[lit-ideas] Re: Philosophers of Empire
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 2 May 2014 18:02:30 +0200
I would think that a good philosopher begins answering every question by
pointing out that the question is poorly formulated. (More often than not,
she ends her answer there, as well. :)
O.K.
On Fri, May 2, 2014 at 5:54 PM, Walter C. Okshevsky <wokshevs@xxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Quoting dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx:
>
> > What is a philosophical analysis of the concept of 'empire'?
>
> I would think that the first aim of such a philosophical analysis is to
> show
> that the question as rendered is woefully(very poorly) formulated and as
> such
> does not admit of a cogent or even intelligible answer.
>
> Interesting:
>
> Q: So what is the point of learning philosophy anyway?
>
> A: Apart from other things, philosophy teaches us how to ask clear and
> cogent
> questions and to *only* ask clear and cogent questions. And this across
> disciplinary and professional lines.
>
> This pedagogical ideal, with its corresponding subjective maxim, of course
> only
> holds for communication and argumentation in the space of what Kant calls
> "public reason" in differentiation from "private reason."
>
> How you go about asking and answering questions in the "privacy" of your
> church
> or military organization is your own affair.
>
> Walter O
> MUN
>
>
>
>
> >
> > L. Helm's position seems to agree with that of Hanson, as cited in
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_imperialism
> >
> > "Classics professor and war historian Victor Davis Hanson dismisses the
> > notion of an American empire altogether, mockingly comparing it to other
> > empires: "We do not send out proconsuls to reside over client states,
> which
> > in
> > turn impose taxes on coerced subjects to pay for the legions. Instead,
> > American bases are predicated on contractual obligations — costly to us
> > and
> > profitable to their hosts. We do not see any profits in Korea, but
> instead
> > accept the risk of losing almost 40,000 of our youth to ensure that
> Kias can
> >
> > flood our shores and that shaggy students can protest outside our
> embassy in
> >
> > Seoul.""
> >
> > Philosophy of Empire.
> >
> > L. Helm raises an interesting topic or point -- how to define 'empire'
> and
> > how to make sense of allegations such as "The United States of America
> > is/was an Empire'.
> >
> > What interests me about L. Helm's stance on the topic is methodological,
> > and McEvoy should feel free to add his view on 'stipulative definitions'.
> > Rather, I should take a 'Griceian' account. After all, Grice repeatedly
> said
> >
> > that philosophers are into 'conceptual analysis' -- never mind the
> concept
> > of what. And what they do is to provide definitions which display
> necessary
> >
> > and sufficient conditions for the analysis of the concept chosen for
> > philosophical inquiry.
> >
> > Here they keyword is indeed POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, but the addition of
> > "United States of America" brings historicity into an otherwise
> theoretical
> > or
> > abstract question. So let's revise.
> >
> > In a message dated 5/1/2014 4:22:37 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> > lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
> > Various “assertions” have been made alleging that the U.S. is an empire,
> >
> > but I’ve seen no “arguments” in the sense that you produce evidence
> > and
> > then draw a conclusion from the evidence that comprises the end point
> of an
> >
> > argument; ergo the U.S. is an empire. I think of Niall Ferguson
> asserting
> >
> > that the U.S. is an empire, just not a very good one since it doesn't do
> > any of the things that earlier empires did allows him to get away with a
> > very
> > soft definition, something along the lines of “the U.S. is the most
> > powerful nation in the world therefore it is an empire.”"
> >
> > I like the idea of some definitions of 'empire' being soft. This has
> > various sides to it. For one, 'empire' WAS the keyword in mainstream
> > political
> > philosophy. I read from
> >
> > "Political Theory of Empire and Imperialism"
> >
> > in the Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 13: 211-235 -- available
> > online:
> >
> > "The study of empire," the author writes, is
> >
> > "a theme in the history of political thought" and was
> >
> > "pioneered by a few scholars working with a broadly Cambridge-school
> > approach, most prominently Anthony Pagden, James Tully, J.G.A. Pocock,
> > Richard
> > Tuck, and more recently David Armitage."
