Project Details
Projekt
Natur in der politischen Philosophie des Platonismus und Aristotelismus: Antike und mittelalterliche Positionen
Subject Area
History of Philosophy
Term
from 2013 to 2020
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 228265259
In the initial phase of the research group, this project concentrated on various connections between politics and nature in antique philosophy. In a second phase, our attention will be devoted to the limits placed on nature and on the strict parallel between nature and political authority. These limits will be explored, on the one hand, by examining explicit critiques of the 'politicizing' of nature found in historical thinkers. On the other hand, we will further explore the thought of the philosopher who is standardly associated with the idea that political arrangements may be 'natural.' In the first phase, we were able to show that Aristotle, the classic representative of political naturalism, in fact rarely invoked nature for this purpose and certainly did not appeal to non-human natural phenomena to justify his political ideas. Even human nature is, for Aristotle, only the basis for a further development that must unfold within a social and cultural context. In the second period, we will take up the implications of this 'denaturalizing' interpretation. In much the same spirit, our research into late antique and medieval Islamic philosophy will show how strong parallels between nature and moral-political norms were questioned and undermined. Within the pagan Platonic tradition, the so-called 'political' virtues were increasingly rejected as a true perfection of human nature, while some Christian and Muslim thinkers questioned the very idea of 'natural virtue,' and challenged a conception of God as a 'ruler' who exercises His providence through the forces of nature. We may see this as an attack on the 'naturalism' that was, in antiquity as today, often associated with Aristotelian philosophy. These critics argued for a denaturalization of politics, and depoliticization of nature ' insisting that there are strict limits to the relevance of nature for politics.
DFG Programme
Research Units
