Silvio Spaventa and Marco Minghetti on party government

ABSTRACT

This article contextualizes, explores, and compares a selection of writings on party government and the modern State authored throughout the 1880s by two major representatives of post-Risorgimento Italian liberalism – Silvio Spaventa (1822–1893) and Marco Minghetti (1818–1886). Its comparative analysis unveils two alternative paths for taming factionalism and securing political freedom in modern representative governments: the strategy of monism pursued by Spaventa, revolving around the primacy of the State and its unity; and the strategy of pluralism championed by Minghetti, praising self-government and the multiple associations that enliven civil society. It connects these strategies to the intellectual background of the two authors – the importance of Hegel’s ideas for Spaventa; the implications of Tocqueville’s anti-Hegelianism for Minghetti – and maps them onto their visions of party government. In doing so, it retrieves an important chapter in the Italian debates on parties that has received scarce consideration among Anglophone scholars. It also helps to pluralize our understanding of Italian liberalism(s) in the aftermath of the Risorgimento. Finally, it draws the attention of Anglo-American political theorists and historians to Minghetti’s seminal book I partiti politici e l’ingerenza loro nella giustizia e nell’amministrazione (1881), which offered the first systematic analysis and defense of parties, and their difference from factions, in the history of modern Italian political thought.     

Towards a new philosophy of history. European Vichianism and Neapolitan Hegelianism (1804–48)

ABSTRACT

This article examines how Hegel’s reception among nineteenth-century Neapolitan authors went hand-in-hand with a renewed interest in Giambattista Vico’s philosophy of history. It considers the mechanisms of circulation and reception that shaped responses to Hegelianism within the broader context of European debates on La Scienza Nuova. These developments largely directed Neapolitans’ understanding of Hegel’s ideas and encouraged the merging of local thought with wider European currents. Neapolitan Hegelians engaged very extensively with the works of French and northern Italian authors, such as Jules Michelet and Carlo Cattaneo, who had understood Vico as a proponent of an absolute concept of historical time that neatly dovetailed with the philosophical preoccupations common among German idealists. The article makes a case for a transnational understanding of Neapolitan Hegelianism, arguing that this current of thought did not merely stem from the passive absorption of Hegel’s ideas, but emerged as the synthesis of a local and a European dimension of philosophy.     

Modern revolutions: An introduction to the analysis of a political phenomenon

This paper provides an interpretation of the movement of Arendt's thought in her Denktagebuch, from 1950 to 1973. This movement results in an incipient political philosophy based on new concepts of freedom, equality, and solidarity. As a contribution to debates on the normative foundations of Arendt's political thought, the paper seeks to show that her incipient political philosophy is based on an ethical understanding of the human condition as constituted by its openness to the divine, the worldly, and the (human) Other. Despite its fragmentary nature and its politically problematic indebtedness to theological traditions, Arendt's private thought nevertheless allows us to rethink her place in the history of European ideas. Beyond that, it also provides a powerful alternative to the view that ethical and political thought must remain ‘political not metaphysical’.     

Hegel,Analytic Philosophy’s Pharmakon

In this article I argue that Hegel has become analytic philosophy’s “pharmakon”—both its “poison” and its “cure.” Traditionally, Hegel’s philosophy has been attacked by Anglo-American analytical philosophers for its alleged charlatanism and irrelevance. Yet starting from the 1970s there has been a revival of interest in Hegel’s philosophical work, which, I suggest, may be explained by three developments: (1) the revival of interest in Aristotelianism following Saul Kripke’s and Hilary Putnam’s work on natural kinds, and Elizabeth Anscombe’s, Philippa Foot’s, and Putnam’s opposition to the fact-value distinction; (2) the rehabilitation of Hegel’s theories by various philosophers, including Robert Pippin, Terry Pinkard, Fred Beiser, Robert Stern, and Stephen Houlgate; and (3) the Sellars-inspired philosophy of mind of John McDowell and of Robert Brandom. The first and third of these reasons, I argue, have led several analytic theorists to cast Hegel in a more positive light as the “cure” for analytic philosophy. The combined outcome of these changes, both ironic and fitting, is that the Hegelian principle of internal critique has played a significant role not only in analytic philosophy’s rapprochement with Hegel’s philosophy but also in overcoming the Analytic-Continental philosophical divide.     

