Digressions&Impressions

Ibn Khaldun, Prophets, and his Critique of Martyrdom

[E]very mass (political) undertaking by necessity requires group feeling. This is indicated in the aforementioned tradition: "God sent no prophet who did not enjoy the protection of his people."...
To this chapter belong cases of revolutionaries from among the common people and of jurists who undertake to reform evil (practices). Many religious people who follow the ways of religion come to revolt against unjust amirs. They call for a change in, and prohibition of, evil (practices) and for good practices. They hope for a divine reward for what they do. They gain many followers and sympathizers among the great mass of the people, but they risk being killed, and most of them actually do perish in consequence of their activities as sinners and unrewarded, because God had not destined them for such (activities as they undertake). He commands such activities to be undertaken only where there-exists the power to bring them to a successful conclusion....Rulers and dynasties are strongly entrenched. Their foundations can be undermined and destroyed only through strong efforts backed by the group feeling of tribes and families, as we have mentioned before. Similarly, prophets in their religious propaganda depended on groups and families, though they were the ones who could have been supported by God with anything in existence, if He had wished, but in His wisdom He permitted matters to take their customary course.
If someone who is on the right path were to attempt (religious reforms) in this way, (his) isolation would keep him from (gaining the support of) group feeling, and he would perish. If someone merely pretends to (achieve religious reforms) in order to gain (political) leadership, he deserves to be hampered by obstacles and to fall victim to perdition. (Religious reforms) are a divine matter that materializes only with God's pleasure and support, through sincere devotion for Him and in view of good intentions towards the Muslims. ...

Most men who adopt such ideas will be found to be, either deluded and crazy, or to be swindlers who, with the help of such claims, seek to obtain (political) leadership -which they crave and would be unable to obtain in the natural manner. They believe that such claims will be instrumental in bringing to them the fulfillment of their hopes. They do not consider the disaster that will overtake them in consequence. The trouble they create will speedily cause their death and bring their trickery to a bitter end.---Ibn Khaldun, "Chapter 3, paragraph 6. Religious propaganda cannot materialize without group feeling," The Muqadimmah (translated by F. Rosenthal), p. 88.

Earlier in the week (recall) I claimed that Ibn Khaldun is a proto-political Spinozist. By which I mean that he embraces the idea that revelation is authoritative in social affairs, but that revelation should not be treated as a book that gives us a philosophy of nature. Today I want to spell out a bit more the way revelation's authority is supposed to work. I have noted before (recall) that Ibn Khaldun treats prophecy as a real agent of historical change. But he explicitly rejects (recall) the (Islamic) philosophers' suggestion that prophecy is just a synonym for a true political founder (akin to a Rousseau-ian legislator). So, for him states, even well ordered states are possible without prophecy. This is no to deny that he thinks prophets can be political legislators.

For, to be sure, he treats Muhammad as a genuine prophet. In fact, he attributes two miracles to Muhammad: he "wrought no greater miracle than the Qur'an and the fact that he united the Arabs in his mission." (Sixth prefatory discussion.) The second of these points to the political significance of Muhammad's life; he was capable of unifying Arab tribes. (This is a standard Islamic idea.) 

Now in Ibn Khaldun's philosophy of history, the pre-unity Arabs are treated as Bedouins who live in a kind of anarchic state of nature, of equality and independence. (They also lack wealth because they do not really practice division of labor.) They have a lot of latent power, but ordinary this power is invisible because they are at war with each other or subordinated to some sedentary civilization.  

This latent power can be channeled through royal authority. And royal authority, in turn, (recall) relies on group feeling, or what I call sympathy. In Ibn Khaldun's philosophy of history, genuine change starts in the periphery and, at first, is destructive of civilization life. There is a strain -- I am uncertain if it is the dominant strain --  in Ibn Khaldun that welcomes such purifications because while he has clear fondness for the benefits of civilization, he also thinks it decadent.

True prophets -- as opposed to false, wannabe prophets -- rely on group feeling to survive. As the example of Muhammad shows, they are capable of gaining what Ibn Khaldun calls royal authority.  They do so, in part, because people follow truthful and ethical leadership willingly: good conduct id taken "as proof of Muhammad's truthfulness." (Sixth prefatory Discussion.)

What I find interesting about Ibn Khaldun's analysis is that he grants that some wannabe prophets may well be motivated by sincere and apt outrage at political injustices: they are "on the right path." (He is also adamant that "most" are political opportunists.) Now, you may have thought that he would treat the sincere would be prophet who gets killed as a martyr. But Ibn Khaldun does no such thing. Not only does he barely register the possibility, he is distinctly reserved about treating anybody as a martyr (treating sincere would be prophets who fail as in the grip of a"delusion and stupidity" (Chapter 6, in par. 51)). 

A quick check (this may be misleading) reveals that in his long book, Ibn Khaldun only acknowledges the existence of three martyrs: Al-Husayn (who is revered in Shia Islam)* and Ibn al-Zubayr. Both opposed Yazid, albeit for different reasons.* Ibn-al-Zubayr basically defended what we would call a democratic kingship conception of the Caliphate against turning it into a hereditary institution. What's striking about the treatment of the case of Ibn-al-Zubayr is that Ibn Khaldun both thinks he was mistaken in thinking he had the authority to revolt, and so was killed with lawful authority, AND that he had "(good) intentions and the fact that he chose the truth." It is notable that Ibn Khaldun does not claim that Ibn-Al-Zubayr was mistaken about the political principle at stake.+ But he treats those who opposed him as right. In particular, they were right to see the consequences of revolt, and, thus, civil war, as leading to bloodshed.

What all of this reveals is that Ibn Khaldun both thinks there is a huge political status quo bias in human social life. Anticipating Hobbes, even justified rebellion is frowned upon.++  On my reading he embraces this so much that his whole book is one long argument against any cult of martyrdom. To put it succinctly, Ibn Khaldun's view is that the only prophets worth having are those that succeed in gaining political power.**

On Marilynne Robinson's Edomites

Assmann’s argument is the sort of razzle-dazzle that depends on coinages like “mnemohistory,” which is the exalted and useful discipline of interpreting history that collective memory has displaced and suppressed so thoroughly only the writer has an inkling even of the fact of suppression. In this cognitive implosion a fusion occurs between Moses and the Aton cultus which conventional history simply cannot achieve. Assmann is writing this book in response to Freud’s abysmal question about the origins of anti-Semitism. “Strikingly enough, his [Freud’s] question was not how the Gentiles, or the Christians, or the Germans came to hate the Jews, but ‘how the Jew had become what he is and why he has attracted this undying hatred.’” He paraphrases Freud’s answer thus: “Not the Jew but monotheism had attracted this undying hatred. By making Moses an Egyptian, [Freud] deemed himself able to shift the sources of negativity and intolerance out of Judaism and back to Egypt, and to show that the defining fundamentals of Jewish monotheism and mentality came from outside it.” So we are to concede, apparently, that these are “the defining fundamentals of Jewish monotheism and mentality.” Comment is unnecessary, though I will draw attention here to the notion of victimization I remarked on earlier. We gentiles have the Torah to blame for our worst moments, it would appear.

Like others of these writers, Assmann argues that ancient polytheism was essentially tolerant, “cosmotheism,” and readily accepted other gods, translating them into the terms of the culture that received them. Granting that Melqart, a god of Carthage, did indeed lounge around in a lion skin looking just like Hercules, we have the fact that Rome loathed Carthage, and was despised in turn, and reduced that great city to bare earth and then plowed salt into the ground. Athens and Sparta had just the same pantheon, and they fought to the death. And Rome conquered Greece, whose gods it had thoroughly Latinized. That is to say, whatever the merits of polytheism, at best it only obliged people to find other than religious grounds for hostility, which they were clearly very able to do. How the wars of the Hebrews against the Canaanites are more culpable than the wars of the Romans against the Etruscans I fail to see, or why anyone should imagine that these wars were less formative for European civilization than those distant, inconclusive wars among the Semites. Or, for that matter, why they do not prove that the character of the civilization was already formed when Rome set about the conquest of Italy. Jack Miles attributes the structure of Western consciousness to monotheism on the grounds that “the Bible was the popular encyclopedia of the Middle Ages.” But in fact through most of the Common Era in Europe the Bible, and especially the Old Testament, existed almost exclusively in Latin, a language incomprehensible to the great majority of people, who were in any case illiterate. So its influence is easily overstated. Yet ferocious intolerance has characterized most of Western history in the Common Era.

