PHIL 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Political Philosophy, Socionics, Isaac Kramnick
7
restaurant (in this case, the Social Science building)xvi but it [LS taps on table]32 keeps
this all the time. There is a very simple proof of that which I have used n times and I ask
the older students among you to forgive me if I repeat it. Now when you [are] sent out—
not in this department but, let us say, in sociology—to make some field studies and to
find answers to a question, no one will tell you [that you] should ask only human beings
and not dogs, cats, trees and so on. It goes without saying. And, still more strange, no one
tells you how to tell a human being from a cat, dog, or a tree. That is simply presupposed.
Now you can say: Well, that’s all things33 which are a matter of course, but these are
exactly the problematic things, which are taken for granted without any consideration.
Now this commonsense understanding on which all scientific understanding is based is
unaware of the fact/value distinction. As you can easily see that, for example, the
statement “This man is a crook,” or “This is a corrupt machine”—these are as much
factual statements for the citizen as the statement “There are so and so many millions of
people in the city of Chicago, or in Cook County.” It would seem then that a return to the
commonsense understanding would free us from the absurdities which follow from the
assumptions that all values are equal.
But here we are confronted by a very great difficulty, namely, by the fact that the
commonsense understanding is variable. The present-day common sense is not the
common sense of the age of Queen Victoria, and still less the common sense of the
Middle Ages, and so on and so on. In a word, the common sense is radically historical. If
this is so, there cannot be the true value system, the true concept of the good society. And
therefore political philosophy in any serious sense of the word is impossible. Now, we
must face this difficulty. We must try to reach clarity about it, about this question: Is
philosophy, and in particular political philosophy, essentially historical or not? And
therefore, in order to understand this question, we must have34 the greatest possible
clarity about these two alternatives: a fundamentally historical political philosophy; and a
fundamentally non-historical political philosophy. And this requires in the first place [an]
understanding of Plato and Aristotle,35 whose political philosophy cannot be called
historical in any serious sense.
Kant is of particular importance as regards this question. According to Kant, there is the
true moral and political doctrine, valid for man as man, just as all earlier thinkers had
thought. Yet there is a difference. Let us—do you have the Critique of Pure Reason?36
The last section. Let us read37 the heading of the last section first.38
Mr. Reinken: “History of Pure Reason.”39xvii
LS: Yes. Is this imaginable40 that Plato [or Aristotle] would have spoken of a history41 of
pure reason? Now read a bit, Mr. Reinken.
Mr. Reinken:
xvi Where Strauss’s classes met.
xvii Critique of Pure Reason, B880.
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8
This title stands here only in order to indicate one remaining division of
the system, which future workers must complete. I content myself with
casting a cursory glance, from a purely transcendental point of view,
namely, that of the nature of pure reason, on the works of those who have
labored in this field—a glance which reveals [many stately] structures, but
in ruins only.
It is a very notable fact, although it could not have been otherwise, that in
the infancy of philosophy men began where we should incline to end,
namely, with the knowledge of God, occupying themselves with the hope,
or rather indeed with the specific nature, of another world. However gross
the religious concepts generated by the ancient practices which still
persisted in each community from an earlier more barbarous state, this did
not prevent the more enlightened members from devoting themselves to
free investigation of these matters.xviii
LS: Namely, God and immortality of the soul. Ya?
Mr. Reinken:
and they easily discerned that there could be no better ground or more
dependable way of pleasing the invisible power that governs the world,
and so of being happy in another world at least, than by living the good
life. Accordingly theology and morals were the two motives, or rather the
two points of reference, in all those abstract enquiries of reason to which
men came to devote themselves. It was chiefly, however, the former that
step by step committed the purely speculative reason to those labors which
afterwards became so renowned under the name of metaphysics.
I shall not here attempt to distinguish the periods of history in which this
or that change in metaphysics came about, but shall only give a cursory
sketch of the various ideas which gave rise to the chief revolutions [in
metaphysical theory]. And here I find that there are three issues in regard
to which the most noteworthy changes have taken place in the course of
the resulting controversies.xix
LS: Ya, let us stop here. And now in the sequel, Kant speaks of the fundamental
alternatives regarding metaphysics and he treats them as essentially coeval,42 not as
historical, in other words. And let us read now the last paragraph of the Critique of Pure
Reason.43
Mr. Reinken:
As regards those who adopt a scientific method, they have the choice of
proceeding either dogmatically or skeptically; but in any case they are under
obligation to proceed systematically. I may cite the celebrated Wolff as a
xviii B880. Brackets in original.
xix B880-881. Brackets in original.
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Document Summary
7 restaurant (in this case, the social science building)xvi but it [ls taps on table]32 keeps this all the time. There is a very simple proof of that which i have used n times and i ask the older students among you to forgive me if i repeat it. And, still more strange, no one tells you how to tell a human being from a cat, dog, or a tree. Now you can say: well, that"s all things33 which are a matter of course, but these are exactly the problematic things, which are taken for granted without any consideration. Now this commonsense understanding on which all scientific understanding is based is unaware of the fact/value distinction. But here we are confronted by a very great difficulty, namely, by the fact that the commonsense understanding is variable. The present-day common sense is not the common sense of the age of queen victoria, and still less the common sense of the.
