Matter and Form: From Natural Science to Political Philosophy

by Ann Ward (Editor), Douglas Al-Maini (Contribution by), Coleen Zoller (Contribution by), Mostafa Younesie (Contribution by), Michael Weinman Indiana University (Contribution by)

Overview

Matter and Form explores the relationship that has long existed between natural science and political philosophy. Plato's Socrates articulates the Ideas or Forms as an account of the ultimate source of causality in the cosmos. Aristotle's natural philosophy had a significant impact on his political philosophy: he argues that humans are by nature political animals, having their natural end in the city whose regime is hierarchically structured based on differences in moral and intellectual capacity. Medieval theorists attempt to synthesize classical natural and political philosophy with the revealed truths of scripture; they argue that divine reason structures an ordered universe, the awareness of which allows for psychic and political harmony among human beings. Enlightenment thinkers challenge the natural philosophy of classical and medieval philosophers, ushering in a more liberal political order. For example, for Hobbes, there is no rest in nature as there are no Aristotelian forms or natural places that govern matter. Hobbes applies his mechanistic understanding of material nature to his understanding of human nature: individuals are by nature locked in an endless pursuit of power until death. However, from this mechanistic understanding of humanity's natural condition, Hobbes develops a social contract theory in which civil and political society is constituted from consent. Later thinkers, such as Locke and Rousseau, modify this Hobbesian premise in their pursuit of the protection of rights and a free society. Nevertheless, materialist conceptions of the cosmos have not always given rise to liberal democratic philosophies. Historicist influence on scientific inquiry in the nineteenth century is connected to Darwin's theory of evolution; Darwin reasoned that over time the process of natural selection produces ever newer and more highly adapted species. Reflecting a form of social Darwinism, Nietzsche envisions an aristocratic order that draws its inspiration from art rather than the rationalism embodied in the history of natural and political philosophy. Matter and Form's interdisciplinary approach, by international scholars in philosophy and political science, suits it for researchers, teachers and students of these fields.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780739135709
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	10/29/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	600 KB

About the Author

Ann Ward is associate professor of philosophy and classics-political studies at Campion College at the University of Regina; she is also author of Herodotus and the Philosophy of Empire, editor of Socrates: Reason or Unreason as the Foundation of European Identity, and co-editor with Lee Ward of The Ashgate Research Companion to Federalism.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction
Part 2 Part I. Ancient Science, Natural Teleology, and the Order of Politics
Chapter 3 Chapter 1. The Polis Philosophers
Chapter 4 Chapter 2. The Immortality of the Soul and the Origin of the Cosmos in Plato's Phaedo
Chapter 5 Chapter 3. Plato's Science of Living Well
Chapter 6 Chapter 4. Understanding Aristotle's Politics through Form and Matter
Part 7 Part II. Heavenly Perfection and Psychic Harmony
Chapter 8 Chapter 5. Making "men see clearly": Physical Imperfection and Mathematical Order in Ptolemy's Syntaxis
Chapter 9 Chapter 6. Liberalism in the Naturalistic-Psychological Roots of Averroes' Critique of Plato's Republic
Part 10 Part III. Skepticism, Mechanism, and the New Politics
Chapter 11 Chapter 7. Skepticism, Science, and Politics in Montaigne's Essays
Chapter 12 Chapter 8. Parmenidean Intuitions in Descartes's Theory of the Heart's Motion
Chapter 13 Chapter 9. Hobbes's Natural Condition and his Natural Science of the Mind in Leviathan
Chapter 14 Chapter 10. Hobbes and Aristotle: Science and Politics
Chapter 15 Chapter 11. From Metaphysics to Ethics and Beyond: Hobbes's Reaction to Aristotelian Essentialism
Chapter 16 Chapter 12. Hobbes and Aristotle on Biology, Reason and Reproduction
Part 17 Part IV. The Scientific Roots of Liberalism and Contemporary "Biopolitics"
Chapter 18 Chapter 13. Locke and the Problematic Relation between Natural Science and Moral Philosophy
Chapter 19 Chapter 14. Rousseau's Botanical-Political Problem: On the Nature of Nature and Political Philosophy
Chapter 20 Chapter 15. Contrasting Biological and Humanistic Approaches to the Evolution of Political Morality
Chapter 21 Dialogue of the Sciences and the Humanities

Editorial Reviews

Ann Ward’s edited volume Matter and Form: From Natural Science to Political Philosophy provides both political philosophers with a keen interest in the natural sciences and scientists with a interest in the larger political and ethical stakes of their discipline with a much needed catalogue of essays dealing with some of the most daring attempts in Western intellectual history to conceive a political philosophy on the basis of a natural philosophy and, albeit to a lesser extent, vice versa.

The European Legacy - Toward New Paradigms

Ann Ward’s edited volume Matter and Form: From Natural Science to Political Philosophy provides both political philosophers with a keen interest in the natural sciences and scientists with a interest in the larger political and ethical stakes of their discipline with a much needed catalogue of essays dealing with some of the most daring attempts in Western intellectual history to conceive a political philosophy on the basis of a natural philosophy and, albeit to a lesser extent, vice versa.

The European Legacy – Toward New Paradigms

Ward’s impressive book brings wide-ranging wisdom to a present-day intellectual crisis: the gulf between modern science and humane philosophy.

Robert Faulkner

This book does indeed take the reader on an amazing journey, from natural science to political philosophy—from the pre-Socratics to the students of Socrates: Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Averroes—and then back again, exploring the role of modern science in the new liberal politics of Montaigne, Descartes, and especially Hobbes. The contributors deftly explore the various ways that science has figured in the political science of living well. Whether in Locke’s account of substance, or Rousseau’s botanical studies, or Darwin-influenced biopolitics, what can the study of nature reveal about the nature of man and human morality? Editor Ann Ward has ably assembled this mapping of the long-contested terrain of science and politics.

Diana Schaub

Ann Ward’s edited volume Matter and Form: From Natural Science to Political Philosophy provides both political philosophers with a keen interest in the natural sciences and scientists with a interest in the larger political and ethical stakes of their discipline with a much needed catalogue of essays dealing with some of the most daring attempts in Western intellectual history to conceive a political philosophy on the basis of a natural philosophy and, albeit to a lesser extent, vice versa.

The European Legacy – Toward New Paradigms