The paper examines Robert Filmer’s arguments in defence of the divine right of kings in Patriarcha, or The Natural Power of Kings. Filmer argues that human beings are not born free by nature and, as a result, are expected to obey the kings/monarchs absolutely with­out questioning, due to the arbitrary power and the divine right bestowed upon the kings. This position defended by Filmer is antithetical to the notion of natural freedom of (...) mankind defended by John Locke and other social contract theorists. Contrary to Filmer’s view, this paper suggests that Filmer exaggerated the power of kings. In this paper, I wish to critically examine Filmer’s arguments with which he supported his claim. The paper argues against Filmer’s divine right monarchy for the following reasons: (i) it lacks rational justification, (ii) it was founded on misinterpretation of the scriptures, and (iii) it fails to address the athe­ists’ question. In the final analysis, the paper concludes with the argument that the question of mutual exclusivity of the concepts in the discussion rests upon manifest misinterpreta­tions of divine right and the natural freedom of mankind. (shrink)

The seventeenth century was England’s century of revolution, an era in which the nation witnessed protracted civil wars, the execution of a king, and the declaration of a short-lived republic. During this period of revolutionary crisis, political writers of all persuasions hoped to shape the outcome of events by the force of their arguments. To read the major political theorists of Stuart England is to be plunged into a world in which many of our modern conceptions of political rights and (...) social change are first formulated. David Wootton's masterly compilation of speeches, essays, and fiercely polemical pamphlets--organized into chapters focusing on the main debates of the century--represents the first attempt to present in one volume a broad collection of Stuart political thought. In bringing together abstract theorizing and impassioned calls to arms, anonymous tract writers and King James I, Wootton has produced a much-needed collection; in combination with the editor’s thoughtful running commentary and invaluable Introduction, its texts bring to life a crucial period in the formation of our modern liberal and conservative theories. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The King and the Crowd: Divine Right and Popular Sovereignty in the French Revolution Robert G. Hamerton-Kelly Stanford University We French cannot really think about politics or philosophy or literature without remembering that all this— politics, philosophy, literature—began, in the modem world, under the sign of a crime. A crime was committed in France in 1793. They killed a good and entirely likable king who was the (...) incarnation of legitimacy. We cannot not remember that this crime was horrible... When we speak about writing, the accent is on what is necessarily criminal in writing. (Jean-François Lyotard, "Discussion Lyotard-Rorty" 583; quoted in Dunn 165) The condemnation ofthe king is at the crux ofour contemporary history. It symbolizes the secularization of our history and the disincarnation of the Christian God. (Albert Camus, The Rebel 120; quoted in Dunn 140) Susan Dunn makes a well-documented case that the death of Louis XVI was unconsciously understood, especially by the Jacobins, as a human sacrifice that was necessary for the founding of the republic. "Louis must die because the patrie must live," said Robespierre at the king's trial, and the representative Carra considered Louis "the source of corruption and servitude... the fatal talisman ofall our ills" whose death would cause the people to be "regenerated in morality and virtue" (Dunn 15-37). The king was a monster and the source ofall the ills, and his death 68Robert G. Hamerton-Kelly had the power to alleviate those ills and regenerate the nation. This image of the king as sacrificial victim persisted throughout the first half of the nineteenth century in French literature and politics, sometimes assimilating itself to the image of Jesus Christ who died for the sins of the world. Legitimist writers like Joseph de Maistre saw his death precisely in this light as a great Christian sacrifice that would do France and the world good (Dunn 28-37). The king as a sacred monster whose life causes all ill and whose death brings healing is the classic figure of the scapegoat or sacrificial victim identified by René Girard. Susan Dunn recognizes this but because she does not know Girard's mimetic theory she is not able to explain the significance of the scapegoat king. Her work is, indeed, as Conor Cruise O'Brien says in the foreword, a work ofdemonstration rather than argument, of evidence rather than interpretation. I offer a mimetic interpretation ofthe Jacobin claim that the death ofthe king was the human sacrifice that founded the republic, and an argument that a universally operative generative mechanism forged the historical events of the revolution.1 There is no essential difference between the sovereignty ofthe king and the sovereignty of the people. In both cases sovereignty arises from a metaphorical contract that threatens death to anyone who violates it. The royal metaphors are organic while the revolutionary metaphors are legal and rational, but they all express the sacrificial structure ofpolitical power. Revolutionary democracy imports the fiction ofrationality to obscure its sacrificial structure. The desire ofthe general will for contractual equality is a transformation of mimetic desire in search of a victim around which the bad violence ofmimetic rivalry can coalesce into the good violence of sacred order. Sovereignty, therefore, is structurally single and simple; it is violence transformed through the sacred into the powers oforder. Max Weber understood this in general ifnot in its particulars when he defined sovereignty as the monopoly of the means of violence within a single territory.2 1 Mimetic theory was discovered by René Girard. I have given an account of my understanding of it in 7Ae Gospel and the Sacred 129-52. The idea of a mechanism universally operative in human history isjustified in the emerging discipline ofevolutionary psychology. Such mechanisms are the result ofthe interaction ofgenetic and environmental factors in the process of evolution (see Robert Wright). 2 The precise quotation from Weber is as follows: "The state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a The King and the Crowd69 The transition from royal to popular sovereignty is a transformation of the basic pattern of victim and group. The... (shrink)

