Benjamin Constant's famous lecture comparing ancient and modern liberty can be better understood ... more Benjamin Constant's famous lecture comparing ancient and modern liberty can be better understood if it is read alongside a set of unpublished lectures on ancient religion that he delivered one year earlier. Those lectures suggest that Constant's commitment to modern liberty was based in part on his deep anxieties about religious freedom, and that he valued religious freedom because he thought the "religious sentiment" was an important manifestation of a natural human capacity for self-development. In putting religion and selfdevelopment at the heart of his vision, he tried to show that modern liberty could have a positive moral or spiritual purpose beyond merely assuring people freedom from interference in the pursuit of their interests.
In his account of how each of us deliberates about what to do, Aristotle remarks that we do not a... more In his account of how each of us deliberates about what to do, Aristotle remarks that we do not always trust ourselves on important matters and so sometimes take counsel from others. Taking counsel from others is, in some ways, merely an expansion of the internal activity of deliberation; the suggestions come from other people rather than from our own minds, but the judgment about them remains our own. In other ways, however, taking counsel is quite different from deliberating with oneself. These differences are the subject matter of the art of rhetoric, as Aristotle understands it. The paper compares the political relationship at work in deliberative rhetoric with slavery, which collapses the separateness of persons, and with friendship, which preserves it. And suggests that the importance of anger in Aristotle's treatment of rhetoric can be understood as a reflection on the implications of human separateness.
Regicide, civil war, and the schism in European Christianity ensured that seventeenth-century Eng... more Regicide, civil war, and the schism in European Christianity ensured that seventeenth-century England would be deeply divided on justifications for allegiance and the relationship between consent and obligation in political life. Traditional codes of hon-our competed with a ...
Is it possible to say something new about one of the oldest topics of political philosophy, the q... more Is it possible to say something new about one of the oldest topics of political philosophy, the question of rhetoric? Michael Kochinʼs penetrating book proves that it is. He does so by taking seriously a whole range of sources on political speech, communication, and persuasion, from Aristotle and Demosthenes to social science on the nature of public opinion to Bruno Latourʼs sociology of knowledge, and by reflecting on the topic in unusual depth. His book is original and it has a provocative simplicity. Kochin asserts that rhetoric is the art of presenting and producing "things," by which he means facts. He does not deny that rhetoric is often taken to be the art of obscuring facts, but he insists that presentation and clarification are more fundamental to the nature of rhetoric than obscuring is. In this respect his book is at once anti-modern and anti-Platonic; it argues against putting too much weight on a distinction between appearance and reality. Like Aristotle and Hannah Arendt, Kochin suggests that the world we see and experience is, in fact, the true world, the only world that matters for us, and therefore that rhetoric-the art whereby we participate in making that world and especially its social dimension-cannot be dismissed as superficial. The "things" that rhetoric helps to produce, including the social thing known as political community, are no less real simply because they are constituted in part by words and relationships built upon words (82-83).
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 2011
Lucas Swaine attempts to persuade theocrats of the value of liberty of conscience. But his promot... more Lucas Swaine attempts to persuade theocrats of the value of liberty of conscience. But his promotion of principles of conscience for theocratic communities reveals a divided spirit in contemporary liberalism, which is torn between wanting to respect religion as it is and wanting to reform or liberalize it.
Benjamin Constant's famous lecture comparing ancient and modern liberty can be better understood ... more Benjamin Constant's famous lecture comparing ancient and modern liberty can be better understood if it is read alongside a set of unpublished lectures on ancient religion that he delivered one year earlier. Those lectures suggest that Constant's commitment to modern liberty was based in part on his deep anxieties about religious freedom, and that he valued religious freedom because he thought the "religious sentiment" was an important manifestation of a natural human capacity for self-development. In putting religion and selfdevelopment at the heart of his vision, he tried to show that modern liberty could have a positive moral or spiritual purpose beyond merely assuring people freedom from interference in the pursuit of their interests.
In his account of how each of us deliberates about what to do, Aristotle remarks that we do not a... more In his account of how each of us deliberates about what to do, Aristotle remarks that we do not always trust ourselves on important matters and so sometimes take counsel from others. Taking counsel from others is, in some ways, merely an expansion of the internal activity of deliberation; the suggestions come from other people rather than from our own minds, but the judgment about them remains our own. In other ways, however, taking counsel is quite different from deliberating with oneself. These differences are the subject matter of the art of rhetoric, as Aristotle understands it. The paper compares the political relationship at work in deliberative rhetoric with slavery, which collapses the separateness of persons, and with friendship, which preserves it. And suggests that the importance of anger in Aristotle's treatment of rhetoric can be understood as a reflection on the implications of human separateness.
Regicide, civil war, and the schism in European Christianity ensured that seventeenth-century Eng... more Regicide, civil war, and the schism in European Christianity ensured that seventeenth-century England would be deeply divided on justifications for allegiance and the relationship between consent and obligation in political life. Traditional codes of hon-our competed with a ...
Is it possible to say something new about one of the oldest topics of political philosophy, the q... more Is it possible to say something new about one of the oldest topics of political philosophy, the question of rhetoric? Michael Kochinʼs penetrating book proves that it is. He does so by taking seriously a whole range of sources on political speech, communication, and persuasion, from Aristotle and Demosthenes to social science on the nature of public opinion to Bruno Latourʼs sociology of knowledge, and by reflecting on the topic in unusual depth. His book is original and it has a provocative simplicity. Kochin asserts that rhetoric is the art of presenting and producing "things," by which he means facts. He does not deny that rhetoric is often taken to be the art of obscuring facts, but he insists that presentation and clarification are more fundamental to the nature of rhetoric than obscuring is. In this respect his book is at once anti-modern and anti-Platonic; it argues against putting too much weight on a distinction between appearance and reality. Like Aristotle and Hannah Arendt, Kochin suggests that the world we see and experience is, in fact, the true world, the only world that matters for us, and therefore that rhetoric-the art whereby we participate in making that world and especially its social dimension-cannot be dismissed as superficial. The "things" that rhetoric helps to produce, including the social thing known as political community, are no less real simply because they are constituted in part by words and relationships built upon words (82-83).
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 2011
Lucas Swaine attempts to persuade theocrats of the value of liberty of conscience. But his promot... more Lucas Swaine attempts to persuade theocrats of the value of liberty of conscience. But his promotion of principles of conscience for theocratic communities reveals a divided spirit in contemporary liberalism, which is torn between wanting to respect religion as it is and wanting to reform or liberalize it.
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