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213 Pages·1960·4.523 MB·English
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THE IDEA OF ORDER HANS BARTH THE IDEA OF ORDER CONTRIBUTIONS TO A PHILOSOPHY OF POLITICS D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY DORDRECHT-HOLLAND DIE IDEE DER ORDNUNG BeitTiige zu eineT politischen Philosophie First published by Eugen Rentsch Verlag AG Erlenbach-Ziirich, Switzerland Translated by Ernest W. Hankamer and William M. Newell ISBN-I3: 978-94-010-3681-8 e-ISBN-I3: 978-94-010-3679-5 001: 10.1007/978-94-010-3679-5 Copyright 1960 by D. Reidel Publishing Company Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1960 Dordrecht -Holland No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means without permission from the publisher TABLE OF CONTENTS Translators' Note VII Introduction I I Philosophy and Politics 5 II Edmund Burke and German Political Philosophy in the Age of Romanticism 18 III Antoine de Rivarol and the French Revolution 48 IV De Lamennais' Political and Social Philosophy 77 V Auguste Comte and Joseph de Maistre: The System of Positivism as Theocracy 108 VI The Idea of Sanction: Jeremy Bentham and Pierre- Joseph Proudhon I44 VII Historical and Natural Right and the Idea of Order as a Problem of Political Philosophy 160 Postscript I94 Notes 195 TRANSLATORS' NOTE It seems only fair to warn the reader that the style of this trans lation will occasionally seem somewhat rough and unpolished; this is true particularly of the first chapter of the present volume. Lack of smoothness is, of course, not desirable, but it is, in our opinion, preferable to alteration of meaning, particularly in a philosophical work, in which exactness is indispensable if the precision of the terminology is not to be impaired. We ask you to bear with us, because we think it worth your while. One specific matter deserves separate mention. We have avoid ed footnotes wherever possible, at the cost of using several English words in a rather specialized, or perhaps better, Ger manized meaning. Thus, the word spiritual is our rendering of geistig, which means of the mind, of the intellect, of the spirit, and implies a number of related nuances. Readers who have a com mand ofG erman or French will probably recognize other trans lations of a similar nature. Finally, a word of thanks to those friends and colleagues who have assisted us in our efforts. Miss Annette Kuhn, of Heidel berg, has rendered truly invaluable services throughout. Mr. Gustav Kemperdick, of Munich, has given us the benefit of his expert advice in the translation of the French passages in the book. And Miss Frauke Kelch, of Hamburg, has made many helpful suggestions and has been of great assistance in the arduous task of correcting and proofreading the text. Needless to say, for the shortcomings that remain we alone are responsible. E. W. HANKAMER W. M. NEWELL Munich, Germany, March, 1960 VII INTRODUCTION In these essays toward a political philosophy we shall be con cerned with fundamentals. And because it is a question of fundamentals, they will, we imagine, be of interest to many readers. We should like to contribute to a clarification, histor ically and systematically, of some concepts with which every philosophy of society and the state has to deal. We shall admit historical considerations for the sake of insights into the sys tematic ones, and we trust that our inquiry into the systematic will help us to understand the historical. For we are moving in that circle exemplarily described by Johann Gustav Droysen in his Vorlesungen fiber Enzyklopadie und Methodologie der Ge schichte (§ 37) when he writes: 'Undoubtedly we only under stand completely that which is, when we recognize and make clear to ourselves how it came to be. But how it came to be, we recognize only if we investigate and understand, as exactly as possible, how it is. Our grasping that which came to be and comprehending its becoming is only one form and expression of our understanding of the present and existing. And this becoming and having come to be can be derived only by temporally conceiving and analysing the existing in order to understand it.' We must, therefore, center our attention on what may be called the structure and logic of social order. Three things appear necessarily to belong to a doctrine of com munal and social organization: the problem of consensus and loyalty, the problem of sanctions in the broadest sense of the term, and the problem of authority and its hierarchy. Every doctrine of social order must deal with dynamic processes, with unavoidable and possible conflicts. Only by calling upon in tellectual history can we present the immanent structural prin ciples of order. And only if we succeed in asking history mean ingful questions, starting from the logic of order and the nec essary interplay of its essential elements, will history give us clarifying answers. I THE IDEA OF ORDER Some short mention must be made of an assumption with which we believe we must begin. A political philosophy must necessarily contain a doctrine of truth. Or to put it more pre cisely: we may under no circumstances fail to take into consid eration that every political theory absolutely depends on a theory of truth whether it makes it explicit or not. As a basis for a program of action, it always conceals a theory of truth. Injustifying any given type of state, to mention just one exam ple, we must know of whom the recognition of truth in a social body may be expected, and under what conditions it may be possible. The problem of authority in social and political real ity is inextricably tied up with the problem of knowledge. Conversely, whatever the doctrine of truth may be, it has cer tain inevitable and determinable consequences for political theory. Philosophical investigations concerning the possibility and range of true human knowledge directly affect the sphere of social life. In other words, the difference between an absolute and a relative theory of truth is not only a problem of philos ophy; rather, this difference is of decisive, constitutive impor tance in establishing institutions which form the public will. Man has always justified unlimited coercion by rightly or wrongly assuming and monopolizing the possession of some