The Divine Right of Kings and the Right of Resistance in the Early Middle Ages. Kern demonstrates that the medieval ruler was dependent on God and on the people. Both are under God and under the law. Laws are not made but discovered. In order to be valid, a law does not have to be made by the state, but it has to be old and good. (Kern shows this also in his article 'Recht und Verfassung (...) im Mittelalter'.) Neither the ruler nor the people were 'sovereign' in the modern sense. Thus, 'Gottesgnadentum' (the divine right of kings) does not mean that the ruler can do and rule as he wants. (shrink)

Since the earliest human societies, there has been an ongoing struggle between hierarchy and resistance to hierarchy, and this struggle is a major driver of the evolution of moralities and of institutions. Attempts to initiate or sustain hierarchies are often met with resistance; hierarchs then adopt new strategies, which in turn prompt new strategies of resistance; and so on. The key point is that the struggle is typically conducted using moral concepts in justifications for or against unequal power and involves (...) the stimulation of the moral emotions. Both parties to the struggle treat morality as a valuable strategic resource; and the dynamic of interaction between hierarchs and resisters generates changes in that resource. The hierarch/resister struggle is in part a competition between moral concepts and justifications, and that competition drives the emergence of new moral concepts and justifications, just as competition in other contexts generates innovations. Among the moral concepts generated by the struggle are the following: authority, legitimacy, aristocracy, the divine right of kings, the mandate of heaven, natural rights, civil and political rights, constitutionalism, the rule of law, sovereignty, collective self-determination, exploitation, oppression, and domination. (shrink)

The article presents the political thinking of Suárez’s De opere sex dierum, a literary work which as yet does not count on a translation into Spanish. The article is divided into two parts. The first one describes and analyses the political thinking of this work, reaching the conclusion that the central theme is that of the distinction between economic and political power, carried out in order to save –faced with the theory of the divine right of kings– (...) the liberty and equality of all men and the contractual character of the State. The second part covers the relation of this work with Filmer’s Patriarcha, as well as the inspiration found in Suárez’s writing upon which to base the themes of liberty and equality found in Locke’s second Treatise on Government. (shrink)

From Galileo and Newton to Thomas Hobbes and Martin Luther King, Jr., thinkers throughout history have consciously employed scientific techniques to better understand the non-physical world. The Age of Reason and the Enlightenment led theorists to apply scientific reasoning to the non-scientific disciplines of politics, economics, and moral philosophy. Instead of relying on the woodcuts of dissected bodies in old medical texts, physicians opened bodies themselves to see what was there; instead of divining truth through the authority of an ancient (...) holy book or philosophical treatise, people began to explore the book of nature for themselves through travel and exploration; instead of the supernatural belief in the divine right of kings, people employed a natural belief in the right of democracy. In this provocative and compelling book, Shermer will explain how abstract reasoning, rationality, empiricism, skepticism--scientific ways of thinking--have profoundly changed the way we perceive morality and, indeed, move us ever closer to a more just world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Elvira Panaiotidi, “The Nature of Paradigms and Paradigm Shifts in Music Education”Wenyi W. KurkulAt the beginning, I would like to congratulate Elvira Panaiotidi on her interesting paper and on her proposal to move beyond the long-running debates that began in the mid-1990s between Bennett Reimer and David Elliott and their respective supporters. I also applaud her affirmation that, beyond the numerous debates within the music-education philosophy community, (...) the ultimate goal is to put the theories to work in schools or, in other words, to convert theories into operative paradigms.Echoing her affirmation, I shared her article with a class of my graduate students after I received the invitation to respond to this paper. All of my graduate students are current schoolteachers in the greater Washington, DC metropolitan area in the United States. Some of them are young teachers; others have decades [End Page 114] of teaching experience. As a university professor, I have always been thrilled by how much my thoughts are inspired by my students—by their stories, writing, discussions, dialogues, and sometimes very challenging questions in class. Their concern for their daily jobs and their students constantly remind me of our responsibilities to the children in the schools. However, with our schools and students in mind, I have to ask the music education philosophy community a question: Is "producing a unified concept of music," or "searching for a unified approach," or even aiming to "develop a unified approach in music education" as proposed by Panaiotidi what we truly need?In her paper, Panaiotidi discusses the debate over the approaches in music education by Reimer and Elliott in the context of paradigm shifts. The term, "paradigm shift," was introduced by Thomas Kuhn in 1962 in his highly influential book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn proposes that almost every significant break-through in the field of scientific endeavor is first a break with tradition, with old ways of thinking, with old paradigms. For example, until the germ theory was developed, there was a high percentage of deaths during childbirth and scientists were not sure why. Likewise, in military settings, more people were dying from small wounds and diseases than from the major traumas experienced on the frontlines. But as soon as the germ theory was developed, a whole new paradigm—a better, improved way of understanding what was happening—made dramatic and significant improvements in the practice of medicine possible.The United States today is the setting for another fruitful and powerful example of a dramatic paradigm shift. The traditional concept of government had been monarchical, based on the divine right of kings. It was not until centuries later that a significant break-through paradigm was developed: government of the people, by the people, and for the people. A constitutional democracy was born that unleashed tremendous human energy and ingenuity. This new paradigm, over time, generated personal empowerment, free enterprise, a higher standard of living, freedom and liberty, and influence and hope unequaled in the history of the world.Stephen R. Covey, the author of a popular book in the late 1980s, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, cites Kuhn's conception of paradigm shift to illustrate his own ideas. He describes an experiment at the Harvard Business School in which an instructor passed out a picture of a young woman to half of the class and a picture of an old woman to the other half. The students were asked to look briefly at the picture and pass it back. The professor then asked the class to describe the woman as he projected on a screen a picture of a woman that was a combined image of the "old" and "young" women. Needless to say, the students debated the age of the woman. If they had seen the "young" version, [End Page 115] they could see only a young woman now, and vice-versa. Each student was adamant about his or her position. They did not see the image in another way until the lines were pointed out to demonstrate the features of the old and young woman. Covey cites this exercise to prove the powerful conditioning effects of one... (shrink)

