What is Political Philosophy? – Discourses on Minerva
What is political philosophy and why is it different from political science? First, political science is derived from political philosophy – specifically, the modern understanding of political philosophy that comes from Machiavelli, Hobbes, Grotius, Locke, and others. Political Philosophy was the original, and remains the highest, intellectual discipline and form of the study of things political. Political philosophy is, simply, the philosophical study of how humans associate and organize themselves in society—with a specific focus on human nature and political ideas and questions like: what is justice? what is liberty? what is the good society? Political philosophy, therefore, deals more with questions about the human condition and how humans organize themselves in political association. Political science, meanwhile, deals with the study of power within political association—it’s basically the non-thinking person’s version of political philosophy which was the result of the “science” of human action formulated by modern political philosophers.
Political philosophy can roughly be understood in two epochs: the classical and modern. While reductive, this is the basic outline all students of political philosophy receive in their education. You study Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, Augustine, and so forth in the classical era. You study Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Mill, Marx, Lenin, Carl Schmitt and so forth in the modern era. Throw in some of the classical economists involved in political economy like Adam Smith and David Ricardo, and you start to have a comprehensive overview of the questions of human life, existence, and politics.
Although we can divide political philosophy into these two eras, there are further distinctions within them. For example, Augustine is considered a classical figure but he fundamentally rejects the classical conception of political philosophy—we’ll get to that in a bit. Machiavelli, Hobbes, Lenin, and Schmitt are considered part of the modern tradition of political philosophy just like Locke, Rousseau, Mill, and Marx are, but these figures can be understood as offering different conceptions of power within the modern political philosophical tradition—we’ll get to that in a bit too.
So to begin:
The classical tradition of political philosophy, found among famous names like Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Marcus Aurelius, assert that the nature and destiny of man is political. As Aristotle famously said, “man is a political animal.” From this understanding of human nature—man as a social creature who forms and lives in community, the polis, comes the understanding that the highest calling of human life and the destiny of humanity is in politics. The meaning of human existence is found in politics, and in this political life we live virtue is how freedom and happiness derive.
The modern tradition of political philosophy shares this basic understanding with the classical tradition: the nature and destiny of man is also political. Yet, despite this agreement, there is a major separation between the two. As Leo Strauss highlighted in Natural Right & History, even though political life is the highest calling and destiny of mankind in both classical and modern political philosophy, their understanding of what this means is radically different. The classical tradition maintains, as mentioned, that virtue is necessary for the good life in politics; that virtue is the guardian of liberty against tyranny and injustice; and, therefore, only a virtuous society will ultimately be free. One only need read a little bit of Cicero—who lived through the tumult of the final decades of the Roman Republic as it slipped into demagoguery and tyranny, to see this. The same with reading Marcus Aurelius even though he himself was an emperor. Some “modern” era political thinkers who revived the “humanistic” tradition of classical political philosophy, like John Milton, James Harrington, John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon of the famous “Cato Letters,” all share this understanding: “love virtue, for she alone is free” Milton said. The classical and humanistic tradition of politics, therefore, understands virtue and freedom as interlinked, that it is by living a virtuous life, from which freedom then derives, the highest fulfillment of human existence can manifest itself.
This is rejected by the modern idea of political philosophy starting with Machiavelli and continuing through the modernist understanding of politics from which political science is ultimately born.
Machiavelli believes that political life is the highest calling and the ultimate destiny of mankind, to this extent he agrees with the classical tradition. However, unlike the classical tradition, he is unconcerned with virtue. He is concerned with power. Machiavelli arrived at this belief from his reading of Augustine and Livy, The City of God and Livy’s History of Rome. In fact, when you read the classical authors and the humanist heirs of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—the American Founding Fathers being the most famous—what you find is a constant concern for the unity of virtue and liberty. This is entirely absent in the modern political philosophers, hence why some scholars refer to this modern group of political thinkers who believe in the unity of virtue and freedom as political humanists. Instead of virtue, Machiavelli and the modern political philosophers are interested in power—power is the nature of humanity and the nature of the world. To modern thinkers like Machiavelli, Hobbes, yes, even Locke whom you’ve been lied to about from the propaganda machine of “libertarianism,” they’re just interested in power. To them, power and liberty are the same thing. When they speak or write of liberty, as Hobbes does, note what he says liberty is: “absence of external impediments.” Absolute power over the body is the modern understanding of liberty. It is not, per the ancients, the ability to choose truth and goodness. It is simply to do as the body pleases without “external impediments.”
