subject matter being addressed, then understanding how to interpret esoteric writing is a necessary step in understanding the political thought of antiquity and beyond.

Sub Unit

• Related Groups / Society for Greek Political Thought

Individual Presentations

• Aristotle on Politics as Art and Praxis - Lorraine Pangle, University of Texas at Austin

• Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics in Relation to His Natural Science - J. Judd Owen, Emory University

• Cicero's Evaluation of Epicureanism and its Political Influence - Carly Tess Herold, SUNY Geneseo

• Literacy between the Lines: Toward a Methodology of Esoteric Reading - Michael C. Hawley, UNC Chapel Hill

Chair

• Erik Dempsey

Discussants

• Ariel Helfer Wayne State University

• Erik Dempsey