Reviews for The philosopher-king in medieval and Renaissance Jewish thought

The average rating for The philosopher-king in medieval and Renaissance Jewish thought based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-11-29 00:00:00 Ron Gaudet Iii Popper's Open Society and its Enemies is devoted to a crushing polemic against Platonism. Plato's Republic is described as a detailed defense of what Popper calls "Closed Society", which is taken to be totalitarian in all its forms. Platonism is hard to summarize concisely, but roughly amounts to an ontology (that is, the study of reality) which is grounded in the concept of the "form", that of an idealized and unchanging entity which is the pure, unadulterated essence of all objects in reality. Platonism then distinguishes right and wrong (deriving its ethics from an ontological basis) as being based in what is eternal, and what is subject to decay or corruption, as the eternal object most closely corresponds to its ontological form, and that which decays or is corrupt is constantly moving away from its form. Popper's argument is that Plato, in the Republic, says that forms of government which are directed and led by an educated minority of philosopher-kings, and in which there is no class stuggle because each caste, including that of slaves, knows it's place. Plato is shown to be arguing a form of reverse-evolution: that the justification for this position is the concept that all of society is a decayed version of a past, "golden" era. Popper refers to this position as "historicism", a yearning for the good old days when tyranny was just and slaves knew their place. Contrast this work with George Soros' Open Society, and I am fascinated by the obvious parallel to Popper's analysis of the "Tyrant's successor problem". Soros' argument in Open Soiety is to expose the blind rhetoric of the cold war, whereby democracies such as the United States argued for years about the superiority of orderly democracy but then, after the fall of Communism, refuse to provide economic and military aid to the Balkan states and to Russia to help foster a nascent open society. Interestingly, he argues (to what appears to be a Clinton era government) that the role that the United States should take is one of "policeman to the world" (using that exact phrase). Interestingly, this is exactly the thing the Bush administration has been accused of being, and Soros had spent quite a fortune trying to prevent Bush from being re-elected last year. The difference in treatment between teacher (Popper) and student (Soros) parallels in some ways the analysis Popper makes between teacher (Socrates) and student (Plato). For instance, Popper argues that Socrates criticizes democracy, but as an effort to improve it, and makes compelling arguments that Socrates believed in a form of egalitarianism/equalitarianism (for instance, proving that even a slave is capable of reason by teaching the Pythagorean theorem to a slave). Plato, on the other hand, rejects equal rights for people, and seeks to tear down democracy and restore the rule of the philosopher-king. Soros, while arguing often that his philosophy is at odds with his economic behavior, states that he is morally unobligated to invest consistent with his ethics as long as he obeys "the rules". Soros also makes clear the role of the "greater fool" in investing- that as long as you don't believe your own lies, you can make money on the upside while people believe you, and then as you prove yourself wrong, make money on the downside as others catch on. Popper seeks only philosophical ends, yet Soros seems to want the role of philosopher, and king (at least of markets). Popper argues that the Republic is a large argument why the people should make Plato himself the philosopher-king. Likewise, does it not seem that Soros' bullying to get western governments to "save the ruble" (which would have put money in his pocket) is just a philosophical dodge to make him ever-richer, and thus more powerful, in this society where economic might is the apparent source of political power? Popper's most interesting but least developed point is one of the "paradox of democracy"- that given the choice to vote, people are free to vote in a tyrant. He argues that the system of democracy must be designed to prevent this from happening, but gives no clear reason as to the mechanism for this happening. To my way of thinking, there are many tyrannies. First, a tyrant or totalitarian government with physical or political might can become sovereign and accrue power and wealth to themselves. Second, an oligarchy of tyrants can through economic might concentrate sovereignty among a upper-class minority. Third, a democracy can become a sovereign tyrant through majority rule- that a majority of citizens can enact rules which benefit the majority to the expense of the minority. The problem of tyranny in modern times has concentrated on the problem of the sovereign minority because this form has been the most common historical form of tyranny. However, as a swelling middle class and democratic institutions take hold, we must not only be vigilant against returning to the evil of the past, but also to be on guard for new forms and modes of the democratic tyranny. Popper argues, somewhat naively, that a true democracy cannot become a tyranny, but seems to fall on his own sword in that he does not successfully define what a true democracy means. Soros argues against "market fundamentalism", the idea that free markets are an ethical end in themselves, and says that the state must regulate markets to prevent the rise of oligarchy or rule of the rich. Again, to this end, he states there must be a balance between state rule and state repression of markets, without clearly defining how this can be accomplished. Moreover, Soros is adept at continually proving himself wrong, aruing that this is a good sign since Popperian scientific method states that theories can never be proven correct, only incorrect. To me, the hysteresis between continual tentative theories and their reversal/disproval in short order (which seems to be the end result of Popperian, Sorosian democracy) is no recipe for stable, successful, and ethical government. However, it would seem at some level this solution is very likely the worst, except for all the others. The poverty of philosophy is that is is inept at formulating solvable questions- what I wouldn't give for a new way of thinging about these things, such that answers were more achievable. It is ultimately this form of depression which leads to the root cause of the democratic paradox. People will always prefer a tyrant with apparent answers to everthing over the crushing indeterminism of true science.