absolute truth. And obviously all those political theories which prepare and foster revolutions, and subsequently justify them, are very closely associated with theories of truth. We have said that these essays deal with fundamentals. It ap pears that mankind, whose already highly artificial life is deter mined by a universal, highly differentiated technical develop ment and whose culture and civilization cannot keep pace with this rapid technical progress, can only be brought to a recon sideration of fundamentals by unusually strong inner or outer pressures. We are undoubtedly exposed to such pressures and thus beset by those questions which pertain to the conditions of communal order. Giambatista Vico's work concerning the one source and one end of law best explains what we mean. In the 51st chapter of De uno universi iuris principio et fine uno liber unus published in 1720, he summarizes our argument. J 2 INTRODUCTION For Vico, who is in the tradition of Roman law and Roman political philosophy, society is founded on truth. The basic demand that all action must be bona fide, that is, in good faith, and based on mutual trust, can be expressed as the command ment ofliving in and by the truth. The 'law of society' assumes two forms. This lex societatis, whose two imperatives are ex bona fide agito and ex vero vivito, constitutes for Vico natural law. Cicero maintains in De officiis (1, 7) thatfides, that is, reliability and truthfulness in word and promise, is the basis of justice. But since truthfulness in word includes keeping one's word, Vico holds that Cicero should have held truth itself, the mother of faithfulness and all other virtues, to be the basis of justice. Veritas dicti, veriloquium, veritas facti, and gestio rei sine dolo (doing something without evil intent) - these constitute the essence of natural law for Vico, as they did, according to him, for Roman law. Of course, the assertion that truth is the basis of justice and thus of society does not make the real and inevitable problem of its recognition irrelevant. The commandment to live in and by the truth can only be fulfilled by remaining aware of precisely this problem of the knowledge of truth. 3 CHAPTER ONE PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICS It would not be surprising if our deliberate suggestion, indeed, our intentional insistence that there is a connection between the words philosophy and politics were to evoke suspicion and dissent. Philosophy and politics - this combination gives the impression that the hard-won and carefully nurtured separa tion of the academic and political platforms is threatened with extinction. This suspicion is based on the supposedly indis putable fact that, by origin and nature, philosophy is con cerned with knowing, politics with acting. As Goethe said, the active man is always unscrupulous and recognizes no law other than that of success, whereas the philosopher admits of no law other than that of truth and consequently will not let himself be concerned with any practical results. The disregard of the vital laws of these two forms of human existence would lead to an ominous mixture out of which would be born the absurdity ofa political philosophy or the nonsense ofp hilosophical politics, and thus the beginning of the end of autonomous philosophy and purposeful politics. To mention philosophy and politics in the same breath is to reassert philosophy's basic interest in politics and politics' fun damental concern with philosophy. Philosophy's interest in politics, that is, in the state and its activities in the broadest sense of these terms, is not difficult to understand, for it is nothing more than a manifestation of philosophy's perpetual desire to know what is. Philosophy and politics are thus related by the very fact that philosophy sees the state and political action as objects of knowledge. But what about politics' con- 5 THE IDEA OF ORDER cern with philosophy? The answer to this question presupposes a definition of the concept of political action. Political action unfolds in the relationship between means and ends; it is mean ingful action directed towards the attainment of certain goals. Granted that the goals of political action arise from the inherent needs of the social structure, in fact, even supposing that the self-assertion of society were the goal of political action, it would nonetheless remain true that this goal is but one among many possible goals of human life and that its realization must com pete with that of others. But assuming a plurality of goals, who is to determine the goal of some concrete political action? Who is to coordinate various possible goals, fix their hierarchical order, or select some rather than others? Indeed, political action cannot be described merely as purpose ful or meaningful action. The conditions which owe their origin and constitution to human nature and activity are never con tent simply to exist and be as they are. The existence of the conditions of social life is never an end in itself, but strives beyond itself because it is in need of completion. It demands justification of its factuality, it seeks legitimation. Factuality requires philosophical foundation. Without this foundation it lacks the guarantee of stability. The defense ofa merely factual, existing order has always been felt to be precarious. Only a well-founded order is an accepted and thus a binding order. This becomes clear when we consider the ultimate motive of political action. Political action is always an unfolding of power ranging from psychological influence to sanction by force. Its fundamental orientation is in the idea of the accumulation of power; it uses this power to realize certain goals and further to create and secure such institutions as serve to protect power. If we understand power, with Max Weber, as the opportunity of asserting one's will, the necessity ofjustifying the subjugation or elimination of another will becomes apparent. In society, the use of naked force is an extreme case. Usually, power rules, or at least tries to rule, as justified power. What we must remember is this: social order, even though it owes its origin and concrete form to struggles for power, always presupposes some 6

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