Polytheism is as fashionable now as it has been since fascism was in its prime. As a corollary to the current tendency to blame monotheism for intolerance and aggression and genocide, there is an assumption that polytheism must have been tolerant, pacific and humane. This notion is old, too. In The Natural History of Religion, Hume says, “by limiting the powers and functions of its deities, [idolatry] naturally admits the gods of other sects and nations to a share of divinity, and renders all the various deities, as well as rites, ceremonies, or traditions, compatible with each other … [By comparison] when one sole object of devotion is acknowedged, the worship of other deities is regarded as absurd and impious.”

It is striking to see how the cultural discourse is circling on itself. Perhaps the real familiarity of their arguments explains why these writers I have looked at offer so little in the way of evidence. For example, Assmann, the most scholarly of them, says the Old Testament is deeply informed by aversion to Egypt, then offers no support from the text. And, coincidentally perhaps, little evidence is to be found in the text. One Mosaic law of unambiguous relevance, which goes unmentioned by him, is Deuteronomy 23:7: “You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother; you shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were a sojourner in his land.” This law provides that both Edomites and Egyptians may enter the assembly of the Lord on favorable terms — after three generations, that is, which seems long, but which is liberal by comparison with the ancient Athenians, for instance, who never naturalized the descendants of foreigners. Nor, as I understand, do the modern Germans. This one verse is sufficient to demonstrate that there was not hatred but in fact a certain bond between Hebrews and Egyptians.

This idea, that the hatred of the Other is the signal preoccupation of the Old Testament, is carried to great lengths by Regina Schwartz..."--Marilynne Robinson, "The Fate of Ideas: Moses" in When I Was a Child I Read Books (2012), pp. 114-116. [First published in 1999 in Salmagundi.]

During the Summer my mom called attention to a lovely, recent essay by Robinson in the NYRB. (Thank you mom!) In that essay Robinson vindicates the Puritans and Cromwell as (for example) legal reformists who develop the idea of the rule of law. I may be the only would be aspiring contributor to the Republic of Letters who had missed the impact of Robinson's novels and essays and even Obama's endorsement of her. (Serves me right for skipping the NYRB for a few years!) I am trying to use the remainder of this Summer to catch up on what I missed. When I Was a Child I Read Books contains two essays, "Open thy Hand Wide: Moses and the Origins of American Liberalism" and "The Fate of Ideas: Moses," which are the bedrock on which the recent NYRB essay is built. These two essays are often read in tandem by those with an interest in advancing, what we may call, contemporary political theology (see, e.g., Paul Steaton critically; Scott D. Moringiello admirably).

The long quoted passage is kind of exemplary of Robinson's philosemitism. She is very acute on the ways in which biblical scholars and even very progressive intellectuals have a tendency to attribute bad features of European civilization or today's culture to a disparaged version of the Old Testament.

As an aside, she uses "Old Testament" and not "Hebrew Bible" because they have "very different cultural histories [and] the order of the books is different." (96) En passant, Robinson raises the question to what degree these can be said to be, in fact, the same book(s).*

Be that as it may, Robinson, who is often humane and wise, is pretty compelling that often the unlovely critiques of the Old Testament are grounded in lack of familiarity with the actual text. She notes that for much of the history of Christianity such familiarity cannot be presumed among many. (The revival of knowledge of the Old Testament occurred during the reformation by humanists and reformers.)+  And one of her more endearing features is to quote Scriptures to unmask dangerous nonsense presenting itself as scholarship. I don't mean to suggest she is committed to simpleminded literalism or infallibility of scripture; not unlike her hero, Calvin, she uses sola scriptura as a means to expand one's judgment and sensitivity and to ground what she calls free thought. 

Even so, I think something is off in her reading of Deuteronomy 23:7. And I will suggest it's the kind of offness that characterizes the advocate. Before I get to that, everything she says in the passage quoted above is true -- both true as readings of others and about the larger purported truths to which they refer. More important, given the contemporary scene, the passage she quotes from Deuteronomy helps provide background to the kind of claims my friend (and sometime co-author) Yoram Hazony makes (recall, for example, here and here) about what he calls the order of nation states which co-habit in peace. Hebrew, Egyptian, and (especially?) Edomite can be expected to cohabit. In fact, and again with a nod to the contemporary headlines, this is a Hebraic nationalism that rejects ethnic/racial purity and is open to immigrants becoming part of the community (and intermarry). Hazony himself has written eloquently on this (recall).** 

Okay, with that in place, I would like to quote 23:7 in Deuteronomy's slightly larger context:

3An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the LORD for ever: 4because they met you not with bread and with water in the way, when ye came forth out of Egypt; and because they hired against thee Balaam the son of Beor of Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse thee. 5Nevertheless the LORD thy God would not hearken unto Balaam; but the LORD thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because theLORD thy God loved thee. 6Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity all thy days for ever. Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite; for he is thy brother: thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian; because thou wast a stranger in his land.8The children that are begotten of them shall enter into the congregation of the LORD in their third generation. KJV

It's pretty clear that the Old Testament treats Ammonites and Moabites very differently from Egyptian and Edomite. What's especially striking is not the historical rationale offered by Moses,++ but the insistence that one should not aim to make peace or (I think) trade with  Ammonites and Moabites. To put the point anachronistically, in the order of nation states there will be states that are perpetual enemies (e.g., Ammonites and Moabites) and those that are not (e.g., Edomite and Egyptian. Since the Jews had been slaves in Egypt this is indeed remarkable.) It seems that there is something about the national character of perpetual enemies (lack of hospitality and, to sound Hobbesian, war-preparedness) that makes them (these nations) incapable of change.*** 

I think Robinson would be inclined to read, and she would not be wrong to do so, this passage of the Old Testament as showing that an unwillingness to open one's hand to the stranger is, according to it, almost the worst national character-trait. So, the passage supports her larger spirit.  

Even so, I close with a yes, but. 

Even if one allows (for the sake of argument) that national character is fixed, I am unsure what the assumed mechanism is by which flawed national character infects each individual such that it makes members of these nations permanently unwelcome. But it's pretty clear that the passage justifies inhumane treatment of those taken to belong to natural enemies. So, surely Robinson is correct to say that the Old Testament shows no signal preoccupation with hatred of the Other. It would be pleasant if we could all be Edomites. But that's compatible with the injunction to be on guard, in the sense of keeping out, alas, some distinct Others, forever.  

On Baudet and the Final Struggle

But, having said all this, is there any hope in Houellebecq’s oeuvre? If, as in his view, the modern world is based on a fundamentally flawed anthropology—and has, as a consequence, produced a completely dysfunctional society—then it cannot continue to exist for very long. Individualism has reached its final stage and cannot develop any further. It has started to consume itself.

We are now at the point where we must begin to think about what comes after—and this will necessarily be some form of tra­ditionalism. Because individualism makes our societies so weak (re­sulting, as we have seen, in an unwillingness to defend our civilization, to resist mass immigration, and even to reproduce, among other things), our society shall either regress and regenerate, or it will be replaced.

In most of his books, Houellebecq refers to some form of identitarian movement, of nationalists and populists, or, as in Séroto­nine, a popular uprising à la today’s gilets jaunes. Indeed, Soumission even involves a paramilitary resistance group led by the fascinat­ing Godefroy l’Empereur, who incidentally appears to serve the finest pear liqueur in all of France. In all these movements, Houellebecq sees (correctly, in my view) an attempt to preserve traditional European culture or indeed to reestablish it: a world in which the family is once again at the center, in which nations are restored, maybe even a form of Christianity is reinstated.

In contrast to such movements stands the alternative: the con­quest or replacement of our civilization by a new “metaphysical mutation.” Such a metaphysical mutation also conforms, though in a different way, to some traditionalist standard and involves the sacri­fice of the individual’s desires and liberation in favor of the group. This is most concretely seen in the strong internal loyalties of Ara­bic, African, and Turkish immigrants who follow Islam, which Houellebecq describes in Soumission.