Edmund Burke characterizes the state as consecrated, or sacred. There is a sense in which Hegel, too, consecrates the state: Hegel says the state is based on religion and that to preserve the state, religion “must be carried into it, in buckets and bushels.” This paper discusses the sense in which Hegel’s state is consecrated by juxtaposing his views with Burke’s. Both Burke and Hegel reject the theory of the divine right of kings, while recognizing religion’s ability (...) to connect people to a totality transcending their particular lives. But the similarities nearly end there. Burke sees religion as a tie that binds people and helps create an ethical community, at least in England; for Hegel religion does not have that function in a modern state. Where Burke thinks commitment to religion is a stabilizing influence, Hegel worries that religion can lead to fanaticism and destroy a state. Consequently, where Burke supports an establishment of religion, Hegel thinks church and state must remain separate. Both Burke and Hegel think the state must tolerate the free exercise of different religions, but Burke is unwilling for the state to tolerate atheists, who he regards as outlaws of the human race. But as Hegel sees the function of religion in a modern state as providing an answer to the existential question of how one’s existence has meaning given that it is inevitably extinguished, and if philosophy can also provide an answer to that question, Hegel’s consecrated state could be a home for atheists. The paper draws on, among other works, Hegel’s Rechtsphilosophie, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of History, early theological writings, and for Hegel’s views on state-sponsored religious education, the Nürnberg School Addresses and letters to Niethammer. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Elvira Panaiotidi, “The Nature of Paradigms and Paradigm Shifts in Music Education”Wenyi W. KurkulAt the beginning, I would like to congratulate Elvira Panaiotidi on her interesting paper and on her proposal to move beyond the long-running debates that began in the mid-1990s between Bennett Reimer and David Elliott and their respective supporters. I also applaud her affirmation that, beyond the numerous debates within the music-education philosophy community, (...) the ultimate goal is to put the theories to work in schools or, in other words, to convert theories into operative paradigms.Echoing her affirmation, I shared her article with a class of my graduate students after I received the invitation to respond to this paper. All of my graduate students are current schoolteachers in the greater Washington, DC metropolitan area in the United States. Some of them are young teachers; others have decades [End Page 114] of teaching experience. As a university professor, I have always been thrilled by how much my thoughts are inspired by my students—by their stories, writing, discussions, dialogues, and sometimes very challenging questions in class. Their concern for their daily jobs and their students constantly remind me of our responsibilities to the children in the schools. However, with our schools and students in mind, I have to ask the music education philosophy community a question: Is "producing a unified concept of music," or "searching for a unified approach," or even aiming to "develop a unified approach in music education" as proposed by Panaiotidi what we truly need?In her paper, Panaiotidi discusses the debate over the approaches in music education by Reimer and Elliott in the context of paradigm shifts. The term, "paradigm shift," was introduced by Thomas Kuhn in 1962 in his highly influential book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn proposes that almost every significant break-through in the field of scientific endeavor is first a break with tradition, with old ways of thinking, with old paradigms. For example, until the germ theory was developed, there was a high percentage of deaths during childbirth and scientists were not sure why. Likewise, in military settings, more people were dying from small wounds and diseases than from the major traumas experienced on the frontlines. But as soon as the germ theory was developed, a whole new paradigm—a better, improved way of understanding what was happening—made dramatic and significant improvements in the practice of medicine possible.The United States today is the setting for another fruitful and powerful example of a dramatic paradigm shift. The traditional concept of government had been monarchical, based on the divine right of kings. It was not until centuries later that a significant break-through paradigm was developed: government of the people, by the people, and for the people. A constitutional democracy was born that unleashed tremendous human energy and ingenuity. This new paradigm, over time, generated personal empowerment, free enterprise, a higher standard of living, freedom and liberty, and influence and hope unequaled in the history of the world.Stephen R. Covey, the author of a popular book in the late 1980s, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, cites Kuhn's conception of paradigm shift to illustrate his own ideas. He describes an experiment at the Harvard Business School in which an instructor passed out a picture of a young woman to half of the class and a picture of an old woman to the other half. The students were asked to look briefly at the picture and pass it back. The professor then asked the class to describe the woman as he projected on a screen a picture of a woman that was a combined image of the "old" and "young" women. Needless to say, the students debated the age of the woman. If they had seen the "young" version, [End Page 115] they could see only a young woman now, and vice-versa. Each student was adamant about his or her position. They did not see the image in another way until the lines were pointed out to demonstrate the features of the old and young woman. Covey cites this exercise to prove the powerful conditioning effects of one... (shrink)

