PHILOSOPHICAL EGGS

We often bemoan just how incredibly, well, unwise people in politics are. And we often bemoan how this lack of political wisdom leads to a variety of vices, such as ignorance, cowardice, injustice, and immoderation, which cause so much suffering, injustice, inefficiency, war, and so on. But what is political wisdom? In this post I want to share two very different views which both derive from Plato (427-347). Understanding these views will helps us think critically about some foundational ideas in political philosophy and, in doing so, give us some political wisdom we can use to assess our contemporary political landscape.

Plato’s Theory of Political Wisdom #1: Epistemarchy

In Book VI of his dialogue The Republic, Plato has Socrates present a metaphor, known as the “ship of state,” which has been quite influential in, on the one hand, asserting the necessity of connecting successful politics to epistemology or theory of knowledge (from the Greek episteme for knowledge) and, on the other hand, showing that we should expect the two to be disconnected in practice leading to political failure. Here is the passage: 

“Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better. The sailors are quarrelling with one another about the steering—everyone is of opinion that he has a right to steer, though he has never learned the art of navigation and cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and will further assert that it cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces anyone who says the contrary. They throng about the captain, begging and praying him to commit the helm to them; and if at any time they do not prevail, but others are preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them overboard, and having first chained up the noble captain’s senses with drink or some narcotic drug, they mutiny and take possession of the ship and make free with the stores; thus, eating and drinking, they proceed on their voyage in such manner as might be expected of them. Him who is their partisan and cleverly aids them in their plot for getting the ship out of the captain’s hands into their own whether by force or persuasion, they compliment with the name of sailor, pilot, able seaman, and abuse the other sort of man, whom they call a good-for-nothing; but that the true pilot must pay attention to the year and seasons and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else belongs to his art, if he intends to be really qualified for the command of a ship, and that he must and will be the steerer, whether other people like or not the possibility of this union of authority with the steerer’s art has never seriously entered into their thoughts or been made part of their calling. Now in vessels which are in a state of mutiny and by sailors who are mutineers, how will the true pilot be regarded? Will he not be called by them a prater, a star-gazer, a good-for-nothing?”

Socrates argues that, in an unjust state, those who know are shunned and those who don’t know seize power and direct politics without wisdom leading to individual and collective failure. In an ideal republic, however, philosopher kings would steer the ship of state since, after undergoing a 50 year education program that begins in childhood, they would come to know, directly and with the eye of the soul, “the Form of the Good” or the first principle of all reality and knowledge which would qualify them to make decisions for the welfare of the whole community. After all, this contact of the soul and eternal truth is wisdom as these passages from Plato’s Phaedo reveal:

Socrates: And were we not saying long ago that the soul when using the body as an instrument of perception, that is to say, when using the sense of sight or hearing or some other sense (for the meaning of perceiving through the body is perceiving through the senses) – were we not saying that the soul too is then dragged by the body into the region of the changeable, and wanders and is confused; the world spins round her, and she is like a drunkard when under their influence?
Cebes: Very true.
Socrates: But when returning into herself she reflects; then she passes into the realm of purity, and eternity, and immortality, and unchangeableness, which are her kindred, and with them she ever lives, when she is by herself and is not let or hindered; then she ceases from her erring ways, and being in communion with the unchanging is unchanging. And this state of the soul is called wisdom?
Cebes: That is well and truly said, Socrates.

From these insights we have what Richard Dahl has called Plato’s “Guardianship Argument” which Robert B. Talisse presents as follows in his book Democracy After Liberalism: Pragmatism and Deliberative Politics (Routledge, 2005):

Premise 1: The just city promotes the good life among its citizens. 

Premise 2: There is a special kind of political knowledge which gives its possessor political wisdom or the ability to promote the good life for the citizens. 

Premise 3: Therefore, political power ought to be distributed according to political wisdom. 

Premise 4: But political wisdom is not distributed evenly among persons: some are politically wise and some are not. 