As things stand today, this second scenario clearly represents the most likely future for Europe. And in a famous 2015 interview in the Paris Review, Houellebecq in fact commented: “I accelerate history, I condense an evolution that is, in my opinion, realistic.” He added: “The Koran turns out to be much better than I thought. I feel, rather, that we can make arrangements. The feminists will not be able to, if we’re being completely honest. But I and lots of other people will.”

Are the cards then dealt? Or do we still—despite the Herculean challenge of overcoming modern individualism—have the option of revitalizing our civilization?

Houellebecq, in the end, does not really answer the question. And, to be honest, I am a little disappointed that Sérotonine has not explored this greatest question of our age any further. Soumission ended in a vague conditional tense, like a dream, with a distant vision of an Islamized Europe. The final struggle between Godefroy l’Empereur and the Islamists remained undescribed—and in our world, too, the future remains undecided and our vision is often warped by the frame of liberal individualism. But, given the aston­ishing rise of populists and nationalists in Europe and beyond, the question cannot be avoided....

We must wait not just for his next book, but for the next generation of authors to pick up the challenge and run with it a little further: and to help us express, and even revive, the Western will to live.--Thierry Baudet "Houellebecq’s Unfinished Critique of Liberal Modernity" in American Affairs III,  2 (Summer 2019): 213–24.

Baudet's book review of Houellebecq, if it is indeed by Baudet, appeared to the public's attention just before he was to debate the prime minister on prime-time TV just prior to the European elections, generated a lot of criticisms in our native Holland because of Baudet's apparent willingness to reject "individual autonomy," his willingness to challenge the right to abortion and euthanasia, and his questioning of the effects of women's emancipation.*

Baudet's illiberalism is not a bug, but a feature: he is distinctly reserved about “inalienable rights,” (especially because he interprets them as a means to "eclipse all other claims," by definition, "and to which all other ties, loyalties, and connections must ultimately be subordinated.") His political ideal involves the restoration of the family, nation, and, somewhat more hesitantly "maybe even a form of Christianity."

While a number of commentators noted Baudet's reductive reading of Houellebecq, I worry that the full implications of Baudet's review are not taken seriously enough. For, Baudet is the undisputed leader of Forum voor Democratie (FvD) after removing the other founders from leadership positions. With the Dutch political landscape extremely fractured -- at the moment no party is polling consistently over 20% --  FvD is the rising party in Dutch politics capable of setting the agenda and news and capable of playing kingmaker in the (less important) Dutch upper house.

What has received less notice is what I'll call Baudet's endgame. The review of Houellebecq offers crucial clues about this, which is tied up with a surprisingly metaphysical conception of history. It seems that Baudet thinks the age of liberal individualism has exhausted itself (see the first two paragraphs of the quoted passage on top of this post). We are literally on the dawn of a new epoch. This is the "necessary" next step in history.

It's here Baudet's fascination for Godefroy l’Empereur, the leader of  a "paramilitary resistance group" as an exemplary means to restore European civilization is so troubling. For, Baudet foresees a struggle on the ruins of the individualist epoch. The struggle is between two approaches that have much in common: both "sacri­fice...the individual’s desires and liberation in favor of the group." But the question is which group, one is nativist the other is immigrant. That is, rather than seeing a clash of civilizations taking place across and among different continents, Baudet foresees this clash within the political units of the (European) continent.

Unlike many other among the "aston­ishing rise of populists and nationalists in Europe," Baudet does not offer lip-service here to democratic ideals. Rather he explicitly suggests that the "Western will to live" may require folks like Godefroy l’Empereur to fight on behalf of European civilization. Given that Baudet is alarmist about "demographics decline," the danger is that Baudet and his allies across Europe will encourage (with a nod to The Internationale)** a "final struggle" not just as a spiritual contest, but as a violent conflagration in which all of us will be forced to choose sides. 

 

Ibn Khaldun on The political and epistemic Dangers of Astrology

Astrologers think that astrology...enables them to know the things that are going to be in the world of the elements, before they are created. The positions of the spheres and the stars (are) thus (taken to) indicate every single kind of future event, both universal and individual.
The ancient (astrologers) were of the opinion that the knowledge of astral powers and influence is acquired through experience. It (thus) is something that all (human) lives combined would not be able to achieve, because experience is obtained through numerous repetitions which make the obtainment of (empirical)knowledge or conjectures possible. Astral revolutions may be very long. Greatly extended periods of time are required for their repetition. Even (all) the lives in the world (combined) would be too short for (observing) them.
Ptolemy and his followers were of the opinion that the stars are able to indicate (the future) as the natural result of a temper they produce in the elemental existing things...
It makes the weakness of the achievements of astrology clear. Knowledge of,or conjectures about, things that come into being can only result from knowledge of all their causes, that is, agent, recipient, form, and end, as has been explained in the proper place....Furthermore, the astral powers are not the sole agents. There are other powers that act together with (the astral powers) upon the material element (involved), such as the generative power of father and species contained in the sperm, the powers of the particular quality distinguishing each variety within the species, and other things. When the astral powers reach perfection and are known, they (still) are only one among many causes that go into the making of a thing that comes into being...

Such is the situation (even) if one's knowledge of the astral powers is accurate and without defect. Now, that is difficult. The ability to calculate the courses of the stars is required in order to know their positions. Moreover, it is not proven that every star has its own particular power....All this speaks against the assumption that it is possible to predict things that will happen in the world of the elements with the help of astrology.
Furthermore, it is wrong to assume that the stars exercise an influence on (the world) below them. It has been proven deductively in the chapter on the Oneness of God, as one has seen, that there is no agent but God....The divine power (would seem to) tie the two together, as it does with all created things, (both) high and low, especially since the religious law attributes all happenings to the power of God and does not want to have anything to do with anything else....
Prophecy also denies the importance and influence of the stars....Thus, the worthlessness of astrology from the point of view of the religious law, as well as the weakness of its achievements from the rational point of view, are evident. In addition, astrology does harm to human civilization. It hurts the faith of the common people when an astrological judgment occasionally happens to come true in some unexplainable and unverifiable manner. Ignorant people are taken in by that and suppose that all the other (astrological) judgments must be true, which is not the case. Thus, they are led to attribute things to some (being) other than their Creator.
Further, astrology often produces the expectation that signs of crisis will appear in a dynasty. This encourages the enemies and rivals of the dynasty to attack(it) and revolt (against it). We have (personally) observed much of the sort. It is,therefore, necessary that astrology be forbidden to all civilized people, because it may cause harm to religion and dynasty.--Ibn Khaldun, Muqqadimah, Book 6, Para 29, Translated by Franz Rosenthal.

A few days ago, I claimed that Ibn Khaldun was flattering Timur in his meeting with Timur. One (further) reason to think that he is flattering is that in the meeting, he treats Timur's rise as astrologically foretold, yet in the Muqqadumah he is very critical of astrology. He is clearly assuming that while he is famous for the (massive) book, the folk eager to consult him about his expertise, will not have really read it carefully.  In the chapter (partially quoted), Ibn Khaldun offers five main reasons to reject astrology:

1. Empirically, the cycles of the heaven are too long in time, for proper induction over them such that these patters can be mapped on yo the complexity of human affairs.
2. So in virtue of this we lack the kind of causal knowledge of all the relevant mechanisms that would accurate prediction possible.
3. There is no source in revelation that gives us access to the relevant data and causes. 
4. He calls attention to religious prohibition against astrology in some authoritative hadiths. 
5. Astrology is politically dangerous because it encourages crisis thinking.

The arguments underwriting Ibn Khaldun's first two reasons are clearly indebted to Al-Ghazali's views about empirical science (recall). The third one (no revelation) blocks a kind of move to somebody inspired by Al-Ghazali, who thinks that in the context of discovery, would be scientists require guided intuition of structure (or special properties). And that guidance, or inspiration, just is prophecy. Ibn Khaldun can grant the existence of prophecy (he does so in the Muqqadimah); all he needs for present purposes is that prophecy/guided intuition of structure is not sufficient to ground the kind of knowledge presupposed in astrology. (I omitted the details of his argument in the block quote--so you gotta trust me on this one.)