After a section of Methodological Preliminaries, I consider Truth and Argumentation in the Jewish Legal Tradition, under the following subheadings: Truth in Judaism, Truth and Norms, Truth and Language, Truth and Logic, Truth and Argumentation. I thus use an external framework in order to pose questions to the Jewish legal tradition, and identify internal resources which may provide partial answers to these questions. But are these partial answers so peculiar, theological, culturally contingent as to lack any value in terms of (...) a potential contribution to these same issues as posed within Western jurisprudence? This may be doubted, given the West’s adoption or construction of the divine right of kings on the one hand and of holistic theories of interpretation on the other, derived from the Bible and later Jewish tradition, mediated and fortified through a Christianised Rome. (shrink)

묵자의 국가론은 "상동 겸애 천지"으로 이루어졌다. 상동 - 묵자는 국가가 형성되는 과정을 따진다. 국가가 없었던 태초의 상태에서 각 개인은 자신의 이익을 의로움이라 했다.(義=利) 모두의 '이익-의로움'이 달랐기 때문에 서로 싸웠다. 그 결과 모두가 손해를 보게 되었다. 이를 해결하기 위해서, 현명한 자를 뽑아서 '이익-의로움'의 충돌을 조정하고, 전체의 이익을 극대화하게 했다. 현자가 이익을 조정하기 위해서는 각 개인이 자기의 이익 주장(이익-의로움)을 포기하고, 자기의 이익을 실현시키는 자기 처분권을 현자에게 넘긴다. 자기 처분권은 자기의 행동을 결정하는 권력이다. 이를 현자에게 넘겼기 때문에 각 개인은 현자에게 절대 복종해야 한다. (...) 위로 같아짐(尙同)이 그것이다. 각 개인의 자기 처분권을 넘겨받은 현자는 그 모든 개인을 '차별 없이, 전체'를 사랑해야 한다. 겸애가 그것이다. ‘兼’은 전체를 뜻한다. 어떤 범위에서 개인들이 넘겨준 자기 처분권의 총합이 위의 현자의 권력이 된다. 국가의 권력은 이렇게 해서 형성된다. 아래가 위에 절대 복종(尙同)한다면, 위(현자 지도자)는 아래를 겸애해야 한다. 복종과 전체 사랑, 상동과 겸애는 맞교환 관계이다. 위가 겸애를 하기 때문에 아래가 상동을 한다. 아래가 상동하기 때문에 위가 겸애를 할 수 있다. 이러한 맞교환은 일종의 계약 관계이다. 아래와 위 사이에 사회적 계약이 있다. 이러한 계약은 '천지(天志)' 이론에 함축되어 있다. 묵자의 하늘은 절대자 인격신이다. 만약 절대자인 신이 인간을 완전하게 조종한다고 하면, 이 세상에 있는 악은 다 신의 탓이 된다.(변신론의 문제) 따라서 세상의 일은 인간이 신과 상관없이 독립적으로 한 것이다. 인간이 한 일을 신이 심판한다. 신과 인간 사이에는 단절이 있다. 단절 독립되어 자유 의지를 가진 둘이 관계를 맺는 방법은 계약이다. 기독교의 경우, 여호와 신이 모세에게 내렸던 10계명이 최초의 계약이다. 이후 근대 서양에서는 계약론이 일반화된다. 묵자의 천지 이론도 이런 독립된 존재들 사이의 계약론을 함축한다. 다만 명시적으로 말하지 않을 뿐이다. 묵자의 겸애와 상동을 맞교환하는 계약론적 국가는 맹자의 '군주 천명론'과 정반대이다. 묵자는 권력이 아래 백성에게서 위로 군주에게 간다고 본 반면, 맹자는 권력이 위의 하늘에서 군주로 내려온다고 본다. (shrink)