Premise 5: Therefore, political power shouldn’t be evenly distributed: those with political wisdom should wield political power and those without political wisdom should not. (78)

Talisse then formulates two principles based on this argument:

“Political Wisdom Principle: (1) Normative claims about politics are cognitive, and (2) knowledge of the truth values of normative political claims (i.e., political wisdom) is possible.” (79)

“Epistemarchy Principle: Political wisdom entitles the politically wise person to a share of political power directly proportionate to his wisdom. Conversely, those lacking in political wisdom should lack political power.” (79) 

If the Epistemarchy Principle is affirmed then democracy will most likely have to be abandoned. Thus it comes as no surprise that, on the one hand, those who support a liberal form of government (one that takes individual autonomy as primary and advocates political neutrality when it comes to the good life) reject the Epistemarchy Principle and, on the other hand, many who support an antiliberal form of government (one which takes the community as primary and advocates political non-neutrality when it comes to the good life) embrace it and seek a political philosophy based on authority and exclusive access to political wisdom (like, for example, theocracies based on scripture which certain wise clergy can understand). 

However, we should note that both those who deny and those who support Plato’s principles tend to accept the central idea that underlies the Guardianship Argument, namely, that political wisdom is the kind of thing that some expert or set of experts can intellectually grasp. But is this central idea correct?

Plato’s Theory of Political Wisdom #2: Democracy

Plato is indeed famous, or infamous, for having Socrates critique democracy and espouse an epistemarchy of philosopher kings in The Republic. But what a lot of people don’t know is that in his dialogue Protagoras he has the sophist Protagoras tell Socrates a myth about how humans came to be which introduces what might be called a democratic vision of political wisdom. Consider this passage and especially the last two sentences: 

“After a while the desire of self-preservation gathered them [humans] into cities; but when they were gathered together, having no art of government, they evil intreated one another, and were again in process of dispersion and destruction. Zeus feared that the entire race would be exterminated, and so he sent Hermes to them, bearing reverence and justice to be the ordering principles of cities and the bonds of friendship and conciliation. Hermes asked Zeus how he should impart justice and reverence among men:—Should he distribute them as the arts are distributed; that is to say, to a favoured few only, one skilled individual having enough of medicine or of any other art for many unskilled ones? ‘Shall this be the manner in which I am to distribute justice and reverence among men, or shall I give them to all?’ ‘To all,’ said Zeus; ‘I should like them all to have a share; for cities cannot exist, if a few only share in the virtues, as in the arts. And further, make a law by my order, that he who has no part in reverence and justice shall be put to death, for he is a plague of the state.’ And this is the reason, Socrates, why the Athenians and mankind in general, when the question relates to carpentering or any other mechanical art, allow but a few to share in their deliberations; and when any one else interferes, then, as you say, they object, if he be not of the favoured few; which, as I reply, is very natural. But when they meet to deliberate about political virtue, which proceeds only by way of justice and wisdom, they are patient enough of any man who speaks of them, as is also natural, because they think that every man ought to share in this sort of virtue, and that states could not exist if this were otherwise.”

In these passages Plato offers us a vision of political wisdom as something which, rather than being a possession of a person or set of persons, is open to everyone and indeed allows for the very existence of a state. And Protagoras argues that, since “the existence of a state implies that virtue is not any man’s private possession,” we should expect everyone to be directly or indirectly teachers of virtue in the young just as everyone teaches the young language: “Because all men are teachers of virtue, each one according to his ability; and you say Where are the teachers? You might as well ask, Who teaches Greek?” So he connects his public view of political wisdom to a view of public education. Protagoras does note that some will excel in virtue due to natural aptitude. But he claims the public nature of political wisdom and its education is bound to give everyone enough guidance to acquire the virtues they need to engage in political deliberation.

This vision of political wisdom suggests a powerful way to undermine various forms of antiliberalism. After all, such forms presuppose that political wisdom is properly predicated of experts who can grasp certain truths which others can’t. But if political wisdom is properly predicated of a group of people who can deliberate well together then it is a function of a whole community.

