At the Limits of Political Philosophy: From "Brilliant Errors" to Things of Uncommon Importance

Introduction

Introduction At the Limits of Political Philosophy begins, as does politics itself for most of us, with those imperfect and dire conditions of human existence unsettlingly familiar to all actual human beings: with death, evil, suffering, injustices, even-dare we say it?-hell, as it presents the problem of freely chosen wrongs and their punishment . We are intellectually provoked, however, not only by our tragic experiences but also by what is most delightful and happy about our lot. Our world includes both of these realities. Such common experience of our kind, sometimes glorious, sometimes sad, oftentimes evil, cannot but stimulate in us a deep intellectual curiosity. Political philosophy, looking back on these sad orjoyous realities, seeks to order them in the light of higher purposes that are also intrinsic to the discipline. By its own inner intellectual dynamism, political philosophy presses its own limits. The discipline continually leads us from its own circumscribed subject matter , human life in the city and its meaning, to more astonishing and intriguing things-to things of uncommon importance, as I call them. Political philosophy enables us to formulate precise questions arising within the confines of actual political living and, at the same time, to prepare us to acknowledge real answers to these questions when they appear from whatever source. Political life is thus also a life of intelligence. The "political" animal is a "reasoning" animal also in his very politics. A coherent account of political philosophy will include the dignity of life in the polity, together with man's frequent and definable deviations from reason occurring within civil life. Likewise, it will include those horizons that Aristotle called the "divine" in man, even in the context of political things (1178b31). Political philosophy legitimately asks, as Plato did, about the meaning of 2 Introduction the human good and human evil, as well as about the meaning of any destiny that results from human choices, be they good or bad. The subtitle of this book reminds us that the intellectual explanations of why human things are disordered often lead to certain "brilliant errors" that have great historical standing. These "brilliant errors," however, though their consideration is now an intrinsic part of the historical record of political philosophy, do not adequately explain the reasons for the human evils or the human goods that occur in actual human cities. For this reason, great danger to the city as well as to human life can arise from these very errors. Aristotle advised us not only to state "the true view, but also [to] explain the false view.... For when we have an apparently reasonable explanation of why a false view appears true, that makes us more confident of the true view" (11S4a23-2S). Evil, however, though it is a great dilemma and must be carefully treated, is not the greatest perplexity of political philosophy. Paradoxically, virtue, friendship, joy, and happiness are greater mysteries, realities more difficult to explain or cope with than evil. This is why these topics are also found in the great books of the discipline; it is why, I think, they deserve a fresh consideration here, because we seldom seek to explain them all together in a coherent relationship. I shall argue that a noncontradictory unity exists among three aspects of political philosophy-the problem of evil or coercion, the problem of virtue, and the problem of contemplation of the highest things. The case for this unity is not often made within the discipline. Beginning with the fact of our "fallenness" (Scripture ) or "wickedness" (Aristotle), we are led to the meaning of human life itself, whether it achieves a good and whether this good is completely comprehended or achieved by politics. Political life does exhibit a myriad of evils and of the virtues contrary to them. But neither the reality of evil nor the possibility of good within the city is completely explained within political philosophy. I do not think this incompleteness of political philosophy is a defect in the discipline but it does indicate its very limit, the nature of its own understanding of what it is, of what it can do. The "logic" of thought about political things leads to political philosophy . In its turn, by reflecting on these very political things, political philosophy is open to metaphysics and revelation, them- Introduction 3 selves grounded in events, ill things. This "logic" is what IS presented in this book. Those who think about...