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-02-22 00:00:00 Brian Volpe Have you wondered what Plato was all about or had trouble reading through his lengthy works? Get this wonderful book where an outstanding author does the hard work for you, then lays out the gist of Plato's thoughts in clear, easily and quickly readable prose. Behind our societies lie influential ideas, philosophies about the best way to organize humanity. In a few cases, the general public might be able to associate a person with an idea - Marx and communism, Jefferson and American democracy - but for the most part the philosophers whose thoughts deeply impact the way things are remain unknown. Too many think of philosophy as irrelevant to daily life; the verbose and complex musings of pointy headed intellectuals that have no impact. Nothing could be further from the truth. Neo-conservatism and neo-liberalism are philosophies that have driven America into a ditch, yet few citizens would be able to say anything about what these two philosophies are about, who the proponents have been or how the philosophies came to be. Ideas drive civilization. The only reason this is not clear to us is that we are concerned with the details of getting on with our lives. We're all deeply embedded in ideas made real whose lifetimes far exceed that of a human being. It's easy to have no perspective as we live out life under one system and know no other. Things appear the way they are with no alternative. This is a problem. If you don't know how something works, how can you begin to fix it? If you can't fix it, it deteriorates until tyranny and then revolution follow, bringing a new idea in on a tide of blood. Democracy in particular is a work always in progress. A democracy where the citizenry drops out, loses interest, becomes cynical, hands over power to the powerful who are more than willing to take it. But I am speaking of current events. To the book. The ancient Greeks are acknowledged to be the founders of Western thought, the thought that comes down through history to the present day in America and Europe, and they put democracy into practice. One of these ancient Greeks, Socrates (d. 399 BCE), is a name most of us have heard as well as that of his pupil, Plato, and of Plato's pupil, Aristotle, who tutored Alexander the Great. Plato, the founder of the first academy and a prolific writer, left his thoughts well documented. Our knowledge of Socrates comes mostly from Plato, who often in his writings put words into the mouth of Socrates in addition to detailing the Socratic method. Plato has never been far from the thoughts of the powerful in the Western world ever since. Karl Popper writes his book (this one is part one of two) to warn us of the danger in Plato's thoughts, so widely venerated over the ages, as they are a prescription for totalitarianism, the enemy of the open society. The open society is one where individuals are free to determine their lives and to make their own decisions. The closed society is one where individual life is important only in how it contributes to the strength of the state. The closed society dictates to the individual a life with an assigned status and function. Plato wrote at a time when Athens, a democracy, had recently been defeated by totalitarian Sparta in the 30 year Peloponnesian Wars. At this time of anxiety and insecurity, Plato, a sympathizer and admirer of Sparta, lays out a prescription for the ideal state in his Republic a work founded on the desire for stability and a fear of change. Plato, a pessimist, believed that there were perfect Ideas and Forms, that, once put into use could not help but degenerate from the originals. He seeks to hold back this degeneration as much as possible by the creation of a state that rejects change, demands adherence to order above all things, and forbids novelty which can only hasten decay. Popper, drawing evidence from all of Plato's work, makes the case that the good of the state is what Plato considers to be justice. Humanity is to be divided up into the rulers, the guardians and the masses (including slaves) that are to stay in their places through the generations, all serving to maintain the stability of the state with no chance of moving from one class to another. Eugenics is to be used to keep the human stock from deteriorating. Lies to the public by the rulers are perfectly ok in the service of maintaining a national myth to rally around. With thorough analysis and frequent quotes, Popper indicts Plato in his own words, stripping away the fog of veneration to reveal the harsh ideal that laid the foundation for the kind of thinking exemplified by that of Hitler's National Socialism. At the heart of Popper's work is his rejection of what he calls historicism, the idea that there is a historical tide in human events that dictates the future, that we are all floating on a sea of inevitable societal change that will take one form and then another heedless of the individuals that make up the mass, that there is a fate, a destiny to societies. Popper sees this as mythological nonsense, but immensely influential and quickly embraced by those thinkers who long for a structure underlying human existence, a meaning, a reason that makes sense of history and that allows prophecy. I have long known of Popper as he is widely admired and quoted but never could get hold of his work. Public libraries don't have his books and only a nearby university library did. Thanks to Amazon I found used copies of The Open Society and Its Enemies for a pittance. What I have been missing! Volume II moves on from Plato to deal with Hegel and Marx to do the same with them - taking apart their grand designs to show the danger within. He mentions in volume II that to avoid a huge book on historicism through the ages he skipped over the long period between Plato and Hegel. I wish he hadn't because I would eagerly read it.