As an aside, I am fairly confident that Al-Ghazali is in the background here, because in this extended discussion, Ibn Khaldun relies  explicitly on a kind of occasionalist view of human affairs: there is no agent but God. Ibn Khaldun explicitly notes (in the quoted passage) that philosophy (deductive reason) and religious law (sharia) agree on this point. While others have defended occasionalism, it is, of those with a philosophical sensibility, something very much associated with Al-Ghazali.

The political argument against astrology is two-fold: first, it undermines civic religion -- here understood, in part, as a social practice like history conducive to political flourishing (recall) -- because when it gets lucky, it creates a new source of authority in the eyes of the people. For Ibn Khaldun, thinks that royal authority/sovereignty is founded on group cohesion, but this always presupposes a willing self-subordination to authority. This self-subordination is grounded in the (tacit) good opinion of the authority. (Of course, it's also shaped by it.) We may say that (recall) astrology risks becoming an influential political idol.

Second, astrology generates what we may call crisis thinking. People are encouraged to be on the look-out for extrinsic portents and signs that spell trouble. (I use 'extrinsic; to distinguish this from ordinary prudence and precautionary principles, which Ibn Khaldun praises.) As Socrates (Timaeus 40D) puts it, alarming portents of the things which shall come to pass hereafter become, Ibn Khaldun argues, coordination mechanisms and rallying cries for dissatisfaction and would be revolts. And so they become inherent source of instability. This is especially so because the purported meanings of signs are inherently malleable. 

We may, see, here, Ibn Khaldun challenging the art of statecraft as handed down by the ancients (Greek, Persian, Chinese, etc.) more generally. To sum up and simplify, the various competing schools taught the intellectual elites to either shape control of divination and astrology or to accept it and make it into an instrument of statecraft. Ibn Khaldun argues that this is a grounded on a mistake that undermines instability. Because the smart and educated benefit from the market for astrologers, this helps explain (recall) why Ibn Khaldun is so critical of the role of the learned in political life.

 

 

The Communist Manifesto: On Bugs vs Features of Capitalism

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.

The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere.

The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes.--Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848) The Communist Manifesto, translated by Samuel Moore in cooperation with Frederick Engels, in 1888.

In his introduction to a recent edition of The Communist Manifest, Jeffrey C. Isaac notes (25) that the manifesto diagnoses what Schumpeter would call the "creative destruction" of global capitalism. In the quoted passage this is a force of constant change within not just the economy ("the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production"), but also "whole relations of society."

In so doing, self-preservation, the conatus of all beings (to adopt Spinozist terminology),  changes its character. In previous societies, the conatus of the ruling class, the constitution of a society, the ruling ideologies, entailed a conservatism with regard to tradition.  Self-preservation of being meant to preserve what one was bequeathed. From the Marxist perspective this is a truth that transcends most historically conditioned features of a political order.

But with the rise of capitalism, the inherent conservatism of the ruling classes is undermined, or self-undermined. Self-preservation now means adaptation to constant change. The response to novelty becomes a Darwinian survival of the fittest ("new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question.")

This evolutionary perspective on itself, generates two crucial features of capitalist self-understanding in light of such permanent change: first, the entrenchment of "everlasting" uncertainty as a feature not a bug of the modern economy; second, desires are not given, but 'wants"are shaped by the very process of permanent change (recall this post on Knight). 

It is notable that these themes (creative destruction, uncertainty, permanent change, shaping of wants, darwinian struggle), while not wholly new with Marx and Engels, are, I think, first brought together by them in the space of a few passages. They are now commonly associated with names like Schumpeter, Knight, Alchian (see here), and Milton Friedman, are central to the liberal, perhaps even neo-liberal, response to the catastrophe of the 1920s and 30s. 

More subtly, Marx and Lenix also diagnose what liberals of all ages have called (recall this post on Stigler) rent-seeking and state capture by partial interests as (recall here) public choice economists (Buchanan and Tullock) have analyzed ("the executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.")  

There is, in fact, also a moral agreement. For, while Marx and Lenin are extremely critical of moralized conceptions of politics in the manifesto (they ridicule many moral, purported "eternal truths" as class prejudices), they do appeal to the (Kantian) idea that it is very bad to be treated as a means. The effect of mass industrialization is that labourers become a "commodity, like every other article of commerce." This and the subsequent vulnerability of being exposes to the "fluctuations of the market," is treated as self-evident bad; it's quite clear that Marx and Engels presuppose here something like the Kantian idea that humans should be treated as ends and not as means.*  

I don't mean to suggest that Marx and Engels wholly anticipate the twentieth century liberal self-understanding of the economy and society.+ A key difference is the nature of the business cycle. For Marx and Engels periodic crises are inevitable and caused by a mixture of overproduction and concentration of wealth. (It's worth asking if by their own lights, a progressive tax with re-distribution would prevent Capitalist business cycle from causing crises.) They were writing in the wake of the 1847 panic (itself a response to overbuilding of railways). The resolution of these crises (by way of a mixture of austerity and write-offs of productive potential, expansion of markets, and reinvention) creates the seeds for worse crises down the road, until they make possible a revolution that ends the bourgeois rule.

Even liberals who reject the idea of the economy as always self-equilibriating are not, generally, tempted by the idea that each crisis is worse than the previous one. That is, liberals think most crises may be contained and overcome. (After all Keynes thought of himself as a liberal saving liberalism.) And, in fact, most recessions are, while seriously unpleasant, not catastrophic. But it is notable that liberal faith also survives The Long Depression of 1873–1896, the Great Depression of 1929-1940, and the recent Great Financial Recession. That liberalism survives so many devestating crises is, I think, inexplicable to the Marx and Engels of the manifesto. But it is worth noting that the faith it will do so, must be a mystery to the Liberal, too. 

 

 

On The Discovery of Progress: Lessius on a Dutch glass/telescope and God's Hand

Furthermore many other obseruations in the Heauens most wonderfull and vn∣knowne for somany ages to all antiquity▪ are lately discouered by the helpe of a Per∣spectiue glasse inuented by a certaine Batauiā. As for example, that the body of the moone is spongious, consisting of some matter re∣sembling little locks of woll; that the star of Venus doth increase and decrease in light like the moone, crooking it self into hornes, as the moone doth; and when it Orbe is full of light, it is not opposed diametrically to the Sunne, as the Moone is, but is in small distance from the Sunne: from which ob∣seruation it may seeme to be necessarily in∣ferred, that the starre of Venus is carryed in a huge Epicycle about the Sunne; so as it is sometimes far higher then the Sunne, other tymes much lower. In lyke sort by the for∣mer instrument there are obserued, about the starre of Iupiter 4▪ small stars, sometimes going before, sometimes following Iupiter: at one tyme they all appeare, at another tyme but some of them, and at a third tyme other some; from whence also we may ga∣ther that the said starres do moue in little Epicycles about the starre of Iupiter. Againe, in the body of the Sunne there appeare cer∣taine spots, which notwithstanding do not euer retaine one and the same place in the Sunne, but daily change their situation; and at one tyme they appeare more in number, at another fewer. From which it is easily gathered, that these spots do not inhere in the body of the Sunne, but are little starres, which interpose themselues betweene the Sunne and our sight, and are moued in Epicycles about the body of the Sunne. I my selfe haue often obserued these varieties, with wonderfull admiration of the wise∣dome and power of God; who hath dispo∣sed the course of the starres with that stu∣pendious art and skill, as that they are in no sort subiect to the apprehension of mans vnderstāding. I here omit the infinite mul∣titude of Starres, which (being neuer dis∣couered to the Astronomers vntill this tyme) are by the helpe of the foresaid in∣strument most distinctly seene in the Hea∣uens.

