The paper discusses some fundamental differences between Aristotelian and modern conceptions of the state. It focuses its attention on the early liberal thinkers, such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, and contrasts the theory of state developed by them with the classical republican ideal described by Aristotle. As I will demonstrate main differences come down to (1) distinct ideas concerning the state’s origins (and especially human motivations behind establishing the state), (2) divergent convictions about the role of the state and its ethical dimension; and finally (3) different beliefs concerning basic feelings and passions which sustain existence of political community. I argue that on the basis of Stagirite’s philosophy it is possible to question whether civic association described by the precursors of liberal political thought is actually the state. In conclusion, I signalize the problem of serious limitations of contemporary liberal democracies (or even their internal contradictions) resulting from their attempt to follow an ideal of an ideologically neutral state. 

The Polish Rider by Rembrandt, that is about us

In the recent years the French author Yannick Haenel published in Paris a book entitled Jan Karski which in France proved to be a bestseller. Its first two chapters are of a documentary character. They present the history of the title character – a hero of the Polish resistance movement who as the first one informed F.D. Roosevelt about the cruelty of the Holocaust (Shoah). The third chapter is a literary fiction. In this chapter Karski finds out just after the war in the museum in New York, a picture by Rembrandt – The Polish Rider. This picture can be treated as an artistic image of an archetype of the Polish culture. Poland belongs to Europe. The Socrates’ thought underlies the base of the European culture. According to it the rules of the social life must be established based on “the essence of things”. And this means according to the Aristotle’s thought that the human community is the commonwealth. At the threshold of the modernity a change of this paradigm occurs. It is the thought of the Descartes; cogito. Here the starting point is I, an individual undertaking the economic activity (Th. Hobbes, J. Locke). The face of the rider expresses the conviction that the market is not everything. In the archetype of the Polish culture which accepts the European heritage, there is a need to take the “values” into account. And this is the imperative of every single individual; and at the same time of all. It is, as Lelewel put it into words, “the public spirit”; “crowd”… And it is our “code”. Poland is an “eternal sensitivity”.

We argue that the current understanding of politics is caught in a tug of war between “economistic” and “postmodern” views, neither of which captures the distinctiveness of political rule and consequently instills confusion among citizens and misplaced expectations from leaders. Drawing largely on Aristotle, who warned precisely against this error, we consider the logic of mastery and contrast it to paternal rule. Then we discuss the voluntary nature of economic activity to distinguish it from the involuntary nature of mastery, before turning to discuss the political proper, which is a combination or mixture of these two that nevertheless makes it qualitatively distinct. These distinctions help us to better appreciate what is a likeness between political and economic, on the one hand, and between political and paternal, on the other while realising that political rule is not exhausted by either economic or paternal alone. The paper seeks to show that political rule finds itself as an in-between condition that balances itself against despotic, mastery, and the kind of care that paternal rule points to.