According to Terence Marshall, three major forms of rationalities are offered to whoever wants to understand human things: that which characterizes modern nature sciences, that which bases and is based on human rights, and that, finally, which applies to the particular circumstances of an action and the diversity of human characters.
Stimulated by certain inadequacies of contemporary political consciousness and science, the Book of Terence Marshall raises with requirement – through dense and fine analyzes of Rousseau, Leo Strauss and the American constituent James Madison – the problem of the right perception of humans and human things. Simply formulated, this problem is as follows: from what epistemological premises, or from what form of rationality, can we have a correct perception of human and political things-for example of the city, justice or the human itself ? Three forms of rationality compete: these are science in the positivist sense of the term (studies of facts and relations between facts), poetry (reason and judgment informed by feeling, imagination or an appreciation aesthetic of man and civil life) and practical reason (in the Aristotelian sense of phronêsesthis excellence of the judgment which makes it possible to deliberate with rectitude according to the particular circumstances of an action).
Of these three forms of rationality, the scientific form-to work in the social sciences-and the poetic form-at work, according to the author, in the neo-Kantian tradition of human rights-clearly dominate the current tendencies of political science, to the exclusion of practical reason. Oriented by the interpretation of modernity specific to Leo Strauss, for whom “ The root of all modern darkness is in the concealment of the difference between theory and praxis »(P. 38), Terence Marshall’s study therefore aims to find the foundations of these various forms of rationalities and to confront their effects ; Rousseau being perceived as the philosophical source of modern poetic rationality, while Strauss and Madison represent at the theoretical level and practices a return to phronêses Classic. Criticism of scientific or positivist reason, educated differently by these three authors, is exposed in the introduction of the book, entitled “ Epistemology, ontology and political philosophy ».
Scientific rationality to the test of politics
According to this positivist rationality, two criteria mainly determine the objectivity of knowledge: that the ideas expressed are justified in relation to what is sensitive and that the laws are in relation to what is predictable. But these two criteria, sensitivity and predictability, do they not exclude a prioribefore any reflection on the specific nature of human things, even which would be necessary for their understanding ? And by going a little further, this positivist determination of science, which gives itself for simply methodological, not falling more fundamentally from a particular understanding of the being which, as such, cannot certainly be justified by sensitivity or predictability ? In fact, it is an important aspect of Terence Marshall’s reflection to remind us that no methodology can be independent of a certain understanding of being or ontology. Seen from this angle, the positivist determination of “ do “(Or what is objective) as what corresponds to sensitive data appears as an ontological assertion according to which the qualities of beings are not” facts (Cf. p. 12 and 308). Thus health and illness, as qualities of a body, or justice and injustice, as qualities of a political organization, would not be “ facts ” goals. By such a return to ontology, Terence Marshall tends both to reconsider the possibility of political philosophy and to show the eminently problematic character of scientific methodology when it is applied to human things: on the one hand, we can doubt that such exclusion of qualities allows us to understand and adequately see the city and man, and on the other hand, it seems a priori The objectivity and rationality of any practical judgment concerning the just and unjust, excellence and baseness. But these two reasons to challenge the scientific methodology merge ? We can certainly understand that in the perception of human or political things, objectivity requires the consideration of these causes “ insensitive What are, for example, the character of the man who acts or the political regime of a nation. But one thing is to say that the description of human things implies the consideration of causes inaccessible to the senses, something else is to say that the excellence and the baseness of human actions are judgments relating to reason or objectivity. How can we therefore justify the objectivity of such judgments absolute ?
The construction of poetic rationality: Rousseau
This question of the absolute mobilizes the reflection of Terence Marshall in his study, singular but meticulous, of Rousseau. Indeed, against materialism (which reduces all the psychological activity of man to a sensitive mechanism) and the rationalism of the Enlightenment, Rousseau affirms and underlines the spontaneous activity of the soul. Signs of this spontaneity, the feeling of existence and self -love constitute more particularly the natural condition of the soul, which condition can serve as an absolute foundation for morality, for the right action of man towards his neighbor. But since this natural condition is first incompatible with civil life, Rousseau would seek to establish and promote a feeling granting this natural self -love to the civil alienation of man, and which would thus direct human actions towards the principles of law and equality. This feeling is that of generalized pity extended to the whole of humanity. It is therefore this feeling of humanity, exalted by a poetic writing and not by the franc exposed of the natural condition of man, who must base the practical judgment of man in society, of the common men: “ The feeling of humanity is a refraction of the feeling of the existence of natural man. “(P. 200) Thus, it is less reasoning than the imagination which is at the foundation of the practical judgment, and this for two reasons: the imagination pushes us out of ourselves and makes self-love compatible with civil life, and only the imagination makes it possible to grasp an absolute (while reasoning only establishes comparisons).
To summarize, Rousseau would encourage by his writing a certain feeling likely to form the practical judgment of common civilian men, while masking their origin and natural condition. As a result, Rousseau would mask the true principles of his epistemology and his perception of the human condition himself, and that is why Terence Marshall undertakes “ deconstruct the feeling of humanity By releaseing this epistemology of the apparent contradictions of Rousseau (chap. 1-3), and by jointly proving the existence of an art of writing in this author (chap. 2).
Theory and practice of prudence: Leo Strauss and James Madison
Unlike this aesthetic perspective which stimulates moral indignation, the phronêsesor practical reason, which Leo Strauss finds in his reflections on classical natural law, supposes measured feelings and deliberative reasoning, since she endeavors to judge what is noble or necessary according to all the particular circumstances of the action. But it is just as important to understand that being a improvement in judgment and not an instrument at the service of passions, “ Practical wisdom is underlying the primacy of the love of wisdom (P. 301) and therefore supposes rational activity as a natural and very clean end of man. If we understand the reasoning of Terence Marshall, the practical reason and the measure which it implies can be stimulated themselves only by this consciousness of our ignorance and this desire to see with rectitude which characterize above all the philosophical soul. It appears that the phronimos – The one who eminently has practical judgment and virtue – is as rare as the philosopher, and it is on this rarity that classical philosophy would have led its reflection on natural law and the best diet – and not from a particular cosmology, as one is generally tempted to believe. Far from being simply moral – as the poetic approach tends to be -, or simply calculating – as the approach of lights tends to be – classical questioning about natural law thus seems to be themed according to the relationships between society and philosophy or between the soul of politics and the soul of the philosopher ; So many essential issues in the work of Leo Strauss.
The part on James Madison, on the other hand, illustrates the practical and constitutional issues of the phronêses thus understood. Terence Marshall indeed gives off the considerations that have given American constitution and life certain of its most salient aspects ; And contrary to a purely socio-economic interpretation of the founding fathers project, it shows us that these considerations focused rather on the dangers inherent in a democratic government: instability, long-term incompetence to conduct a reasonable policy, the dangers of a popular will which knows no brakes, the partisan spirit which can obstruct the necessary decisions for the common good etc. The ideas of James Madison then appear to be a main goal: to keep and maintain in citizens a noble Moderation (as opposed to moderation derived from the simple balance of particular interests) by the federal system, the multiplication of economic sectors, social mobility, separation of powers etc. All these measures then appear as as much “ of prudence instruments “, Or practical reason, intended to settle electoral and supporter behavior and to encourage a national policy aimed at best in common (p. 374-377). In the end, this excellent study by Madison, supplemented by a comparison between the American and French constituents, invites us to think of the political function of moderation in the constitution and the wisdom of the nations, when we tend to consider them only as the guarantors of human rights. Without mischievous the importance of this guarantee, Mr. Marshall’s reflection thus renews us to the political condition of humanity, and to rationalism that this condition calls.