Political Wisdom: Public or Private?

Plato, perhaps more than any other philosopher, was able to introduce influential ideas and formulate objections to those ideas through his various characters, sometimes across various dialogues. Thus we should never feel too confident in labeling certain views as definitively “Platonic”: we should always be sensitive to the dialogical context of his works, the drama, the characters, and so on. In this case we have two remarkable views and, while we could argue and speculate which might be closer to Plato’s own views, I think our focus should be what we think and why. Here are my tentative thoughts on which of the two options makes more sense.

It can be tempting, especially when we see just how widespread political ignorance is, to move towards an epistemarchy. To be sure, we wouldn’t hope for Plato’s ideal republic with its ideal philosophers. But we might reasonably hope for a more imperfect form of such an arrangement – perhaps various committees of experts who would set policy and make all the important decisions while people go about their busy lives. After all, most people are overwhelmed by a sea of information and misinformation and have too little energy and time to carefully consider it. Most want to pursue pleasures and enjoy themselves during what little leisure time they have. And when people do have the time and energy to get politically involved they are often manipulated, due to their inability to critically think, by powerful propaganda machines that channel their efforts into bad consequences for themselves and so many others. In the face of these facts we might wonder whether it would be better to exclude such overwhelmed, misinformed, illogical, and hedonistic citizens from a share in political power. This is especially the case these days when it appears that the ship of state is indeed being steered by a very large ship of foolish citizens and politicians towards shipwreck.

But upon further consideration I choose to side with Plato’s vision of public and democratic political wisdom. My reason is grounded in an insight from Plato himself who, in Book VIII of The Republic, has Socrates explain how the so-called wise philosopher kings make a mistake which results in the following series of political transformations over the course of a few generations: aristocracy to timocracy to oligarchy to democracy to tyranny (many who love to call Plato an anti-democratic totalitarian based on the first half The Republic conveniently make no reference to the second half of the dialogue that describes these transformations). This descent into the worst form of government due to human error suggests an argument against epistemarchy.

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) offered the most persuasive version of this argument some 2000 years later. In On Liberty (1859) he claims a free society should celebrate the freedom of thought and discussion since the search for truth requires it. In chapter two (“Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion”) he defends his prescription by using fallibilism or the view that no belief can be supported or justified in a conclusive way (as science maintains). Mill reasons as follows: if we are all fallible people who can make mistakes then we should engage in dialogue, inquire together, and really listen to one another. After all, if we can be wrong then those with whom we disagree may have the truth or a part of the truth. And even if they don’t have any truth, engaging in genuine dialogue and debate can help us better understand the intellectual grounds of our ideas and allow those ideas to become part of our character.

I think Mill’s argument for inclusive freedom of thought and discussion from fallibilism is particularly relevant to politics where passionate commitments so often preclude objectivity. Mill writes:

“Not the violent conflict between parts of the truth, but the quiet suppression of half of it, is the formidable evil: there is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides; it is when they attend only to one that errors harden into prejudices, and truth itself ceases to have the effect of truth, by being exaggerated into falsehood. And since there are few mental attributes more rare than that judicial faculty which can sit in intelligent judgment between two sides of a question, of which only one is represented by an advocate before it, truth has no chance but in proportion as every side of it, every opinion which embodies any fraction of the truth, not only finds advocates, but is so advocated as to be listened to.”