ASSESSING (AND NOT ASSESSING) THE ITALIAN CONTRIBUTION TO HISTORIOGRAPHY AND POLITICAL THOUGHT

Edited by Giuseppe Galasso, one of Italy's most distinguished historians, this large volume seeks to convey the Italian contribution to historiography and political thought from the dawn of the Middle Ages into the present century, though it is overwhelmingly concentrated on the centuries since 1400. It includes six overview essays, but over 70 percent of its bulk consists of short articles, 108 in all, the vast majority on individual figures, and most of them five to seven pages in length. Whereas the approach, through individual figures, makes the volume especially valuable as a reference work, the approach also entails limitations making it hard to delineate and assess a distinctively Italian contribution. Readers must often connect the dots on their own if they are to discern the strands of a distinctive tradition. In his introductory overview, Galasso suggests a special Italian sensitivity to history, or capacity for the philosophy of history, but the suggestion is left vague and is followed up only in the most ad hoc way in the subsequent essays. The book offers little on how Italian idiosyncrasy might have either compromised or enhanced wider impact. Although the extent of Italian international interaction is well documented, there is little attention to reciprocity and the scope for synergy. Nor is there much assessment of the implications of changes in the valences of that interaction over the centuries, especially in breeding self‐criticism and sometimes compensatory myth‐making that might have further complicated the resonance of Italian offerings. But the volume demonstrates the richness of the Italian contribution and implicitly invites us to better encompass it, perhaps through comparative work and further research on multinational interplay.     

The Italian Left in search of ideas: the rediscovery of the political ideas of the Action Party

In the wake of the collapse of 'really-existing' socialism and against a background of the growing influence of neo-liberal political thought, European socialist parties - and especially the former communist parties - have found it crucially important to reassert their liberal credentials. This explains the interest displayed by the Italian Left in liberal socialism, Dahrendorf 's New Liberalism and American liberalism, and especially in what is now called the 'Third Way'. In Italy, these developments have resulted in a genuine example of 'history's revenge'. The political ideas associated with the Action Party (PdA), which long played a Cinderella role in Italian politics and culture, have moved back to centre stage. This article examines how Italian leftist parties like the Democrats of the Left (DS) have been realigned to take into account the ideas of liberal socialism proposed by thinkers like Carlo Rosselli. It also explores how,since 1989, parties of the Italian Left have tried to appropriate the Actionist past and its mission, and why,after a long period of deliberate neglect, the Actionist agenda has again become the subject of lively debate.     

CONFUSING HISTORY

This compendium of fifty essays by international philosophers examines history from the point of view of its cognate disciplines, historiography and the philosophy of history. The authors often use the terms history, the past, and historiography interchangeably. Essays are grouped in four broad categories: basic problems, major fields, philosophy and sub‐fields of historiography, and classical schools and philosophers of history. The book provides useful insights, some dated by the fashion of postmodernism. The essays are largely independent of one another, and may be read in any order. The volume will be of interest to philosophers, historians, and social scientists with a theoretical bent.     

Crisis in consciousness: The thought of Ernst Troeltsch

This article examines the ‘revolutionary liberal’ outlook expounded by the young Italian journalist and intellectual, Piero Gobetti, immediately following the First World War. It considers the historical evolution of his ‘agonistic’ liberalism according to which conflict rather than consensus serves as the basis of social and political renewal. The article traces the formation of Gobetti's thought from his idealist response to the crisis of the liberal state through to his endorsement of the communist revolutionaries in Turin and his denunciation of fascism as the continuation of Italy's failed tradition of compromise. Whilst Gobetti's views presently resonate with a growing interest in the agonistic dimension of politics, it is argued that his elitism and his understanding of liberalism as a ‘civic religion’ reveal challenging tensions in his thought.     

