Tensions between philosophy and politics

What is political philosophy? Many people who are interested in political philosophy like to think of themselves as engaging in the much-needed task of bringing philosophy to bear on political matters.

If we think of 'philosophy', as wisdom, (rather than as the love of wisdom), a lot of people might see a kind of promise articulated in the very idea of 'political philosophy'. The promise is this: political philosophy -- as implying a politics that might be somehow 'philosophical' and a philosophy that is somehow 'political'.

Put this way, 'political philosophy' would be a happy synthesis of two heterogeneous things: we would bring reflection, contemplation, a degree of measure and consideration to politics , here conceived as a realm of frenzied activity where whatever governs it is not 'reason' or thought. In this conception, politics is great, many-headed monster or machine that rolls on insanely doing its own thing, which encounters reason only as an interruption. By contrast, 'philosophy' is seen in this (ubiquitious) story as something that tends to normally have such a tendency to soar of into the aether of pure specualtion that it needs to be brought back down (perhaps) foricbly to earth and the consideration of practical matters.

First question: how accurate are the impressions of politics or philosophy suggested by the above account?

Before suggesting an answer to this, I'd like to say that I personally think of political philosophy as something arises out of the TENSION between philosophy and politics. Because of this tension, I think that political philosophy, must not only be the philosophy of politics, but in another way the politics of philosophy.

What does this mean? To understand this, we need to know what constitutes the tension. I'll give this a (very preliminary) go and then invite your contributions.

Aristotle says somewhere in the Ethics that philosophy requires, above all, else 'skhole' (or leisure). We do not contemplate when we are in the midst of a frenzy of activity. Nor, interestingly do we usually do much philosophising on a 'Perfect Day' (like in the Lou Reed song.) Certainly, at such moments, we are likely to be struck by the thaumasein (wonder of being) that is at the root of philosophy. When we are at the heights of joy or contentment, we can suddenly feel that we have an intuition (an immediate experience) of beauty or truth that might be the goal of all our philosophical labours. Oddly, though at such times, we do not tend to do much philosophising -- even and especially if something feels known to us, intuited here, in this moment (a vision of beauty, a feeling of love for another person) our thoughts tend to float like bubbles or phantasms -- like sentences connected by parataxis rather than hypotaxis. There is a stupour in happiness: soemthing that gives rise to something Kant's 'free play of the imagination' in the face of the beautiful. But, this 'free play' is not the same as rigorous, conceptual 'dialectical' thinking, what Hegel would call 'the labour, patience and suffering of the negative."

So, according to Aristotle philosophy needs us to not be entirely caught up in activity, NOR totally swept away by emotion. This takes leisure (skhole is involved in the etymology of skholastikos -- scholar). And it TAKES TIME, to ask the Socratic questions -- to when confronted with the claim that x is just' ask not only 'is x really just', but 'what is justice?'. And this places philosophy into tension with politics, which usually requires that one gives answers to questions NOW -- people are dying here, people are suffering: we must act, we must decide. We must declare x to be unjust and try and stop it, or we must declare y to be just and try and further its cause. What makes all kinds of political actors frustrated with philosophy -- is that, precisely at its most authentic, at its most Socratic, it has to withdraw from the field to ask questions like "what is justice", "what is the good life" and so on. And yet...political actors often put great hopes in philosophy, because they hope that philosophers, might in having perhaps irresponsibly put themselves above the madding crowd -- might have put themselves in a situation to see past certain illusions of the age, past ideologies into truths, past opinion to knowledge. But can one have 'knowledge' of political things? What kind of knowledge is this? Who possesses it? A statesman (like Obama, Churchill, Lincoln) -- an activist, a group of people working together for a cause; a clear-headed political observer like Orwell, or a political phenomenologist like Arendt? What does 'knowledge' mean here?

And if knowledge is not something appropriate to politics (philosophy is not after all science) then what is it hoped that philosophy will bring to politics. One thing, that I think philosophy offers comes from (in the broadest) sense one of the basic reasons for the existence of phenomenology. The motive, as I see it, for phenomenology is this:

the concepts and categories through which we make sense of the world derive from experience. They thus emerge often from certain contexts of action (ways of being together, 'imagined communities' -- worlds suffused with symbols/myths/traditions what we think of today 'as a cultural context'). But, concepts and categories, over time, lose the connection with the experience that gave rise to them. As they do so, they run a risk of atrophying of becoming in the realm of thought what a cliche is in the realm of language. So, phenomenology exists (as a philosophical operation) to try and suspend the normal categories/concepts (the 'cliches' if you will) and to try and look closer or listen harder to EXPERIENCE in the name of ventilating the categories and concepts that we normally bandy about. My point here is that I think that politics is often a field where we feel that the operative distinctions (left/right et cetera), however vigorously contested are in danger of becoming MEANINGLESS without someone putting these categories through a spin cycle and then hanging them out to dry in crisp, non-partisan air of thought. But, again, this requires a certain amount of leisure, a certain amount of distance from the political fray. And this means, that a philosophy of politics can, become too abstracted from politics -- ignorant of the subject it precisely pretends to pronounce on. At the same time, a politics conceived as being blind activity -- activity divorced from thought has a nightmarish quality to it.

So, second point: philosophy often stands convicted for not being able to provide 'political solutions'. And yet, many people in modern democracies (I can think of liberals, anarchists and conservatives who would subscribe to such belief) are suspicious that politics is the kind of thing that can be ruled in an 'ex cathedra' way by philosophy. This leads people to suspect philosophy -- to suspect that it is an idle distraction from the real business of politics. Which calls to mind, amongst other things, the fate of Socrates. The first, and only universally acknowledged giant amongst philosophers put to death by a jury of his peers for corrupting the youth and refusing to believe in the gods of the city. And all cities have gods, no matter how determinedly secular we may be, there are always things that we consider sacrosanct, and always things that will make one group of people distrust another person who seems to lack their beliefs.

But enough for now. I know this is pretty vague, but I thought it might start a discussion if I asked:

What is the relationship between politics and philosophy?
What (ergo) is political philosophy?
What role can philosophy have in politics? What attitude should political actors have to philosophy and philosophers?
What of the tension between philosophy's demand for 'leisure' (including the right to treat political matters with a seeker's constant inquiry rather than a partisan's fervour) as opposed to politics tendency to be preoccupied with the kairos (time of decision)?

Thoughts from the history of political philosophy? Rousseau? Marx? Hobbes? Locke? Hegel? Habermas? Arendt (who I think is good on the distinction between politics and philosophy?)

-Mal