The Use of Philosophy in Politics

The political theory of Plato must be understood with and within the state of period he lived. It is an established theory that the Peloponnesian war (the war between Athens and Sparta, 431-401 B.C) and the death sentence of Socrates were greatly influential in Plato’s political disposition. Before the Peloponnesian war, Athens was enjoying its prime. With the victory of war against Persia and under the command of hero Pericles, the power and influence of Athens was no more a mere city state but was that of the empire. As a nation perched seaside, Athens collected taxes from surrounding city states who were under the influence. Athens even strengthened defense power by constructing a long, solid wall which was not an easy task due to the containment of adjacent states. Other strong countries such as Sparta and Thebes sensed the hazard that Athens could really become an empire so decided to attack before it happens. Pericles” funeral oration from the Peloponnesian war is one of the most renowned speech of the Western history. In his oration, Pericles admired highly of the courage, autonomy and patriotism of the Athens”. However after Pericles” death, people who instigated to suppress the opponents

In giving life to philosophy, the polis also gave birth to a tension between what Aristotle would describe as two lives, which are the life of politics and the life of philosophy. As politics and philosophy were so closely connected in an ancient culture preoccupied with flourishing and virtue, a question opened here. Should philosophers act politically and should they engage in ordinary politics in existing regimes, or should they abstain from politics in order to live a life of pure contemplation? There was likewise a question as to whether philosophers should think politically: were human affairs worth thinking about in the broadest perspective opened by the study of nature and of the gods? In engaging with questions of rhetoric, virtue, knowledge, and justice, Socrates’ philosophical life was engaged with the political even before his death embattled him with it. But for his student Plato and Plato’s student Aristotle, the practice and even the study of human affairs such as politics were less divine, and so less admirable, than the broader study of truth about the natural and the divine realms. Philosophy might have to address the political but its highest calling rose above it. If Socrates’ political fate was part of the stimulus for Plato to invent a new metaphysics and epistemology in order to articulate an alternative realm of political possibility, Plato’s dialogues show Socrates simultaneously asserting an independence for those disciplines from the bonds of the political alone.

The distinctive understanding of politics forged in ancient Greece was marked by the historical emergence of the independent city-state and the variety of regimes which it could harbor. The polis was widely understood as the peak of human civilization and the principal domain in which human fulfillment could be sought. The city was the domain of potential collaboration in leading the good life, though it was by the same token the domain of potential contestation should that pursuit come to be understood as pitting some against others. Political theorizing began in arguments about what politics was beneficial for, who could participate in politics, and arguments which were tools in civil battles for ideological and material control as well as attempts to provide logical or architectural frameworks for those battles.

Before we answer the use of philosophy for politics, we should first determine “what is politics?” Briefly, politics can be defined as “the question of how to distribute a scarce amount of resources justly”. Which is, essentially, the way in which people obtain, keep, and exercise power. Philosophy then can be used here as the study of the theories behind politics. These theories may be used to gain power or to justify its existence. By the pursuit of fundamental and basic answers, the representative questions would be “what is the essence of power?”, “why should citizen obey the state?-Can state reign over people?”, and “what is freedom and equality”. Mostly, however, the theories have been used to justify or legitimate the existence of contemporary political structures by appealing to “rationality”, “reason”, or, among others, “natural law”. As we all know, in Western civilization, the philosophy of the ancient Greece had a great influence upon the norms of law and politics and upon attitudes toward political problems and questions. Accordingly the talk of philosophy for politics ought to be traced back to the Ancient Greece, where city-states were experimenting with various forms of political organization including monarchy, tyranny, aristocracy, oligarchy and democracy. In terms of ancient Greek, politics means polis or the city state. Philosophy as conceived by Plato and the subsequent tradition, indicates the practice of a particular kind of inquiry cognized as the love of wisdom which is known as philosophia. Because the Greeks grafted philosophy with politics in a technical sense, it was after long-time passed when the ancient models were accepted as defining the field and determining the “problems” to be considered.