Rhetoric and communication in Joseph Conrad

Early modern natural philosophers such as Francis Bacon are frequently seen as providing a legitimating ideology for British imperial expansion. Although this has been challenged by one recent study, much of Bacon's work on English colonisation remains unexplored. This article argues that far from being an ideological apologist for English colonisation, Bacon had two sets of colonial anxieties. The first derived from a tradition of civic humanism which concerned the moral corruption, dispossession of indigenous people and the greed involved in the British colonization of Ireland and America. Bacon's second anxiety was not moral but epistemological, and stemmed from his natural philosophy. For Bacon, colonies were not simply new commonwealths, they were places which potentially produced the natural knowledge vital for the recreation of man's original, epistemic empire over the world. Consequently, Bacon was not only interested in the morality of colonising, but also whether the knowledge produced in colonies was reliable. An exploration of Bacon's views on colonisation also offers us a point of entry into the scholarly debate about the relationship between Bacon's natural philosophy and his political thought.     

French Foreign Policy Elites and the Crises in the Former Yugoslavia

An examination of Orestes Brownson's understanding of Providence suggests that, for Brownson, not only the American Founders, but also the "pagan" political philosophers—that is, the original founders of the idea of natural right—"built better than they knew." Tocqueville, in comparison, trusted less in Providence than Brownson and offers himself as a kind of mediator between reason and history, the universal and the particular.     

Pascalian Suite. Elements of an Apologia

Abstract

This article considers the thought of Claude Lefort as a response to Leo Strauss. It compares their views on the task of political philosophy as such, and on its specific relation to modernity, religion, and democracy. For Strauss, the revival of political philosophy under modern conditions requires a return to its ancient roots. While Lefort agrees that such a restoration is necessary, he argues that this requires a departure from ancient thought: political philosophy must recognize modern democracy as a new kind of regime, independent of theologico-political norms.     

Intellectual History and the History of Philosophy

Summary

The issue which I wish to address in this paper is the widespread tendency in Anglophone philosophy to insist on a separation between the history of philosophy and the history of ideas or intellectual history. This separation reflects an anxiety on the part of philosophers lest the special character of philosophy will be dissolved into something else in the hands of historians. And it is borne of a fundamental tension between those who think of philosophy's past as a source of ideas and arguments of interest to the present, and those who hold that the philosophy of the past should be studied on its own terms, in relation to its immediate context, without reference to the present. The challenge, then, is to re-historicise the history of philosophy, and to keep the philosophers onside.     

Liberty and Community: A Liberal Resolution

Much has been written in the last few years regarding Leo Strauss's political attachments, especially with respect to his purported influence over American neoconservatives. Problematically, Strauss scrupulously avoided explicit ideological entanglements, rarely addressed particular policy debates, and left little guidance for the statesman or thoughtful commentator interested in drawing practical political inferences from his philosophical writing. To add further ambiguity to already muddy waters, Strauss's discussion of the relation between prudence and philosophic insight coupled with the many and incompatible roles he assigns to the philosopher within the city make it unclear if there is anything at all that philosophy can teach us of political significance. The following essay aims to explain Strauss's view of the political function of philosophy in light of his distinction between classic and modern utopianism and what he calls in On Tyranny "philosophic politics."     

Scientific whaling and how philosophy of science can help break the international deadlock

Despite widespread public interest on the topic of whaling, there is at present relatively little work on how philosophy might contribute to analysis of the status of whaling in international law. When philosophers have looked at the topic of whaling, they have confined their attention to a fairly narrow set of ethical questions, such as whether international law should permit certain forms of traditional indigenous whaling or extend legal rights to whales themselves. However, there is another important issue which has so far been largely neglected by philosophy, even though it is at the forefront of current international legal disputes over the status of whaling: the issue of so-called ‘scientific whaling’. This article considers the international legal dispute between Australia, New Zealand and Japan over the latter’s lethal harvesting of whales in the Southern Ocean, and the recent attempt at resolution by the International Court of Justice. On its face, this required that the Court demarcate ‘scientific’ from ‘unscientific’ activity; however, it effectively baulked at this task. The authors argue that this approach of the Court was unfortunate, and that demarcating science from commerce is not only achievable in philosophy, but might also inform international legal practice. Resolving this issue is important for genuine progress to be made in the current international stand-off over Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean.     

