Political Theory

H15 - Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes: New Insights

Date: Jun 1 | Time: 08:45am to 10:15am | Location: Classroom - CL 410 Room ID:15739

Chair/Président/Présidente : Robert Sparling (University of Ottawa)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Robert Sparling (University of Ottawa)

Aristotle and Hobbes on the Importance of Individuals VS Institutions: Tyler Chamberlain (Trinity Western University)
Abstract: Jeremy Waldron begins his Political Political Theory with the following question: “Institutions, or the character of those who inhabit them? Should students of politics make a study of the one or of the other?” (Waldron 2016: 1). His answer is indicated by his subtitle – “Essays on Institutions” – though the question itself is far from settled. This paper will shed light on what is at stake in this question by examining the historical bases for each pole: Thomas Hobbes as defender of institutions, and Aristotle as champion of virtuous individuals. Supplementing the empirical literature on this question with arguments from the history of political theory clarifies the assumptions and political implications of each answer. Aristotle’s argument that healthy politics requires virtuous individuals conceives of politics as the practice of judgment (phronesis), places moral and civic education at the heart of politics, and entails that there is no universally applicable best regime. Hobbes, on the contrary, defines politics as essentially rule-following, minimizes the importance of moral education, and argues in favour of a universally-valid regime type. This paper will demonstrate how of these issues is conceptually bound up with the relative weight given to individuals or institutions. To this end the arguments of Aristotle and Hobbes will be presented and contextualized within current debates regarding this question.

803.Chamberlain.pdf

Mundane Monsters: The Politics of Ordinary Life from Gargantua to Leviathan: Zak Black (University of Toronto)
Abstract: This paper contends that François Rabelais and Thomas Hobbes have the common political goal of rescuing the status of mundane human activities. From the perspective of chivalric, republican, or ascetic paradigms, activities like acquiring money, raising children, or enjoying the pleasures of consumption and reproduction are at best inescapable impediments to the pursuit of our highest human ends and at worst corrosive of those ends. Both Rabelais and Hobbes push back against the devaluation of mundane activities, first by subjecting the aforementioned paradigms to powerful satirical critiques, and second by recasting the “baser” human ends as more rational and more enjoyable than the so-called higher ends. While Rabelais and Hobbes share similar critical strategies, however, they have divergent strategies for elevating mundane life. Rabelais opts for a rowdy, carnivalesque celebration of the mundane, while Hobbes focuses instead on the dangers inherent in non-mundane pursuits. Both are responding to the problem of post-Reformation sectarian violence, but whereas Rabelais hopes to defuse the problems posed by pluralism by multiplying difference until it loses its significance, Hobbes hopes to clamp down on difference by submitting subjects to a single sovereign authority. Despite these different strategies, the political goal is similar: to shift the attention of individuals away from ambition and controversy, and towards the pleasures of mundane life. By placing Rabelais and Hobbes in dialogue, this paper recovers a place for Rabelais in the history of political thought while offering a new reading of Hobbes’s position on the goals of human life.

1057.Black.pdf