To cōclude, in the eight Sphere (wher∣in the fixed Starres are) there is obserued a triple motion. The first from the Fast to the West, absoluing its whole course in 24. houres. The second from the West to the East, which is thought to go one degree in a hundred yeares. The third from the South to the North, and contrariwise; by force of which motion the beginning of Aries & Libra of the eight Sphere doth descrybe certaine small circles about the beginning of Aries and Libra of the ninth Sphere; which course is perfected in 7000. yeares. Now, who will maintayne, that so multi∣plicious, and so various a locall motion should proceed from nature, and not from some one most Wise and Excellent an Vn∣derstanding or Power, thus gouerning all the heauēs for the benefit of the sublunary or earthly bodies, and particulerly of man, to whome the rest are subiect and seruicea∣ble? Neither conduceth it any thing against our scope, whether it be replyed, that these motions are performed by diuers trā∣sient pushes (euen as the rowling about of a potters wheele is occasioned by the Pot∣ter) or els by certaine stable, firme & per∣mament forces, impressed in the celestiall Orbes (as some do affirme) for by whether meanes soeuer it is caused, it necessarily proceedeth from some incorporeall cause indued with a mynd and vnderstanding, & not from any peculiar propension and incli∣nation of nature. Now this Cause (which with so powerfull a hand, and so many wayes turneth about the heauenly Orbes) we call God, who either worketh this im∣mediatly of himselfe (which is the more probable opinion) or els by the ministery and help of inferiour Spirits, and Intelli∣gences, as many do hould. Leonard Lessius, (1612) De prouidentia numinis, pp. 23-26 in Ravvleigh his ghost. Or a feigned apparition of Syr VValter Rawleigh to a friend of his, for the translating into English, the booke of Leonard Lessius (that most learned man) entituled, De prouidentia numinis, & animi immortalitate: written against atheists, and polititians of these dayes. Translated by Edward Knott in 1631,  [HT Brian Ogilvie, "Natural history, ethics, and physico-theology." Historia: Empiricism and Erudition in Early Modern Europe (2005): 93ff.]

Regular readers may know that I have an interest in the invention of open-ended political and scientific progress. A key move in that history, in my opinion, is the generative role that the Ecclesiasticus 43:32 plays in the early modern period (recall here on Clarke and here). It is treated as a prediction or prophecy of the possibility of more knowledge to be discovered. One context this articulation occurs is (as it is in Clarke) in the treatment of certain species of design arguments. There is a lot to be said about the role of scientific knowledge within a design argument, but I am going to ignore that momentarily (go read the links above).

But Clarke is post-Newtonian (or at least co-extensive) writing in the eighteenth century. By which time what we would call the scientific revolution is well under way. But this made me wonder in what context the fact that there are new scientific discoveries start to figure into (post-Copernican) design arguments. The quoted passage above is the earliest I have found so far.

In context of the quoted passage, Lessius (Leys), a Leuven Jesuit (who played a non-trivial in history of economics), is offering (his "second") reason for the claim that there is one "One Supreme Power, by whose Providence all things are governed" (corrected spelling; p. 11). I like the quote because he is clearly referencing Galileo's discoveries, but (like Galileo) credits the telescope to a certain Dutchmen. And while he talks in terms of epicycles, he seems to accept elements of the Copernican hypothesis. (It's possible, however, that his stance is compatible with the Tychonic system. I need to do more careful reading. Crucially, he seems to have reproduced or confirmed Galileo's findings (only two years before [see also Armstrong]).

Now, Leys acknowledges the existence of many new astronomical discoveries, and thinks these provide additional evidence of providential design. Strikingly, anticipating Newton and Clarke, he thinks the astronomical orbits provide special evidence for God's design despite lack of knowledge about the mechanism (either God's direct action, the operation of regular natural force, or mechanical impulses,* or the role of spirits.)

Now, it is a bit unclear why Lessius argues that the astronomical phenomena are for the benefit of mankind. But the key point today is that, anticipating Clarke and Newton (see the general scholium), he takes the trajectories of the newly discovered astronomical bodies as further evidence of God's design. But unlike Clarke and Newton (post Principia), he thinks that while the celestial bodies can be discovered, knowledge of the true orbits is beyond human knowledge, and so this itself is evidence for God's design. ("who hath dispo∣sed the course of the starres with that stu∣pendious art and skill, as that they are in no sort subiect to the apprehension of mans vnderstāding.")  I have phrased it in this way because it's possible that Lessius is stipulating here that true motions of celestial orbits can never be known (so that the debate over the Copenican system is indecisive).+ 

The underlying principle seems to be that the cause of a (newly) discovered likely or apparent regularity** beyond human comprehension entails an omnipotent (or at least vastly more expansive) mind. Now, for this to be a convincing principle, alternative hypotheses for the origin of natural order (chance, necessity, etc.) need to be already implausible.  The underlying metaphysical (or perhaps epistemological) idea seems to be that there is evidence the world is regular and intelligible some mind, that is, to its designer, and only fully intelligible to it. We see here the idea that the world is a stupendous artifice whose principles are unknowable to the agents within it even if they get better at mapping it. We may say, then, that the PSR here is restricted to maker's knowledge.

 

 

On Ibn Khaldun, Biblical Criticism and Spinoza and Hume

For example, al-Mas'udi and many other historians report that Moses counted the army of the Israelites in the desert. He had all those able to carry arms, especially those twenty years and older, pass muster. There turned out to be 600,000 or more. In this connection, (al-Mas'udi)  forgets to take into consideration whether Egypt and Syria could possibly have held such a number of soldiers. Every realm may have as large a militia as it can hold and support, but no more. This fact is attested by well-known customs and familiar conditions. Moreover, an army of this size cannot march or fight as a unit. The whole available territory would be too small for it. If it were in battle formation, it would extend two, three, or more times beyond the field of vision.
How, then, could two such parties fight with each other, or one battle formation gain the upper hand when one flank does not know what the other flank is doing! The situation at the present day testifies to the correctness of this statement. The past resembles the future more than one (drop of) water another. Furthermore, the realm of the Persians was much greater than that of the Israelites. This fact is attested by Nebuchadnezzar's victory over them. He swallowed up their country and gained complete control over it. He also destroyed Jerusalem,their religious and political capital. And he was merely one of the officials of the province of Fars. It is said that he was the governor of the western border region. The Persian provinces of the two 'Iraqs, Khurasan, Transoxania, and the region of Derbend on the Caspian  Sea were much larger than the realm of the Israelites. Yet, the Persian army did not attain such a number or even approach it. The greatest concentration  of Persian troops, at al-Qadisiyah, amounted to 120,000 men, all of whom had their retainers. This is according to Sayf  who said that with their retainers they amounted to over 200,000 persons. According to 'A'ishah and az- Zuhri, the troop concentration with which Rustum advanced against  Sa'd at al-Qadisiyah amounted to only 60,000 men, all of whom had their retainers.
Then, if the Israelites had really amounted to such a number, the extent of the area under their  rule would have been larger, for the size of administrative units and provinces under a particular dynasty is in direct proportion to the size of its militia and the groups that support the  (dynasty), as will be explained in the section on provinces in the first book. Now, it is well known that the territory of the (Israelites) did not comprise an area larger than the Jordan province and Palestine in Syria and the region of Medina and Khaybar in the Hijaz.--Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, Translated by Franz Rosenthal.

The quoted passage is from the Introduction to the Muqaddimah. As I have noted before (here and here) the book is embedded in a framework derived from Aristotelian science.* To say this is revealing in lots of ways, but today I want to point to some of his evidential strategies -- Ibn Khaldun calls it "probing with the yardstick of philosophy...[and]  the help of knowledge of the nature of things...speculation and historical insight" -- in which he anticipates methods we are more likely to associate with Spinoza and Hume. I have quoted the first, instructive example of the claim that "historians, Qur'an commentators and leading transmitters have committed frequent errors in the stories and events they reported." The underlying point is to show how one can do source criticism by appealing to non-demonstrative principles that, nevertheless, have the status of robust commitments or generalizations that help one constrain or interpret the data (or some causal claim, etc.). I will call such principles, practical, empirical generalizations. 

Here are some such practical generalizations.

• [A] Every realm may have as large a militia as it can hold and support, but no more.
• [B] An army has [given technological and physiological constraints] a maximum size in which it can fight as a unit.
  • The size of an army/militia is constrained by the requirements of battle-field communication;
  • The size of an army/militia is constrained by field of vision;
• [C] The size of administrative units and provinces under a particular dynasty is in direct proportion to the size of its militia and the groups that support the (dynasty),

The epistemic status of such practical, empirical generalizations is grounded in or based on historical and practical experiences, reflection on human and social nature, underlying political economy, demographics, group psychology,and principles of analogy (etc.). As Ibn Khaldun says, he will show the robust veracity of [C] in a separate chapter. I don't mean to suggest that these are only empirical generalizations. For example, [A] borders on a tautology. But the point of [A] is not to offer an a priori truth, but to make the reader reflect on the demographic, geographic, and economic, !etc.) constraints on the possible size of a militia.  And given the plausibility of such constraints [A] can, in turn, by an informed constraint on the interpretation of source material. (Hume is a master of using informed and empirically grounded constraints to sift data in his work on demographics and political economy. This works in both directions.)