On “Natural” Uncertainty: The Philosophical Underpinnings of Uncertainty in Economics,with Special Reference to Knight and Strauss

Abstract

While current discourse has failed and will continue to fail to adequately integrate uncertainty into economic theory, this work explores how political philosophy can provide a better understanding of uncertainty. Specifically, political philosophy can answer most of the questions posed by Frank Knight's proposition of uncertainty in economic theory. In elaborating on Knight's reservations relating to Pragmatism, this work suggests that Knight's approach might well be revised to more adequately embrace the recent developments in American philosophy, especially those suggested by Leo Strauss. Significantly, it can be argued that Strauss provides a stronger foundation for the proposition of uncertainty in economic theory than Knight's application of Pragmatism around 1921. An understanding of uncertainty, which is based on Strauss, might be referred to as “natural” uncertainty, and this form of uncertainty may provide a point where political philosophy might begin to gain some traction within economic theory.     

The Idea of a Category Mistake: From Ryle to Habermas,and Beyond

Summary

The term ‘category mistake’ began to turn up regularly in public discourse in the 1990s as a general term to describe a confusion between different fields of thought with serious practical consequences. But it began its career in philosophy, introduced by Gilbert Ryle in The Concept of Mind in 1949 to attack Cartesian dualism and assert a monistic solution to the so-called mind-body problem. This paper traces the stages by which it came into general usage, arguing that while by the later 1960s it had generally been rejected by philosophers, it was saved from disappearance by its migration into fields such as psychology and theology. From there, it moved into critical theory and then into international relations. Its entry into these latter areas first made plain its potential in political argument. Eventually, multiple meanings of the term came to coexist with one another, with the practical and rhetorical usage supplementing rather than replacing its original philosophical sense.     

Aristocratic Liberalism and Risorgimento: Cesare Balbo and Piedmontese Political Thought after 1848

The paper discusses the political thought of Cesare Balbo (1789–1853), a leading Risorgimento moderate liberal and politician, in the context of the efforts by the Piedmontese political elite to support and legitimise the constitutional regime introduced by King Charles Albert in 1848. Revising current interpretations of Risorgimento moderate liberalism as backward and provincial, it seeks to locate the political thought of Balbo and his colleagues at the heart of contemporary European, and particularly French, debates regarding liberty and aristocracy. In particular, it argues that the views of Balbo and more broadly Piedmontese moderate liberals on centralisation, the importance of a social elite to defend freedom, and equalisation, were conversant with the ideas of Guizot, Chateaubriand, Burke and Tocqueville. Their harsh condemnation of republican virtue, on the other hand, rendered their liberalism peculiar in the Italian context, where Tuscan moderate liberals continued to resort to the language of civic humanism after 1848 to defend their political and social model.     

Teaching Political Science in China: Observations and Suggestions from a Foreign Visitor

Abstract

In responding to the other participants in the Symposium on Plato's Philosophers I attempt to clarify the reasons for, and the results of, my attempt to bring out the interrelations among the dialogues in order to determine what Plato thought. Recognizing that the indications of the dramatic dates of some the dialogues are controversial, I argue that the dates point to an over-arching narrative–the story of the rise, development, and limitations of Socratic philosophy. Plato uses his other philosophers—the Athenian Stranger, Parmenides, Timaeus, and the Eleatic Stranger—to bring out the problems that gave rise to Socratic philosophy and the limitations of his responses. Plato makes Socrates his “hero,” because Socrates provides the best account of the human beings who engage in the search for wisdom. By contrasting him with the other philosophers, Plato dramatizes the insoluble problems that make philosophy always a search for wisdom.     

Friendship as a Political Challenge

Abstract

Blitz argues for the necessity and possibility of political philosophy by uncovering its origins in the thought of Plato. By tracing its emergence from the political and moral, Blitz explains the nature of philosophy.