John Locke famously sets the arts of rhetoric at odds with the pursuit of knowledge. Drawing on the work of Ernesto Grassi, this article shows that Locke’s epistemological and political arguments are parasitic on the very tropes and figures he would exclude in any serious discourse. Accordingly, Locke’s attack on the divine right of kings and his famous argument for the social contract is read as exhibiting a rhetorical structure. This structure is crucial to Locke’s critique of (...) heteronomy and his attempt to facilitate the identification of oneself as a free subject. (shrink)

There has been a great deal of valuable work done in the department of Social Philosophy in recent years; and, though much of it has been of a controversial character, it seems possible to indicate some leading conceptions about which there is not now very much difference of opinion, and which may be taken as furnishing a firm basis for future work. Many of the older conceptions—such as the Divine Right of Kings, the Social Contract, and the (...) unqualified emphasis on either Liberty or Equality—have either passed into complete oblivion or are maintained in forms so greatly modified as to be hardly recognizable. Some others are perhaps just on the point of disappearing; but the following conceptions and special problems in which they are involved may be singled out as still retaining a certain degree of vitality. (shrink)

In this way progressive bourgeois philosophy, which seemed to offer the promise of a unified and peaceful world, in fact produced just the opposite.The book ...

What interests us here is the fact that Babel as a figure of confusion became almost the self-named epithet of 17th-century England. All the participants of the debate that took place during the revolution or the postbellum associated Babel with the conceptual chaos of the civil war. The lively “pamphlet war” then brought a pluralistic forum for public opinion in which all the confused languages of politics were equal. When all could read the Bible, everyone could read the story of (...) Babel in their own way. But nothing could reconcile those who read the divine right of kings in it with those who read the divine right of the people in it. In the 17th century, Babel was seen as a figure of discursive confusion, as the confusion was experienced in the form of fanatical languages of arguing sects. Liberalism, if the English-speaking world is acknowledged to be its cradle, constitutes an attempt to escape the impasse of the discursive Babel via the legalistic means of the state of law. According to Hobbes, the irreversible multitude of languages makes one ask what public order can reconcile nominalism in the sphere of political opinion with the social Diaspora of individuals released from the bonds of status or corporation. How to build a state while one Christian faith is disintegrating into many sects fighting each other? How to build a state in the chronic pluralism of the social world and multifaceted dissociation of the traditional community? This is why Babel as a figure of confusion provides the primary conceptual capacity for the liberal organization of the world. (shrink)

John Locke famously sets the arts of rhetoric at odds with the pursuit of knowledge. Drawing on the work of Ernesto Grassi, this article shows that Locke’s epistemological and political arguments are parasitic on the very tropes and figures he would exclude in any serious discourse. Accordingly, Locke’s attack on the divine right of kings and his famous argument for the social contract is read as exhibiting a rhetorical structure. This structure is crucial to Locke’s critique of (...) heteronomy and his attempt to facilitate the identification of oneself as a free subject. (shrink)

A legal system is any institution or set of institutions in a given society that provides dispute resolution in a systematic and reasonably predictable way. it does so through the exercise of three functions: the judicial, the legislative, and the executive. The judicial function, the adjudication of disputes, is the core of any legal system; the other two are ancillary to this. The legislative function is to determine the rules that will govern the process of adjudication (this function may be (...) merged with the judicial function, as when case law arises through precedents, or it may be exercised separately), while the executive function is to secure submission (through a variety of means, which may or may not include violence) to the adjudicative process and compliance with its verdicts. A government or state (for present purposes i shall use these terms interchangeably) is any organisation that claims, and in large part achieves, a forcibly maintained monopoly, within a given geographical territory, of these legal functions, and in particular of the use of force in the executive function. now the market anarchist objection to government is simply a logical extension of the standard libertarian objection to coercive monopolies in general.1 First, from a moral point of view, among people regarded as equals2 it cannot be legitimate for some to claim a certain line of work as their own privileged preserve from which others are to be forcibly excluded; we no longer believe in the divine right of kings, and on no other basis could such inequality of rights be justified. Second, from an economic point of view, because monopolies are insulated from market competition and hold their customers by force, they lack both the information and the incentive to provide consumers with fair, efficient, and inexpensive service. The anarchist accepts these arguments, and merely asks why they should apply with any less force to the provision of legal services. (shrink)

This is a translation of the German book 'Gottesgnadentum und Widerstandsrecht im frühen Mittelalter. Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Monarchie' (1914) (The Divine Right of Kings and the Right of Resistance in the early Middle Ages) and the article 'Recht und Verfassung im Mittelalter' (1919) (Law and Constitution in the Middle Ages). [Kern describes the idea that laws are not made but discovered. In order to be valid, a law does not have to be made by the state, (...) but it has to be old and good.]. (shrink)