In addition, in practice, [A-C] also assume a further principle of human nature:

• [D] that if military might exists, it will be used to expand territory until it gets checked by an opposing power. 

This principle, [D], is the conatus/will-to-power principle of Ibn Khaldun's historiography. In order to avoid misunderstanding, I don't mean to suggest that for Ibn Khaldun that military power is sui generis or an explanatory primitive; it is grounded in group feeling, demography, economy, leadership qualities, etc. 

Of course, some of the claims that Ibn Khaldun's source criticism relies on are not merely such practical generalizations, but they are connected to more fundamental metaphysical principles. So, for example, one of the principles he explicitly relies (again see the quote above)on is this:

• [E] The past resembles the future,

That Ibn Khaldun embraces [E] is especially notable because he also thinks an unthinking reliance on a version of [E] is simultaneously one of greatest dangers in the writing history because it can license (i) a form of anachronism that prevents understanding of the past (this is familiar enough), and (ii) also (and more interesting) a misunderstanding of the present based on familiarity with works of history. The example he offers is that the content and status of particular political and legal offices have, without changing names, dramatically shifted in character. So, he claims that in the early caliphate and also the conquest of Spain a judge was often somebody who either had the power of the sword or was very closely affiliated to the center of power (due to group feeling); in his own age the judge is more an administrative functionary.+ Contemporary readers, may misunderstand their own time, and "aspire to similar positions" if they think that judges are still at the center of political power.

The last paragraph also hints at the fact that point of source criticism for Ibn Khaldun history is not just an understanding of the past, but also a better understanding of the present. In addition, Ibn Khaldun recognizes that works of history can motivate readers to courses of action. Some other time I return to that. 

Here I want to close with a final observation because the title of this post promises something riviting than Ibn Khaldun's source criticism. In the quoted passage, Ibn Khaldun calls attention to the greatest military victory of early Islam, the battle at al-Qadisiyah. In this battle the numerically inferior Arabs defeated one of the great superpowers of the Ancient worlds, the mighty Persian Sassanid empire. It opened the 'East' to Muslim expansion. The significance of the battle would have been familiar to Ibn Khaldun's readers and a source of group pride. 

Ibn Khaldun's official point of reminding the reader of this famous battle is to undermine the plausibility of historians's reports that Moses's army turned out to be 600,000 or more. Such an army would have been the basis of world domination not the occupation of a small bit of territory. Ibn Khaldun deftly shows that this number is implausibly large.

The interest of the example is, however, not just illustrative correction of bad scholarship. There is a more important point lurking here. For the implausibly large number is (as is well known) in the Biblical source-material. Numbers 1: 45-46 states, "And all those that were numbered of the children of Israel by their fathers' houses, from twenty years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war in Israel; even all those that were numbered were six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty." As it happens, the Quran recounts the story of exodus and the further exploits of Moses and Israelites, but without the claim to (exaggerated) exactitude of the sort the Hebrew Bible offers.

So, it is quite clear that the historians that Ibn Khaldun criticizes have embellished their account of the Biblical history re-narrated by the Quran by glancing at the Hebrew Bible (itself a sacred text familiar to Muslim scholars). The error is in the historical source not just the scholarship. What to do? After engaging in such source criticism, a pious and prudent scholar can't respond by claiming that the error "occurs only in the Torah which as is well  known, was altered by the Jews" (for reasons of self-aggrandizement, bias, etc.). Even to an Islamic scholar this response is unavailable "since custom prevents people who have a revealed religion from dealing with their divine scriptures in such a matter."

The problem is obvious, if one allows that sacred Hebrew scripture has been corrupted by interests motivated by group-loyalty one is stuck claiming that it is possible other sacred scriptures could also have been corrupted. This is the road to Spinozism. 

From the vantage point of Spinozism, Ibn Khaldun's response is disappointing. He claims that such passages have to be treated as miracles. This is not the end of the matter, of course, because one must understand what a miracle is. But that's for another time. Here I close with the observation that for Ibn Khaldun one can only speak of such miracles after engaging with source criticism. And this means that he has quietly invited us to apply his methods also to the Quran.

 

On Teaching The History of Comparative Political Philosophy

Lectures prepared beforehand and spouted in the presence of a throng have in them more noise but less intimacy. Philosophy is good advice; and no one can give advice at the top of his lungs. Of course we must sometimes also make use of these harangues, if I may so call them, when a doubting member needs to be spurred on; but when the aim is to make a man learn and not merely to make him wish to learn, we must have recourse to the low-toned words of conversation.--Seneca, Letter 38.translated by Richard Mott Gummere.

Last Spring, for the first time, I taught a 14-session (7 week) required, survey course -- an extended sprint really -- on the history of political theory. (I teach in a political science department.) Each session involves a 90 minute lecture (interrupted by a fifteen minute break.) The course I inherited was organized around excerpts from primary texts by the usual canonical figures. These were all male, except for Wollstonecraft, and the underlying vision involved commitment to progress made during European modernity.* It had been previously taught in Dutch. Because our department was transitioning to a taught English language BA (which ended up more than doubling our undergraduate major), it seemed like an opportune moment to attempt a redesign of the course in order to make it more cosmopolitan in outlook,+ especially because there had been considerable campus discussion and controversy about de-colonizing the canon. 

I was nervous about taking on the course because I view speaking for a large audience as a pact with the devil. You have to be willing to be an entertainer. Since I prefer seminars on a single text, I knew that this course would demand a discarding of my educational principles. But I decided the intellectual challenge of redesigning the course might be worth the effort. 

Then the panic hit.

I have no training in comparative history of philosophy/political thought. Even so,  I had been aware that this is something worth exploring since 2013, when, while I was trying out some ideas for my introduction to an edited volume on Sympathy: A History, a commentator at NewAPPS, Patrick S. O'Donnell, called my attention to the resonances between sympathy in the post-Platonic tradition and Buddhist thought. It was too late to change the volume, but the point had been made to me.

As it happens, shortly after that blog post, after switching disciplines and moving to The University of Amsterdam, I was encouraged to develop a course in 'non Western political theory.' (Of course, I had moved to a political science department, in part, to do more 'applied' research (on bank regulation; modern expertise, etc.) not to broaden my historical scholarship!) Regular readers know, I dislike the phrase 'western philosophy'(recall here and here), and when it comes up in class, I tell my students that Ibn Tufayl and Ibn Rushd, writing in what we would call Spain (and so to the west of Amsterdam), both understood themselves as western theorists (trying to scale the heights of occidental philosophy as epitomized by Ibn Sinna, Al-Ghazali, and Al-Farabi)! I chose to offer a course on classical, Islamic Political theory (these days the course runs from Al-Farabi to Ibn Khaldun.)**

The choice for Islamic political theory is partly motivated by the fact that contemporary Dutch political culture has an entirely negative obsession with Islam. It is completely routine in the Dutch media to see Dutch journalists and intellectuals treat 'Islamic' as synonymous with 'backward' and lacking any intellectual content at all. These intellectuals also project ignorance of earlier Dutch engagements with Islam, most notably the colonial past in Indonesia, onto the present. The aim of the Islamic political theory course is to correct this ignorance in a visible fashion, by treating the political theory of its golden age nearly entirely on its own terms.++ Because in graduate school, I had taken a fantastic seminar by the late Ian Mueller on medieval philosophy, which emphasized late platonism and Maimonides, and I am somewhat of an expert on Spinoza, I figured Islamic political theory would be a natural extension of my expertise. I even hoped it would help me in my ongoing research on Spinoza.* 

Because of my near total lack of Arabic and lack of grounding in the history of Islam, I still feel like an imposter while teaching the course. But sometimes I have native Arabic speakers in the course, and I let them help with translation issues. While I would never pretend to be a scholar of the period, teaching Islamic political theory annually gave me confidence to try to teach a survey of comparative history of political thought. It helps that I am rather doubtful about the very idea of progress.