Moreover, political analysis should be profoundly situational and incorporate details from everyone’s lives that no amount of experts, regardless of their fields of study, could know. Here are a few quotations from the American philosopher and educator John Dewey (1859-1952) that express this thought:

“The man who wears the shoe knows best that it pinches and where it pinches, even if the expert shoemaker is the best judge of how the trouble is to be remedied.” (Public and its Problems)

“The method of democracy – inasfar as it is that of organized intelligence – is to bring these conflicts out into the open where their special claims can be discussed and judged in the light of more inclusive interests than are represented by either of them separately.” (Liberalism and Social Action) 

“Democracy…must begin at home, and its home is the neighborly community.” (Public and its Problems)

“We lie, as Emerson said, in the lap of immense intelligence. But that intelligence is broken, inarticulate and faint until it possesses the local community as its medium.” (Public and its Problems)

“Democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience.” (Democracy and Education)

So, while it can be tempting to advocate for an epistemarchy, I think human fallibility, especially in the context of the complexities and passions of politics, should lead us to adopt a democratic form of political wisdom that has as its ideal participation from all citizens. Naturally, this participation is fraught with risk and, given fallibilism, we should expect plenty of errors. But note that the democratic vision of political wisdom isn’t just a matter of switching wisdom from individuals to groups. It is also about switching wisdom from being an accomplishment of inquiry, as we saw above with the soul’s contact with eternal truth, but with the ability to seriously inquire with others. Dewey claims that the modern conception of wisdom is best understood as conscientiousness and “Modern conscientiousness contains less of the idea of intellectual accomplishment, and more the idea of interest in finding out the good in conduct” (The Middle Works of John Dewey, Vol 5, p. 376). He also construes it as “the formed habit of bringing intelligence to bear upon the analysis of moral relations—the habit of considering what ought to be done” (The Early Works of John Dewey, Vol. 3, p. 364). This understanding of wisdom in terms of discovery, pursuit, and effort, rather than as achievement, possession, and rest as in the epistemarchy model, at least offers the possibility of self-correction since the group is more focused on conscientious inquiry itself rather than any particular result to be held dogmatically.

Of course, such inquiry won’t be very effective without the crucial ingredient of education present in Plato, Mill, Dewey, and so many others. So education will have to be a focus and I tend to support views which give the government a formative role in developing virtues of inquiry such as being conscientious in finding the best course action, maintaining a bias toward objectivity, participating in a community of inquiry, being emotionally sensitive and especially sympathetic to the values and feelings of others, carefully reflecting on the relevant aspects of the situation, exercising imagination to see new possibilities, and being willing to change our beliefs in light of the evidence and learn from the past (I discuss these virtues with reference to various American pragmatists in a four-part post series here). Such a general strategy of helping people learn how to go about believing rather than telling then what to believe strikes a nice mean between, on the one hand, a liberal form of government which offers no program for the virtuous development necessary for autonomy in the first place and, on the other hand, an antiliberal form which inculcates a substantial view of the good life in its citizens. And if we focus on what Cheryl Misak and Robert Talisse have called epistemic virtues, that is, virtues that empower us to seek knowledge together, then we can hope to have far more agreement on what virtues should be developed than we would have if we propose moral or religious virtues which are bound to be more controversial.

In any case, this is just a quick sketch of a general political project, one that falls under contemporary deliberative democratic theory, which has strong roots in Plato, was championed by Mill and John Dewey, and is being refined by contemporary deliberative theorists. It is one to which we can all contribute, both as students who can learn to be better deliberators and as teachers who can model good deliberation to others. It is one that maintains everyone can develop the requisite virtues to deliberate and participate in the political process. And it is one that judges political wisdom not by accomplishments but by whether or not a political body exhibits conscientiousness in their efforts to inquire together. But whether you agree or not, I hope this overview of two forms of political wisdom gives you some tools to think about our political landscape in a more critical and fundamental way.

Go here for my two-post series on reducing polarization and demonization in our country.

Go here for my proposals for reforming criminal justice departments.

Go here for my series on natural law and social justice.

Go here for my post on Mill’s worst polemical offense and the 2016 election.

Go here for my post on David Bohm’s insights about cultivating dialogue between defensive people.

Go here for my four part blog series on reducing the costs of tragic conflict.

Go here for my thoughts on Trump and alternative facts.

Go here for my post on truth and fake news.

Go here for more insights about fallibility and dialogue.

Go here for my post on how the experience of tragedy can help facilitate dialogical communities.