중국은 춘추 시대에 들어서면서 정복 전쟁이 일상화된다. 이에 따라 무사들이 지배를 하게 된다. 공자는 이를 비판하고, 군자(君子)라는 지식인 관료의 지배를 주장한다. 무사의 지배 대신 지식인의 지배는 역사의 발전에 해당된다. 공자와 맹자는 이와 더불어서 통치와 피치, 지배와 피지배를 엄격하게 나누는 2원론을 주장한다. 지배는 군자들이 하고, 백성은 그 지배의 대상일 뿐이다. 지배자가 “백성을 위하는, 백성이 근본인”(爲民·民本) 정치가 바로 그런 것이다. 이런 2원론의 결과, 맹자는 군주 천명론을 주장한다. 누군가 군주가 되는 이유는 그에게 군주가 되라고 ‘하늘이 명령’(天命)했기 때문이다. 그는 물론 “백성의 마음(民心)이 하늘의 마음”(天心)이라 (...) 하지만, 민심을 확인할 방법은 별로 없다. 따라서 군주는 백성과 상관없이 하늘이 임명한다. 권력은 위에서 아래로 내려온다. 이와 정반대는 묵자의 상동(尙同, 위와 같아짐) 이론이다. 태초에 사람들은 각자의 이익을 의로움(義)이라 주장한다. 그래서 서로 싸우고 모두가 손해를 본다. 이를 해결하기 위해서 현명한 자를 뽑아서 다툼을 중재하게 한다. 아래가 윗사람의 중재에 따름을 ‘위와 같아짐’(尙同)이라 한다. 백성이 위와 같아져야 하는 이유는 중재하는 윗사람이 겸애를 하기 때문이다. 분쟁의 조정에서 모두의 이익을 고려함, 이것을 ‘겸애(兼愛 전체를 사랑함)’이라 한다. 위가 겸애를 하기 때문에, 아래가 상동(尙同)을 한다. 묵자는 국가와 권력의 기원을 겸애와 상동의 교환으로 생각한다. 이는 아래에서 위로 권력이 올라감이다. 맹자와 정반대이다. 전국시대는 정복 전쟁의 절정기이다. 강한 나라가 약한 나라를 정복해서 멸망시키고 그 땅을 소유한다. 이는 가산(家産) 국가 개념이다. 국가는 군주의 재산이다. 정복해서 얻은 땅과 백성은 군주의 재산이다. 따라서 군주들은 정복에 열을 올렸다. 재산이 늘수록 군주의 권력은 커 갔다. 최종적으로 천하의 모든 나라를 정복한 진시황은 자신을 인간이 아니라, 신으로 자처한다. ‘皇帝’라는 말이 그것이다. ‘皇’이나 ‘帝’나 모두 ‘하느님’을 뜻한다. 이는 맹자의 군주 천명론, 묵자의 상동 이론 – 모두를 부정한 것이다. 진시황 이후 중국은 항상 전쟁을 통해서 왕조를 교체한다. 그렇게 세워진 것이 정복 국가이고, 가산 국가이다. 진시황 영정이 만든 황제 지배 체제는 현재까지도 이어져 내려온다. (shrink)

My central concern in this paper is with the implications of Marxist-Leninist ideology for Western defense policy and for United States strategic policy in particular. However, this is an extremely complex issue, and consideration of it will lead me to examine the ways in which ideas are related to interests, interests to strategy, and strategy to actions. I I begin with an important observation: Americans in general, and for various reasons, have not taken Marxism-Leninism seriously for a long time. This (...) is true even of many experts who consider the Soviet challenge to be very serious, affecting our very survival as a free society. At the risk of oversimplification, I would claim that many quite well-informed Americans, hardened to the realities of the Soviet “empire” and its activities, have come around to the view that Marxist-Leninist ideology has simply degenerated into a rigid system of enforced belief administered by authorities who have no particular commitment to it other than to employ it in order to remain in power. In this regard, “Marxism” is deemed “dead,” surviving only in the publicity offices of formal establishments as a means of maintaining their authority. Marxism-Leninism is thought to be no different from the moribund “divine right of kings,” which undergirded the monarchical establishments of 17th Century Europe. Oddly enough, the “socialism-is-dead” theme is today found in the writings of such prominent American neo-conservatives as Irving Kristol, George Gilder, and many others. It is also echoed in Europe in the writings of such eminent philosophers as Leszek Kolakowski of Poland and Paul Johnson of England. (shrink)