From the modern understanding of political philosophy as being all about power, we can further break down the modern conception into two groups. One sees power ultimately residing in the ruler, the political organization—the party or the state—or, to carry it forward after the Great Depression and World War II for those who have read James Burnham, political bureaucracy. We can call this version of modern political philosophy the statist understanding or the autocratic understanding of politics. Power ultimately resides in a single ruler (Machiavelli), the state (Hobbes, Schmitt), the party or party vanguard (Lenin), or the administrative bureaucracy. In this tradition of modern political philosophy: there is a greater force above the self that has authority or control over your body. You also have a second group that sees power as residing in individuals, and the goal of politics is to empower these individuals as much as possible, this is sometimes remembered erroneously as the “classical liberal” idea—but it’s not actually about “freedom” but about power: the empowerment of the self to have bodily mastery over the self. The power of the bodily individual is absolute. The power of the bodily individual to do as he or she pleases is absolute. The power of the bodily individual to rule over his or her domain is the purpose of human life. Famous names like Locke, Rousseau, Mill, and even Marx, alongside political economists like Adam Smith and David Ricardo promote this view where the individual is just a body that has power autonomy where freedom simply means bodily power to do whatever the body desires absent “of external impediments.”
The astute reader will have noticed that modern political philosophy is entirely materialistic in its understanding. Man is a “body of mass in motion” as Hobbes defined us. Man is a pleasure seeking economic animal per Locke. All human action is a conflict of material forces per Marx. Power is based and resides in whoever controls the body. You therefore have the statist or collectivist understanding of power: power resides in some corporate or collective body that controls others; and the “individual” understand of power: power resides in the self and all political instruments are meant to enhance the self. The government needs to help me have more money to do what I want; the government needs to help me achieve justice from some conflict that caused me bodily harm; the government needs to guarantee me a home for my body to rest, and so forth. Some prefer to call this tradition the egoist school of politics, named after the egoist philosophy of Max Stirner, because politics and power is all about the I, the me, the ego—it’s the empowerment of the ego to do whatever the ego wants with any and all “external impediments” brushed aside.
The idea that political life is the highest calling and destiny of mankind is not the only view of human life, however. As mentioned earlier, a fellow by the name of Saint Augustine—though part of the so-called classical tradition—rejected this idea of existence. Eric Voegelin, for instance, noted that it is the gift of the Augustinian inheritance that provided for the true individuality and personality of society to emerge since the Triune Godhead we participate in is itself personal. We live not in an impersonal cosmos, but a cosmos that cares with souls that also care and we join together in care and love of each other which provides for the cultivation of virtue and the meaningful lives we live. Augustine, therefore, rejected the idea that politics is where meaning, happiness, and virtue in life was to be found. Instead, to “love and be loved” is the highest calling and destiny of humanity according to Augustine. To give yourself in love to another and to have that love reciprocated by the beloved is where true virtue and happiness is found. Politics and political order, to the extent that it is necessary and needed, Augustine explained in The City of God, serves to maintain civil peace and order which allows the multitude of human loves to manifest themselves in life, nothing more, nothing less.
But how did Machiavelli, who was a student of Augustine’s writings, conclude that politics is about power instead of virtue and freedom like the ancient writers believed? Augustine deconstructed the mythology of Roman politics in The City of God, using the Romans’ own historians and writers to do so. In the first half of The City of God, Augustine laments that behind the Roman claims of virtue was an emptiness in life—the Roman ideals of honor, virtue, nobility, and patriotism simply masked the brutal reality of the lust to dominate. Look no further than some of Rome’s greatest heroes who died horrible deaths or were exiled by the Romans. Scipio, the man who saved the republic and defeated Hannibal, the virtuous patriot if there ever was one, was indicted and “retired,” exiled, by the Roman state which forced him out of politics, out of the Senate. He died broke and alone despite his life of service and sacrifice, we don’t even know where Scipio was buried. Cicero, too, Augustine laments, another virtuous patriot and lover of liberty if there ever was one in Rome, was condemned as an enemy of the state and murdered. The actual history of Roman politics wasn’t one of virtue and liberty but vice and corruption. All those who dedicated themselves to a life of politics ended up murdered, exiled, or dying lonely deaths without friends. Machiavelli thought Augustine’s deconstructed reading of Roman politics to be fundamentally accurate—Augustine’s only problem, according to Machiavelli, was he believed Love was a true reality: God, because God is Love. Machiavelli was, in private, an atheist—in a world without God, which means the world is without Love, all there is material chaos and power, the kind of chaos and power Augustine saw as truly governing Roman politics and the “city of man.”