> >
> > "Pagden's early, seminal studies explored debates over the legitimation
> of
> > Spanish rule in the New World, debates conducted in language borrowed
> from
> > Aristotelian psychology (natural slave and child) and Roman legal and
> > political thought (imperium, dominium, orbis terrarum)."
> >
> > "In illustrating how empires generated new states and political forms,
> and
> > shaped modern political ideologies such as democratic republicanism,
> Pagden
> > made a powerful case for the centrality of empire to political theory.
> His
> > most recent books, written for more popular audiences, stress the
> possibly
> > “insuperable future dilemmas” facing the polities created in the wake of
> >
> > formal empires (Pagden 2001, p. 160) and, controversially, the
> “perpetual
> >
> > enmity” between Europe and Asia (Pagden 2008)."
> >
> > "Tully placed questions connected to empire at the heart of both LOCKE's
> > thought and modern constitutionalism, as I discuss further below. Pocock
> > (2005, ch. 2 [1973]) insisted, from a professedly “antipodean”
> > perspective,
> > that British history and political thought must be understood in
> imperial
> > and
> > global terms. More recently, his magisterial volumes exploring
> > Enlightenment thought by way of a study of the contexts of Gibbon's
> Decline
> > and Fall
> > of the Roman Empire have emphasized the global orientation of the
> > enlightened histories that were so prominent a feature of the
> intellectual
> > landscape
> > (Pocock 1999–2005). Pocock explores the wide range of meanings of
> > “empire”
> > at the time, as well as what he calls the era's “crisis of the seaborne
> > empires” (Pocock 1999, Vol. 4, p. 227) and the anxieties on the part of
> so
> >
> > many political and social thinkers of the time about the disorders of
> the
> > global commerce that was supposed to succeed the age of conquests. As
> Tuck
> > (1999) has argued, early-modern theorists of subjective rights
> conceived the
> >
> > sovereign individual in terms of the sovereign state and vice versa.
> They
> > worked out their theories, with “often brutal implications” for
> > indigenous
> > and non-European peoples, partly in response to two key practical
> problems
> > arising from European commercial and imperial expansion: struggles over
> > freedom and control of trade and navigation in Asia, and states'
> efforts to
> >
> > legitimate their settlement colonies in the New World (Tuck 1999, p.
> 108)."
> >
> > It seems that after Locke, Mill figured large in justifying empire. We
> are
> > then talking about mainstream political philosophers concerned with a
> > crucial concept, and no doubt struggling with a conceptual definition
> of it.
> >
> >
> > It should be granted that Locke and Mill are notably British rather than
> > American, even if the study, within political philosophy, or analysis of
> the
> >
> > concept of 'empire' may have been practiced by American political
> > philosophers as well.
> >
> > The centrality of the task DEFINING 'empire' I also found,
> especifically,
> > at
> >
> > http://www.protevi.com/john/Empire.pdf
> >
> > who cares to refer to this set of 'necessary and sufficient conditions'
> > which may relate to L. Helm's idea of some definitions of 'empire' being
> > 'soft', while what we need is a 'hard' one that does rely on some sort
> of
> > 'reductive' if not 'reductionist' analysis of 'empire' to its basics.
> >
> > The author writes:
> >
> > "Is the United States on the verge of becoming an empire?"
> >
> > "There is no finite set of characteristics for, say, “empire” that serve
> >
> > as necessary
> > and sufficient conditions for membership in that category."
> >
> > What we need is what Grice would call a "CONCEPTUAL" analysis (vide his
> > "Conceptual analysis and the province of philosophy", in "Studies in
> the Way
> >
> > of Words" -- this essay is particularly apt, since Grice sees the role
> of
> > the philosopher as that of providing conceptual analysis not necessarily
> for
> >
> > his own clarification. A philosopher can engage in philosophical analysis
> > for the sake of helping others. He grants that his main motivation has
> to do
> >
> > with questions of defining concepts HE finds troubles with).