Edmund Burke characterizes the state as consecrated, or sacred. There is a sense in which Hegel, too, consecrates the state: Hegel says the state is based on religion and that to preserve the state, religion “must be carried into it, in buckets and bushels.” This paper discusses the sense in which Hegel’s state is consecrated by juxtaposing his views with Burke’s. Both Burke and Hegel reject the theory of the divine right of kings, while recognizing religion’s ability (...) to connect people to a totality transcending their particular lives. But the similarities nearly end there. Burke sees religion as a tie that binds people and helps create an ethical community, at least in England; for Hegel religion does not have that function in a modern state. Where Burke thinks commitment to religion is a stabilizing influence, Hegel worries that religion can lead to fanaticism and destroy a state. Consequently, where Burke supports an establishment of religion, Hegel thinks church and state must remain separate. Both Burke and Hegel think the state must tolerate the free exercise of different religions, but Burke is unwilling for the state to tolerate atheists, who he regards as outlaws of the human race. But as Hegel sees the function of religion in a modern state as providing an answer to the existential question of how one’s existence has meaning given that it is inevitably extinguished, and if philosophy can also provide an answer to that question, Hegel’s consecrated state could be a home for atheists. The paper draws on, among other works, Hegel’s Rechtsphilosophie, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of History, early theological writings, and for Hegel’s views on state-sponsored religious education, the Nürnberg School Addresses and letters to Niethammer. (shrink)

John Milton was not only the greatest English Renaissance poet but also devoted twenty years to prose writing in the advancement of religious, civil and political liberties. The height of his public career was as chief propagandist to the Commonwealth regime which came into being following the execution of King Charles I in 1649. The first of the two complete texts in this volume, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, was easily the most radical justification of the regicide at (...) the time. In the second, A Defence of the People of England, Milton undertook to vindicate the Commonwealth's cause to Europe as a whole. They are central to an understanding both of the development of Milton's political thought and the climax of the English Revolution itself. This is the first time that fully annotated versions have been published together in one volume, and incorporates a wholly new translation of the Defence. The introduction outlines the complexity of the ideological landscape which Milton had to negotiate, and in particular the points at which he departed radically from his sixteenth-century predecessors. Further aids to students include a full chronology of Milton's life and important contemporary events, a select bibliography and biographies of persons mentioned in the text. (shrink)

Obstacles to Divine Revelation examines the notion that there are obstacles to God giving revelation, if God exists. Rolfe King argues that exploring these significantly refines ideas of evidence for God, including the claim that God must operate within a logically necessary structure of revelation. Examining obstacles to divine revelation clarifies this structure and paves the way to evaluating its significance.

Well-known for his work on absolutism, divine right theory, and his contextual reading of Hobbes’ ideas, Sommerville also published successful critical editions of Sir Robert Filmer and King James vi and I’s political writing. Sommerville’s engagement in key historiographical debates on early- modern British history, involving “opposing camps” of revisionists and post-revisionists, is less explored. Here, I focus on the question whether pre-Civil War England was immune to ideological conflict or, instead, featured a confrontation between King and Parliament (...) based on ideas of power, liberty and obedience. I also highlight the continued relevance of Sommerville’s innovative account of English political thought as deeply shaped by European theories. His work reminds us of the role of the history of political thought in rectifying false claims and unchecked opinions, so commonly expounded in our divided world. In conclusion, I advance my own critical interpretation of Sommerville’s views on absolutism and patriarchalism. (shrink)

This is the first monograph devoted to the genesis, aims, and argument of Berthold of Moosburg’s 14th-century _Commentary_ on Proclus’ _Elements of Theology_, the most extensive commentary on Proclus’ text in any language. It includes an English translation of the _Commentary_’s three fundamental prefaces.

A proof is offered that aims to show that there can be no knowledge of God, excluding knowledge based on natural theology, without divine self-testimony. Both special and general revelation, if they occur, would be forms of divine self-testimony. It is argued that this indicates that the best way to model such knowledge of God is on the basis of an analogy with knowledge gained through testimony, rather than perceptual models of knowledge, such as the prominent model defended (...) by Plantinga. Appropriate causal chains and reliable cognitive processes only seem at best to ensure that a belief proposed for acceptance is the belief the testifier wants accepted; they do not ensure that it is rational to accept the belief. This particularly applies where there is much at stake, where it seems rational to seek some form of evidence, if available. Some brief comments are made on Trinitarian self-testimony. Another model of the ‘inner witness’ is briefly sketched out, based on the analogy with conscience. This model may capture some of the features of Plantinga’s approach, but leaves room for a free rejection of divine self-testimony, in a way that the perceptual analogy does not. A point connected to Plantinga’s aims is then made about the link between evidence, value and divine self-testimony, in relation to religious experience. Finally, it is suggested that the earlier proof may apply in a particular sense to all knowledge of God, including that based on natural theology. (shrink)

