Jakub Jinek

The article discusses the notion of political theology as a basis for the idea of sovereignty in Plato and Aristotle. Contrary to those critical voices which view political theology as an attempt to misuse theology for practical-political purposes on the one hand, and those who question the very presence of political theology in classical Antiquity on the other, our interpretation shows that, first, both Plato and Aristotle do develop clear, though mutually different, political-theological positions and second, that in both cases, theological speculation has priority over considerations of practical policy. Concerning the difference between the two authors, however, it turns out that Plato is the only one for whom political theology is constitutive of what could be seen as a precursor of the modern idea of sovereignty.

A review of contemporary discourse on meritocracy reveals a polarization between two principal interpretations: first, the conception of meritocracy as an aristocracy of talent; and second, its characterization as a form of non-solidary elitism. The underlying ambivalence of the concept of merit is a key factor in this polarization, and it may be argued that this ambivalence reflects a deeper disagreement concerning the notion of the good. Plato’s conception of the best city is rightly regarded as meritocratic. In Plato, we find a distinction between merit understood as a criterion for the selection of future rulers and merit as the basis for the legitimating of their rule. While the former emphasizes the nature of talented individuals, the latter highlights the actual contribution of rulers to the common good. The Platonic model may therefore offer valuable resources for addressing contemporary critiques of the so-called ‘meritocratic lottery’.

As is well known, in Plato, the model of the best constitution takes the form of a social hierarchy. Hierarchy is introduced as a means of solving what he sees the most serious political problems of his days: extreme individualism and the resulting societal pluralism. These problems can be avoided precisely by forming society hierarchically, because-and this is the key Platonic assumption -hierarchy is a true representative of unity. And to form plurality into unity means to make the city good. The underlying connection between unity and hierarchy, which on our view is the blueprint of authentic political Platonism, is, however, not easily understood by contemporary readers. I wish first to indicate how modern preconceptions can retroactively affect the interpretation of Plato and secondly to attempt a hermeneutically adequate reconstruction of Plato’s political doctrine. I hope to be able to demonstrate the systematic relevance of social hierarchies for politics of any time.

Plato’s theory of virtue in the Laws could be striking for someone who is more familiar with Aristotle’s ethics for conceptual complementarity between the two positions (contrary emotions, the ordering element of reason, virtue as a mean which lies between two forms of vice, typically linked to excessive actions, etc.). Plato’s theory, however, still differs from that of Aristotle in two crutial points. First, the source of emotional dynamism is, according to Plato, supraindividual as far as the psyche is a cosmological principle. Only if it comes to be formed and ordered, it separates from the universal cosmic context and make up the emotional nature of an individual soul. But the soul is not, and this is the second point of difference, ordered by some external element (training or education, organized by a rational agent). Plato counts on a pre-arranged order of emotions at a particular ontological topos of the individual soul into which reason eventually descends. Emotions, on their part, seem to include a nexus between formable and forming that is chronologically and methodocally prior to that between the biological substratum and its rational organization, as assumed by Aristotle.

The paper claims that we cannot understand properly Platonic conception of love and friendship unless we read the Lysis in the light of the Symposium and vice verse. Dealing with the crucial question of what made Plato write two different dialogues on the same topic, it advocates an alternative intertextual reading that does not deny progress of Plato’s thinking. Though the Symposium offers, in comparison to the Lysis, a more developed philosophical theory of love, Plato still has good reasons to articulate the dilemmas presented in the Lysis. Combining the contrast in dialogue endings with the similarity in structure and in argumentation, Plato makes clear that, between the Lysis and the Symposium, there is progress and constancy at the same time: while the Symposium gives a philosophical account of what we can call “divine love”, it accepts and even emphasizes the insight of the Lysis that philosophical love can imply lack of what we usually consider worth loving. Plato in the Symposium does not discard “human love” and does not conceal possible troubles of philosophical, i.e. divine love. Therefore, the critique of Plato as being champion of impersonal or “ideal” love is unpersuasive.

Der Vortrag will die positiven Interpretationsmöglichkeiten untersuchen, die mit der weiteren Verfolgung der am Anfang des Dialogs vorzeitig verlassenen Unterscheidung zwischen der Herdezucht und Gemeinzucht verbunden sein können. Ich werde davon ausgehen, dass diese Unterscheidung nicht nur auf den Mythos und auf die beiden dort entdeckten Diairesis-Fehler hinweist, sondern auch auf mehrere im späteren Verlauf des Dialogs erschienenen Dilemmata und Spannungen, die sie systematisch vorzeichnet, indem sie ins Problemfeld der Nomos-Nous-Beziehung vordringt.

Platónovy pokusy o určení dobra lze nalézt v celém jeho díle. Zahrnují jak relativně „univoční“ koncepci dobra ve smyslu sókratovského intelektualismu, tak pluralističtější koncepci obsaženou v politickém projektu Zákonů. Podle vývojové interpretace Platónových dialogů to naznačuje posun v autorově myšlení způsobený poznáním obtížnosti problému. Byl to přitom údajně teprve Aristotelés, kdo vyřešil Platónův problém dobra pomocí pojmu analogie. Proti této interpretaci článek zdůrazňuje, že aristotelské pojetí analogie je hluboce zakořeněno v Platónově vlastním potýkání se s rozdílem mezi morálním a politickým dobrem. Byla to především Platónovo pochopení specifické hodnoty politické plurality, které stojí v základě akademického rozlišení mezi analogia a pros hen