Much to my surprise, my colleagues took an active interest in the evolving (notes toward a) syllabus of the course. There was genuine fear that I would displace shared background knowledge for unknown figures (some colleagues even revealed themselves as ardent lovers of the Enlightenment), that I would offer an unprincipled smörgåsbord or rijsttafel, of authors, that I was caving to political correctness, or engaging in empty symbolism. Because my ideas were in flux there were also quite legitimate fears that the course would simply fall flat.

Before I finalized the syllabus, I recognized that my lack of commitment to progress would allow me (i) to adopt a kind of symmetry principle such that all the authors and traditions could contribute to the unfolding narrative from a vantage point of equal standing: I was eager to convey to my students that (ii) political theory was not just the normative counterpart to empirical social science, but also a means toward thinking alternative models of reality and that (iii) political theory could be highly relevant to international relations (the primary interest of most of our undergraduates). 

Because there were constraints to the number of pages and texts I could assign, I decided on a half-way house: the first half of the course would be a truly comparative introduction with no author and tradition being privileged; the second half of the course would provide a version of the modern-arc, Hobbes to Weber (this year: Hobbes to Marx.) But the two parts would be connected thematically: first, by treating all my authors as part of a single debate on who should rule and how to select them (with sortition, meritocracy, kingship, elective kingship, and democracy all getting a fair hearing). Second, by discussing the same themes in different eras and traditions. So, for example, I would use Master Mo and Plato to offer models of the social contact that could complement, Hobbes, Locke, Spinoza, Rousseau, and Kant. I would use the Arthasasthra, alongside Machiavelli and Kant's Perpetual Peace to talk about international relations theory; I would use Mencius, Plato, and Weber to talk about the role of theory in correcting status quo bias; I would use Ibn Rushd and Wollstonecraft to contrast Platonic Feminism and egalitarian feminism; I used Al-Farabi, Locke, and Cugoano to contrast attitudes toward slavery, etc; I used Mill and Master Mo to discuss not just consequentialism, but also conformism; Wollstonecraft and Kant both end up in a fierce debate with Rousseau (my students' natural favorite). 

Some themes emerged by accident: my comparative introduction emphasized the benefits of (benevolent) social hierarchy, low taxes, and the rule of law; the challenges of pluralism and stability in any political order ran through the whole course, so did  the relationship between politics and religion. 

The final syllabus required making some genuinely tough decisions: it contained (almost) no Aristotle; no Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Hume, Montesquieu, and Madison. I ended with Weber (and so gave up Marx--this year I will try to end with Marx w/o Weber), emphasizing the connections to contemporary social science. While feminism was now an integral part of the course, I still only had one woman. (Something I will correct this year, probably by assigning de Pizan.) Due to limitations of source materials, I kept the focus on authors and particular texts, but where I was capable of doing so I immersed them in political and institutional context. (I am not sure that would work with philosophy students; political science students like political history.) And that allowed me to convey why political theory can be both immersed in a time, and offer models for alternative possibilities then and now. In all cases I tried to highlight why thinkers may be thought attractive and what one may find limiting. All the way, trying to convey key concepts that my students ought to remember. (The tests primarily focused on checking if they could recall concepts.) 

Much to my own amazement, the vast majority of the students liked the course a lot despite finding it very challenging. It's too early to say if this course really works.+++ I could not have taught it without help from experts in Ancient Asian philosophical thought[1] and encouragement from Meena Krishnamurthy who also considers the Arthasasthra a major work in political philosophy.[2] I intend to tinker with it during the next three to five years, while leaving the basic structure alone. (This year I may give up the session on Burke and Hegel, to do a session on empire and commerce.) In about four years I want to try to re-think it one more time and try to teach it as a genuine, comparative introduction to the history of political theory. 

Let me close. I don't think this is the only way that comparative history of political thought can be taught. (Feel free to email me if you want a syllabus.) And I do not deny that my course is not yet fully comparative. It still exhibits important patterns of exclusion, and it's quite likely that from a pedagogical perspective I tried to do too much.**** Intellectually it is a half-way house between a true comparative course and three cheers to the Enlightenment. But even so, I found it terrifying and exhilarating to teach; and (see here) now I understand myself as part of a larger trend of rethinking the undergraduate curriculum. I would love to hear your experiences, if any, in articulating a comparative curriculum.  

 

 

 

Darwin's (meta)-Philosophy of Science In The Origin of Species (and a note on his subtle Spinozism and debts to Smith)

The belief that species were immutable productions was almost unavoidable as long as the history of the world was thought to be of short duration; and now that we have acquired some idea of the lapse of time, we are too apt to assume, without proof, that the geological record is so perfect that it would have afforded us plain evidence of the mutation of species, if they had undergone mutation.

But the chief cause of our natural unwillingness to admit that one species has given birth to other and distinct species, is that we are always slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the intermediate steps. The difficulty is the same as that felt by so many geologists, when Lyell first insisted that long lines of inland cliffs had been formed, and great valleys excavated, by the slow action of the coast-waves. The mind cannot possibly grasp the full meaning of the term of a hundred million years; it cannot add up and perceive the full effects of many slight variations, accumulated during an almost infinite number of generations.

Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume under the form of an abstract, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as the `plan of creation,' `unity of design,' &c., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject my theory. A few naturalists, endowed with much flexibility of mind, and who have already begun to doubt on the immutability of species, may be influenced by this volume; but I look with confidence to the future, to young and rising naturalists, who will be able to view both sides of the question with impartiality. Whoever is led to believe that species are mutable will do good service by conscientiously expressing his conviction; for only thus can the load of prejudice by which this subject is overwhelmed be removed.--Charles Darwin The Origin of Species, Chapter 14.

Yesterday (recall), I remarked that Darwin likes to bookend/frame his arguments in terms of the ignorance of savages (recall also here). In later editions (from the third onward) of Origin this is accompanied by a further framing: in An Historical Sketch, Darwin gives an informed (albeit potted) history of the "progress of opinion on the origin of species" leading up to "the publication of the edition of the work." The book closes with a kind "prophetic glance into futurity"* in which Darwin sketches a trajectory for the reception of his book which I have quoted above. Of course, the rhetorical point of both (the historical sketch) and the quoted passage above is to promote and influence the uptake of Darwin's theory (and, perhaps, to reward him with  proper credit for the relevant bits of it).

Ever since the work of D.T. Campbell (on 'evolutionary epistemology' a term coined by him in Popper's (1974) Schilpp volume) and David Hull (with his evolutionary approach to development of Science) the idea of applying evolutionary ideas to knowledge has been thoroughly worked out and covers many different kinds of projects. The SEP article by Bradie and Harms suggests that Dewey and the pragmatists were the first to to do so. But I am convinced that evolutionary ideas about knowledge precede Darwin and may well have influenced the development of his views in biology (that's for another time). Even so, the purpose of the present post is to look at how Darwin conceptualizes the sociology of knowledge. 

1. The first sentence above suggests that ideas in biology are influenced by ideas about or dependent on cosmogony/cosmology. That's no surprise because as Darwin is at pains to emphasize, his theory requires an almost unimaginable lengthening of the age of the Earth. For those steeped in Christianity that's a problem; but even among christian deists there was a steady increase in the possible age of the Earth from the seventeenth century onward. Spinozists, of course, had no trouble allowing that the age of the Earth extended backward into infinity (as space was infinite).  That is to say, Darwin is acutely aware that the uptake of his ideas about the living world are influenced by what is taken to be possible and reasonable in other domains of inquiry.