An entertaining, enlightening, and humorous graphic narrative of the dangerous thinkers who laid the foundation of modern thought This entertaining and enlightening graphic narrative tells the exciting story of the seventeenth-century thinkers who challenged authority—sometimes risking excommunication, prison, and even death—to lay the foundations of modern philosophy and science and help usher in a new world. With masterful storytelling and color illustrations, Heretics! offers a unique introduction to the birth of modern thought in comics form—smart, charming, and often funny. These (...) contentious and controversial philosophers—from Galileo and Descartes to Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, and Newton—fundamentally changed the way we look at the world, society, and ourselves, overturning everything from the idea that the Earth is the center of the cosmos to the notion that kings have a divine right to rule. More devoted to reason than to faith, these thinkers defended scandalous new views of nature, religion, politics, knowledge, and the human mind. Heretics! tells the story of their ideas, lives, and times in a vivid new way. Crisscrossing Europe as it follows them in their travels and exiles, the narrative describes their meetings and clashes with each other—as well as their confrontations with religious and royal authority. It recounts key moments in the history of modern philosophy, including the burning of Giordano Bruno for heresy, Galileo's house arrest for defending Copernicanism, Descartes's proclaiming cogito ergo sum, Hobbes's vision of the "nasty and brutish" state of nature, and Spinoza's shocking Theological-Political Treatise. A brilliant account of one of the most brilliant periods in philosophy, Heretics! is the story of how a group of brave thinkers used reason and evidence to triumph over the authority of religion, royalty, and antiquity. (shrink)

My research focuses on the moral evaluation of people’s motivations. A popular recent view in Philosophy is that good people are motivated by the considerations that make actions morally right (the “right-making features”). For example, this view entails that a Black Lives Matter protester can be a good person if she is motivated to engage in protest by the thought that it will bring about equality, or justice, since this is what makes engaging in protest morally right. (...) But this view entails that the protester cannot be a good person if she engages in protest because it is morally right. I think that this is a serious mistake. My view is that it is good to be explicitly committed to acting rightly and motivated by the moral rightness of one’s actions. More specifically, I explore the nature and defend the value of a complex state that I call "trying to act rightly". This comprises (a) wanting to act rightly, (b) thinking about which actions are right, and (c) doing the things that you think are right, because they are right. The three papers of my Dissertation each make part of the case for trying to act rightly. My first paper, “Praiseworthy Motivations”, addresses the view that it is good to be motivated by the right-making features but not good to be motivated to act rightly. I argue that this view rests on poorly-drawn comparison cases that are not genuine minimal pairs, and that well-constructed cases show these two types of motivation to be equally good. I address the worry that trying to act rightly leads people with false moral beliefs to act wrongly, by noting that this also applies to motivation by right-making features, since people can be motivated by a right-making feature while being mistaken about which acts have this feature. I then argue that we should distinguish carefully between motivations, actions, and beliefs when evaluating these well-meaning but morally mistaken agents. The second paper, “We Can Have Our Buck and Pass It, Too”, addresses the view that the fact that an act is morally right is not a genuine reason to perform it, and that our reasons for action are instead provided by the right-making features. I argue that this view rests on a confused picture of moral metaphysics, which would rule out any case in which one reason to perform an act is partially metaphysically constituted by another fact that is also a reason to perform the same act – as, for example, when a salad both is healthy and contains vegetables. I then sketch an alternative picture of moral metaphysics, on which genuine reasons for action can be metaphysically related to one another. My third paper, “Accidentally Doing the Right Thing”, uses general reflections on the nature of deliberate action and its relationship to praiseworthiness to argue that someone is only praiseworthy for acting rightly if she was trying to act rightly. I apply this idea to the philosophical debate on moral worth, defending the Kantian view that actions have moral worth just in case they are instances of someone’s trying to act rightly and succeeding. This is a radical departure from the most popular contemporary view on moral worth, and requires a re-evaluation of the main case discussed in this literature: that of Huckleberry Finn. (shrink)

My interest here is in the way Leo Strauss and his followers, the Straussians, have dealt with race and rights, race and slavery in the history of the United States. I want, first, to assess Leo Strauss's rather ambivalent attitude toward America and explore the various ways that his followers have in turn analyzed the Lockean underpinnings of the American “regime,” sometimes in contradistinction to Strauss's views on the topic. With that established, I turn to the account, particularly that offered (...) by Harry Jaffa, of how slavery and race comported—or did not—with the Straussian account of the political foundations of the new nation and how latter-day followers of Strauss have dealt with the persisting topic of race and racism in America. Overall, I want to make two large points. First, the Straussian commitment to superhistorical standards provides the Straussians with a moral perspective on slavery, race, and racism. Second, though race and slavery have been less than central among the concerns of most followers of Strauss, the contributions of Jaffa and others have significantly shaped the present American conservative position on race, including the idea of color-blindness. (shrink)

The paper discusses Shakespeare’s preoccupation with the Christian notions of divine love, forgiveness and justice in The Tragedy of King Lear. In my reading I employ Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenological reflection on the givenness of love and Hans-Urs von Balthasar’s theology of Paschal mystery. I take issue with the Marxist and existentialist interpretations of Shakespeare’s tragedy which prevailed in the second half of the 20th century. My aim is not a simple recuperation of the “redemptionism” of the play, but an (...) in-depth consideration of Christian allusions in the play which may tie love and forgiveness to justice and throw light on the ending of King Lear. (shrink)