> >
> > The author of the above link goes on:
> >
> > "To start, the concept of empire belongs to a group of other concepts
> for
> > ancient systems of geo-sociopolitical order, including nomadic warrior
> bands
> >
> > (with a leader who is first among equals -- primus inter
> > pares -- and who divvies up the booty they plunder from other groups);
> > central place cities (with large
> > scale slave-based agriculture and tending to mixed regimes w/ monarchial
> > elements); and gateway cities
> > (tending to commercial republic; expansionist democracy; forming leagues
> > and allies)."
> >
> > "These cities tended to have interludes of tyranny – one-man absolute
> rule
> >
> > – on their way from aristocracy to
> > democracy or mixed regimes."
> >
> > "Finally, there is an important concept, developed in the ancient world,
> > for inter-state relations,
> > “hegemony”, which is leadership by one unit of other units formally
> > equal
> > in “rights” but materially
> > unequal in power."
> >
> > "When we talk about the concept of "empire" we must at first distinguish
> > the geopolitical and civic political
> > senses of the term."
> >
> > "Geopolitically, empire is the domination by one group of a large number
> > of other
> > groups spread over a large territory. In civic political terms, we talk
> > about imperial rule as absolute
> > monarchy, large bureaucracy, elaborate regulatory codes: “big gummit” in
> >
> > other words. On the side of
> > the people, an empire tends to be composed of a few influential rich
> > families and a mass of isolated and
> > relatively powerless “citizens.”"
> >
> > The author is concerned with what after Locke we may term 'nominal'
> versus
> > 'real' definitions. A real definition, however, has the risk of relying
> on
> > an obscure idea of 'essence'. But it seems that any reference to a
> > condition being both NECESSARY and sufficient may always be criticised
> as
> > 'essentialist' if not 'stipulative'.
> >
> > The author goes on:
> >
> > "(Now if you insist that I answer the essentialist question at this
> point,
> > I would have to say the US for the
> > most part works hegemonically rather than imperially – the threats are
> > enough to so constrain other
> > states’ options in both domestic and foreign policy that we exert
> > effective control over large parts of the
> > world – but to show we mean business, an invasion is sometimes
> necessary,
> >
> > in which case we shift to
> > imperial action. The long history of our control of Central and South
> > America shows this: was
> > fomenting the Pinochet takeover in Chile – that other September 11 – an
> >
> > imperial or hegemonic act?
> > What about the IMF’s role in Argentina in past years?)"
> >
> > "As soon as we talk history, these conceptual distinctions are
> > problematized."
> >
> > "Rome forms an interesting case where these ideal distinctions are
> > finessed on the ground.
> > Most of the geopolitical expanse of what we call the Roman Empire was
> > gained when its civic
> > political structure was that of a republic."
> >
> > Back to Helm's post. He goes on:
> >
> > "To assert as some do that “empires operate differently nowadays” is an
> >
> > assertion in search of an argument.
> > To put it another way, if Rome, Britain, Spain, France and the
> Netherlands
> > were at one time empires but the U.S. is “a different sort of empire,”
> > then where do we find in this a definition of what an empire is? And if
> you
> >
> > reply that the new definition is merely whatever the U.S. happens to be,
> > then how is that a definition of “empire”?"
> >
> > Well, indeed, definitions can be intensional (the ones I prefer) or
> > EXtensional, as per by enumeration. I would think in terms of
> set-theory,
> > the
> > idea would be. Let "E" be the class we call "Empire" (as per a Venn
> diagram,
> >
> > say). We then define "E" extensionally:
> >
> > E = {Rome, Britain, USA}
> >
> > I'm sure there is an extensional way to proceed to represent the fact
> that
> > Rome, Britain and USA, while they HELP to define, extensionally, the
> > 'set', "Empire", do not yet provide the set's full extension.