2. The second sentence, which restates an important evidential objection against Darwin's theory, reinforces that first point and recalls his ninth chapter which was devoted to refuting the objection. His response there is really three-fold: the geological record has not been exhausted yet; the geological record will always be incomplete (due to constraints on fossilization, and the submersion of previous lands into oceans, etc.); the study of the geological record is itself influenced by the recent "the revolution in our palaeontological ideas." That is, while Darwin is a gradualist about the evolution of species, Darwin conceives of development of disciplinary knowledge as capable of revolutions in thought. I am convinced this idea is indebted to Smith's History of Astronomy.+ Despite the existence of such revolutions, his own 'historical sketch' suggests that there is progress in knowledge. So Darwin is using 'revolution' not in the old-fashioned sense of a circular understanding of knowledge (time, orbits, etc.) but more in the modern sense of a dramatic change, which can (but need not) be an important advance,

Incidentally, as an aside, my mention of Spinozism is not innocent; in that ninth chapter he also writes, "During each of these years, over the whole world, the land and the water has been peopled by hosts of living forms. What an infinite number of generations, which the mind cannot grasp, must have succeeded each other in the long roll of years!" While I am happy to concede to a skeptic that all Darwin needs to be saying here is that there has been a very huge number of generations beyond the mind's possible conception, his use of 'infinite' is politically dangerous--because that implies there need not have been a start at all.** This infinity is repeated in the passage quoted above. 

3. In the second quoted paragraph Darwin then offers a non-epistemic, but psychological error-theory for why a community of enquirers, may be resistant to the uptake of his theory. He claims it is a psychological fact that we require to see intermediate steps before we grant the existence of a great change. And if those steps are not easily visible, we are "always slow" in admitting any "great change." The psychology here is indebted to Smith's psychological-epistemic account (see my book) of how gaps prevent the mind to go along with any claim (and even generate the  painful emotion of wonder--which prompts us to further inquiry). We recoil from such gaps. 

4. This is related to a further psychological point which closes the second paragraph: from the vantage point of the minds of individual epistemic agents, the claims made in geology and in Darwin's theory are fundamentally hard if not impossible to grasp. The point is a quirky one, but can be understood if we take the idea of gaps seriously. It is impossible to inspect visually or manually, as it were, each step in an (unfolding) infinite series. Even if we avoid Zeno style paradoxes here, there is simply no time or resources to do so. The would be knower here, has to allow a form of abstraction that jumps over any would be gaps.++

5. Darwin then closes with a now familiar thought (often attributed to Planck -- "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it --) that scientists who grew up with different conceptual framework are likely to resist to come around to his theory. The epistemic significant point is that Darwin again expresses the idea that background ideas influence the uptake of new theories. In this case the background ideas are deeply entrenched in alternative paradigm. 

6. In addition, Darwin points out that there are really two main kinds of stances toward a theory: (i) one can have a disposition" to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties; (ii) and a disposition that attaches more weight "to the explanation of a certain number of facts." The first (i) is a skeptical disposition; the second (ii) is a confirmatory disposition. The interesting point here is that Darwin recognizes that (i) is a legitimate position and that he does not try to argue against it. But it's clear he thinks that this is nonthreatening because such characters may well find even more problems with other theories.

7. Darwin assumes that the community of knowers is populated with epistemic agents that have different epistemic characters. For in addition to (i-ii), it turns out that (iii) flexibility of mind, and (iv) young age (which he claims is correlated with impartiality) may also impact the uptake of new theories. (I don't mean to suggest there can't be hybrids of i-iv for Darwin.) That is, not unlike his theory of plants and animals, Darwin assumes natural variability within epistemic communities. 

8. Okay, this is a long-ish blog post now. So, one closing observation. The selection mechanism here, which is a kind of bottleneck, is the mind and its  disposition of the epistemic agent. So, it strikes me that Darwin is edging close to a theory of cultural evolution of which his meta-philosophy of science is an example.

On a footnote by George Grote on Adam Smith's Metaphysics; a note on contextual history of Philosophy

Adam Smith, in his very instructive examination of the ancient systems of Physics and Metaphysics, is too much inclined to criticise Plato and Aristotle as if they were the earliest theorisers, and as if they had no predecessors. George Grote (1865) Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates

The eminent scholar, Leo Catana, called my attention to the quoted passage which was previously unknown to me. George Grote was an important classicist, historian, and reformer who was in the orbit of Mill's circle but of independent cast of mind. David M. Levy routinely reminds me of the significance of Grote; so when I read Catana's note I felt a mixture of annoyance -- how could I (in an age of google) have missed that! -- and joy (because I think I can interpret what Grote has in mind and explain it). The reason for my annoyance is that one of the key rhetorical devices of my recent book on Smith is to draw on (previously ignored) nineteenth century discussions of Smith's metaphysics and epistemology in order to develop and reinforce my interpretations of Smith.

In the note, Grote is referring to one of the least studied essays of Adam Smith: the posthumously (1795) published "History of the Ancient Logics and Metaphysics. It appeared in Smith's Essays on Philosophical Subjects. It's a short essay and scholars often assume, I think, that it is unfinished. It is a kind of companion even appendix to a much better known (and easier digested) essay, The history of Astronomy.  

Before I get to the details of Smith and Grote, it is worth being alert to the fact that Plato and Aristotle are not standardly treated as the  founders of physics and metaphysics in Smith's age. For example, as I have  noted before (here in light of James Ladyman, here in light of a debate between George Stigler and Paul Samuelson, and here in light of a famous myth about falling in a bog), Hume treats Thales as the founder of physics and metaphysics both in a his famous Introduction to the Treatise as well as in the Natural History of Religion. So, Smith is very familiar with a narrative in which there is a serious history of metaphysics and physics prior to Plato and Aristotle. 

As an aside, in  context, Grote is arguing against two (complementary) seductive (but false) narratives about Plato & Aristotle: one (quasi) Enlightenment narrative (in which Socrates and philosophy more generally risk popular opprobrium) projected back on the ancients which treats them as fighting the people's prejudices; the other (semi Heglian one) which sees them as de novo founders of a new kind of intellectual enterprise (when thought becomes self-conscious) which rejects the muddled and confused (poetic) ruminations of earlier generations. He treats Smith (who lived prior to Hegel) as falling victim to the second one. Grote wants to put Plato and Aristotle in a larger earlier intellectual context.* I don't want to claim that Grote was the first to practice the contextual history of philosophy in English (now associated with the Cambridge school ca 1969), but he was one of the first really able practitioners of it. To what degree he was indebted to various strands of historicism I leave for another time.

Already in his History of Astronomy, Smith debunks the idea of Thales as heroic founder of philosophy. Inspired by some remarks by Aristotle, Smith treats the later accounts by Plutarch and Apuleius of Thales’ astronomical discoveries as historical fictions, and presents Thales’ cosmology as an anthropocentric and “confused an account of things.” (Astronomy 4.5; see also Astronomy 3.6,) Smith treats his Ionian successors as confused. Grote pretty much agrees with Smith about Thales (and drawing on same kind of evidence). But he treats the Ionian philosophers with more respect than Smith.+One important reason for this, is that Grote has access to much better (mostly German scholarly) efforts at compiling pre-socratic philosophy.

I think Smith has an ulterior motive for the polemic against Thales. And the target is an idea promoted by Hume.  In the Natural History of Religion, Hume basically treats Thales as a (proto-Spinozist) atheist.  Hume can then go on to claim about his successors "it was pretty late too before these be thought themselves of having recourse to a mind or supreme intelligence, as the first cause of all." (N 4.10, Bea 47) For Hume it is important to claim that theism/deism is a late addition, corruption, of an otherwise noble enterprise. (The real target is of course, the influence of Christianity on metaphysics and physics.) That's not Smith's position:

As soon as the Universe was regarded as a complete machine, as a coherent system, governed by general laws,  and directed to general ends, viz. its own preservation and prosperity, and that of all the species that are in it; the resemblance which it evidently bore to those machines which are produced by human art, necessarily impressed those sages with a belief, that in the original formation of the world there must have been employed an art resembling the human art, but as much superior to it, as the world is superior to the machines which that art produces. The unity of the system, which, according to this ancient philosophy, is most perfect, suggested the idea of the unity of that principle, by whose art it was formed; and thus, as ignorance begot superstition, science gave birth to the first theism that arose among those nations, who were not enlightened by divine Revelation.

Smith treats the invention/development of (philosophical) theism and the idea of a universe subject to general laws as mutually entailing. Rather than seeing theism as a corruption of science, he sees it as a consequence of science. To put this in social studies of science lingo: once the scientific object of study was conceived and stabilized as a law-governed machine,+ theism followed immediately: science gave birth to the first theism (without the need of revelation).** The point here is not to defend Christianity (or Plato) from Hume's criticism, but rather, I suspect, to claim that Hume is too optimistic about the nature of science.