Augustine, importantly, created the contrast we know well from our artistic and cultural tradition. Think of all the great movies, the poetry, the novels and dramas—Shakespeare and Wagner most especially—that play on this dichotomy, as does, say, the poetry of the romantics. This is why, to quote on scholar, Augustine was the “arch romantic” before the romantics. To live a life in politics is ultimately to see your own downfall, to end up corrupted, to fall into the despairing pit of darkness and tyranny (Richard III by Shakespeare is a perfect illustration of this). To free yourself from this hellhole, to embrace love and sacrifice for others, is the path of redemption and sanctification (consider Prospero at the end of The Tempest). The love of another is the healing heart to this broken world. To break free from the political and live of life of love provides the highest meaning to human existence. It is in love, not politics, that true virtue and happiness is found; it is the love of knowing another and caring for them which brings the meaning, happiness, and virtuous living which makes life itself memorable and worthwhile.
From the study of political philosophy, you can now collapse the classical and modern dichotomy because we ultimately have two different understanding of human nature out of which understandings of political order derive. There is from the classical and modern traditions the understanding that politics is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end of all things. As Eric Voegelin explained in his writings, this view always reduces itself to cosmic totalitarianism of some sort, yes, even in the “libertarian” framework because you have the absolute tyranny of the individual—as Rousseau famously said, if you choose to not live a political life, you will be “forced to be free.”
Politics as the alpha and omega of existence comes from the godless, which is to say loveless, understanding of human nature: man is simply a political animal, a body of mass in motion that needs to consume, consume, consume, a mere reflection of the material movement of the universe constantly cascading and colliding with itself. Those who agree that politics is the highest calling and destiny of mankind, nevertheless, generally find themselves in the camps of either virtue politics (classical & humanist), state power (collectivist or statist), or self-power (for a lack of a better word since most of us are familiar with it, libertarian). Those who reject the idea that politics is the highest calling and destiny of man, and instead see love as the meaning and purpose of existence, fall into the “Augustinian imperative,” a term coined by the political theorist William E. Connoly.
Connolly argued that in the modern tradition a neo-Augustinian school has emerged, mostly from among the postmodernists, Foucault being the most famous. Foucault agreed with Augustine that love, “care of the self” as Foucault termed it in his writings (thereby combining an element of Augustinianism with the bodily autonomism of a certain strand of modernist political philosophy), was the real purpose of life. Foucault, however, also agreed with an inverted understanding of modern political philosophy: everything is about power. You can see the conundrum Foucault is in now. For Foucault and his followers, the purpose of politics is to seize the instruments of political power and transform them from oppression to love, compassion, mercy. Connolly argued that modern politics is now a battle between the neo-Augustinians like Foucault who believe power can be redeemed by love, and the traditional Machiavellians, who have no pretension to the mixing of love and political power.
To conclude with Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin, the two most important political philosophers of the twentieth century, the study of political philosophy ultimately ends up with the famous politico-theological question which occupied other thinkers like Nietzsche, Heidegger, Carl Schmitt, and more recently Jurgen Habermas and Giorgio Agamben. Since political philosophy is the study of human nature, the human condition, and human existence—and how from that reality human association and organization, politics, derives and all political questions stem from this human reality—we ultimately find ourselves in this dynamic tension between the material pragmatism of “philosophy” (the city of man) and the creative spiritualism of theology (the city of God), and how the two are constantly clashing. Strauss noted, in his famous rereading of Plato (who himself was a rare cross of pragmatic philosopher and creative artist), that this contest is ultimately between the philosophers and the artists, with the artists, even if they do not know it, being on the side of the spirit, of theology. The most dangerous demagogues and tyrants, though, are the “visionary” leaders, since they steal the creative artistry of the divine and translate it into matter, destroying the spirit in the process (these are the “gnostic revolutionaries” per Voegelin). For Strauss, the real genius of western political philosophy was in its inability to resolve this tension, thus allowing for both the path of material pragmatism and power and the path of the spirit to exist side-by-side. This was the gift of Christianity in western society, which nurtured the seed of cultural artistry, of love, to serve as the antidote to the power pragmatism of politics. The question, now, however, is can they both remain, or will the life of spirit be extinguished—for wherever the spirit dies, totalitarianism follows, because the body stripped of spirit is, as Hegel said, but a lifeless corpse.
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Paul Krause is the editor-in-chief of VoegelinView. He is writer, classicist, and historian. He has written on the arts, culture, classics, literature, philosophy, religion, and history for numerous journals, magazines, and newspapers. He is the author of Finding Arcadia, The Odyssey of Love and the Politics of Plato, and a contributor to the College Lecture Today and Making Sense of Diseases and Disasters. He holds master’s degrees in philosophy and religious studies (biblical studies & theology) from the University of Buckingham and Yale, and a bachelor’s degree in economics, history, and philosophy from Baldwin Wallace University.
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