Beginning
The major political instincts of America are three: liberal, libertarian and conservative. This tri-partition needs revising. The history of political thinking presents opportunities to advance this debate and offer a new political idea to people who take such ideas seriously. This new idea is a neopolity.
(neo = new, polity = political body or organization).
The neopolity blog is a forum for vigorously debating these ideas.
Inherent in advancing any new idea is the assumption that something has changed which makes the new idea relevant. Philosophers have argued theories of political organization for centuries. What changes as each new theory is articulated is the background knowledge available to build a political philosophy upon. In other words, a political philosophy must have a general philosophy which it relies upon for its understanding of the world. A general philosophy must have an accurate understanding of the physical world--the physics, biology and chemistry of life and existence. As our knowlege of these "real" things change, so must our tree of philosophy.
In the lexicon of philosophy, political philosophy is a branch of ethics and an ethical theory must have a metaphysics which it builds up from. You must first understand the nature of your existence before you can ask how you relate to others. (See Hilary Putnam, Ethics without Ontology for a rebuttal of this proposition.) And to understand your own nature, you must know the world around you.
What is new?
The new thing being assumed here is the science of evolution, the strange reality of quantum physics and Relativity and the "end of history" scenarios being advanced by various thinkers. These physical explanations of reality change our understanding of the world and thereby impact how we think about our place in the world. The next step is reconciling that understanding with a new ethics and simultaneously a new political philosophy.
This blog is devoted to testing these assumptions, building upon them and trying to create a new philosophy (political or otherwise) which relates to these new ways of seeing the world.
Anyone with any interest in philosophy, science or politics is welcome to post. The philosophers can offer their arguments on what is being proposed, the scientists on what is being assumed and the political thinkers on whether any of this makes any difference.
Since we are in the midst of a national election where related ideas and specific policy proposals are being discussed, reference to them is welcome.
(neo = new, polity = political body or organization).
The neopolity blog is a forum for vigorously debating these ideas.
Inherent in advancing any new idea is the assumption that something has changed which makes the new idea relevant. Philosophers have argued theories of political organization for centuries. What changes as each new theory is articulated is the background knowledge available to build a political philosophy upon. In other words, a political philosophy must have a general philosophy which it relies upon for its understanding of the world. A general philosophy must have an accurate understanding of the physical world--the physics, biology and chemistry of life and existence. As our knowlege of these "real" things change, so must our tree of philosophy.
In the lexicon of philosophy, political philosophy is a branch of ethics and an ethical theory must have a metaphysics which it builds up from. You must first understand the nature of your existence before you can ask how you relate to others. (See Hilary Putnam, Ethics without Ontology for a rebuttal of this proposition.) And to understand your own nature, you must know the world around you.
What is new?
The new thing being assumed here is the science of evolution, the strange reality of quantum physics and Relativity and the "end of history" scenarios being advanced by various thinkers. These physical explanations of reality change our understanding of the world and thereby impact how we think about our place in the world. The next step is reconciling that understanding with a new ethics and simultaneously a new political philosophy.
This blog is devoted to testing these assumptions, building upon them and trying to create a new philosophy (political or otherwise) which relates to these new ways of seeing the world.
Anyone with any interest in philosophy, science or politics is welcome to post. The philosophers can offer their arguments on what is being proposed, the scientists on what is being assumed and the political thinkers on whether any of this makes any difference.
Since we are in the midst of a national election where related ideas and specific policy proposals are being discussed, reference to them is welcome.
posted by Ralph at 8:46 AM
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