Week Two: Political Thought

The tutorials on political thought weren't exactly centered on voting rights, but isn't it enough that Hobbes was named after the guy rather than requiring that he also elaborate on all his complex political theories and methods? =) I've dabbled in the methods/theories of Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, and Locke this week. Interesting stuff. My dad always encouraged me to take a deductive logic class in college. Did I listen? No. Should I have? Yes. I got down to my final two semesters at BYU and realized I wouldn't be able to work out my schedule to make that particular philosophy class fit. Big mistake. While reading portions of Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, I can clearly see, or deduce rather, how his logic carried him from point A to point B...and then somehow straight to point Q. Right. Like I said, it was an interesting week. I really wish I had a bit more experience in this kind of stuff - logic, philosophy, etc. However, there's no time like the present to learn new things, and that is just what I intend to do this semester. I'll share some insights from these men, which I found interesting in reading and later in class discussion. I do have to admit, I'm really glad I'm not living in Hobbes' world as a member of the body politic - permanent paranoia and chaos. Locke's has its complexities and incongruities as well, but his is much more manageable, you know, with things such as natural parameters or boundaries, and even a few laws....

Locke: The Second Treatise of Government

'Tis easy to be imagined that he who was so unjust as to do his brother an injury, will scarce be so just as to condemn himself for it.'

'For truth and keeping of faith belong to men as men, and not as members of society.'

'A state...of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection, unless the Lord and Master of them all should by any manifest declaration of his will set one above another and confer on him, by an evident and clear appointment, an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty.'

'...though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence...'

Hobbes: Leviathan

'...In the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory.'

'For war, consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of time, is to be considered in the nature of war; as it is in the nature of weather. For as the nature of foul weather, lieth not in a shower or two of rain; but in an inclination thereto of many days together: so the nature of war, consisteth not in actual fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is peace.'

'The final cause, end, or design of men, (who naturally love liberty, and dominion over others,) in the introduction of that restraint upon themselves, (in which we see them live in commonwealths,) is the foresight of their own preservation, and of a more contented life thereby; that is to say, of getting themselves out from that miserable condition of war, which is necessarily consequent to the natural passions of men...'

Bacon: New Organon

'...it will not be amiss to discuss the three kinds and as it were grades of ambition in mankind. The first is of those who desire to extend their own power in their native country; which kind is vulgar and degenerate. The second is of those who labour to extend the power of their country and its dominion among men. This certainly has more dignity, though not less covetousness. But if a man endeavor to establish and extend the power and dominion of the human race itself over the universe, his ambition (if ambition it can be called) is without doubt both a more wholesome thing and a more noble than the other two.'

Sidenote: I've never read Thomas More's Utopia, but was quite intrigued while reading Bacon's New Atlantis of a similar theme. I highly recommend it - short, yet stimulating.

Descartes: Discourse on the Method

'For it is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to apply it well.'

'For talking with those from other ages is the same as traveling. It is good to know something about the customs of various people, so that we can judge our own more sensibly and do not think everything different from our own ways ridiculous and irrational, as those who have seen nothing are accustomed to do. But when one spends too much time traveling, one finally becomes a stranger in one's own country, and when one is too curious about things which went on in past ages, one usually lives in considerable ignorance about what goes on in this one.'

'In order to understand real opinions, it would be better for me to pay attention to what they practiced rather than to what they said...there are few people who are willing to say what they believe, but also because several are themselves ignorant of what they believe.'

'I think, therefore I am.'