> Extensional
> > definitions avoid dealing with INTENSIONS. IntenSionally, one could
> define
> > "Empire" without reference to members of the set. This leads us to
> _analyse_
> >
> > "Empire" in terms of more basic characteristics which, jointly, should
> > provide
> > _necessary and sufficient_ conditions for the appropriate use of
> "Empire"
> > in utterances like, "... is an Empire". E.g.: "Rome is an Empire",
> "Britain
> >
> > is an Empire". And so on.
> >
> > Helm goes on:
> >
> > "For the above reasons and many others, those who think about the modern
> > era in mega-terms, especially Fukuyama and Huntington do not apply the
> term
> > “
> > empire” to the U.S. Fukuyama doesn’t see the U.S. as being unique,
> > merely the best example of a Liberal Democracy. He sees all nations
> > becoming
> > Liberal Democracies in the future. A state needs to become on if it is
> to
> > succeed economically. In fact, the most successful nations already are,
> > either wholly or partly. Think of the nations which aren’t successful
> > today
> > and the common explanation for why they are not is that they are not
> Liberal
> >
> > Democracies and do not have modern economies that participate in the
> “world
> >
> > economy.” Huntington, without addressing economies, as I recall, argued
> >
> > that wars will continue between Civilizations (using the common
> definition
> > of “civilization” which he references in Clash of Civilizations)
> > occurring
> > along “fault lines,” those being the borders where a nation of one
> > civilization is up against that of another, as in the case of Pakistan
> and
> > India
> > for example. He also uses the term “core state.” Within most
> > civilizations there is a “core state.” The U.S. is the “core state”
> > in the “West”
> > civilization. Russia is the “core state” within the Eastern Orthodox
> > civilization. In Huntington’s terms, the U.S. is the most powerful
> nation
> > in “
> > the West.” Things have indeed changed, and there are no more empires
> in
> >
> > the sense that Britain, Spain, France and the Netherlands were empires
> up
> > until WWII the end of WWII. Now you have “core states” and spheres of
> > influence. The problem with the Middle East isn’t that their states
> > aren’t in
> > the world economy as Liberal Democracies; it is that they don’t have a
> > “
> > core state.”"
> >
> > Interesting. If one disallows extensional definitions, which tend,
> > granted, to look pretty 'unclarifying', we should look for those basic
> > characteristics, in geopolitical terms, which will help us define
> 'empire'.
> > Helm is
> > right that other notions play an interesting role, such as 'state', and
> > 'liberal democracy', and these ideas are developed in the second link
> > provided
> > above.
> >
> > On top of all that, a rather side issue, which seems to have some sort of
> > 'lingustic effect'. The phrase 'American empire' IS used, when it comes
> to
> > architecture! So one has to be careful!
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Speranza
> >
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Empire_(style) informs us that
> > "American Empire" is a classical style of American arts and
> architecture"
> >
> > "It gained its greatest popularity in the U.S. after 1810 and is
> > considered a robust phase of the classical style."
> >
> > "As an early-19th-century design movement in the United States, it
> > encompassed architecture, furniture and other decorative arts, as well
> as
> > the
> > visual arts."
> >
> > "The Red Room at the White House is a fine example of American Empire
> > style."
> >
> > I guess Jacqueline Kennedy knew all about it!
> >
> > "A simplified version of American Empire furniture, often referred to as
> > the Grecian style,"
> >
> > not to be confused with the Griceian style,
> >
> > "generally displayed plainer surfaces in curved forms, highly figured
> > mahogany veneers, and sometimes gilt-stencilled decorations."
> >
> > "This Americanized interpretation of the Empire style continued in
> > popularity in conservative regions outside the major metropolitan
> centers
> > well
> > past the mid-nineteenth century."
> >
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