Théorie politique

H21(c) - History of Political Thought

Date: Jun 4 | Heure: 03:30pm to 05:00pm | Salle:

Chair/Président/Présidente : Robert Sparling (University of Ottawa)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Rachel Wagner (University of Toronto)

Classical Confucianism, Meritocracy, and Democracy: Early Modern and Contemporary Perspectives: Simon Kow (University of King's College)
Abstract: Some modern commentators have attempted to locate conceptions of democratic governance and popular sovereignty in classical Confucianism, especially the thought of Confucius (c. 551-479 BCE) and Mengzi (372-289 BCE), or at least to show the compatibility of democracy with classical Confucian thought and Confucian societies. Such claims are at odds with the historical transformation of Confucianism into the state philosophy of imperial China and early modern European enthusiasm over China's enlightened absolutism, as well as modern Chinese critiques of Confucianism as reactionary and undemocratic. Nevertheless, Confucian thought and practice, as early modern thinkers such as Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) argued based on their readings of Jesuit sources, were grounded on meritocratic principles of moral and intellectual virtue. The scholar-administrators of China, appointed by civil examinations in Confucian classics, constituted a governing class seen as analogous to the republic of letters. This paper will discuss the extent to which aspects of Confucianism as transmitted through Enlightenment political thought align with meritocratic and democratic principles. That prominent China observers in the Enlightenment transmitted the early modern European fascination with imperial Chinese meritocracy—central to classical Confucian political thought and in an uneasy relation to modern democratic ideals—highlights the difficulties in tracing the origins of liberal democracy to the European Enlightenment: precisely what intrigued European thinkers about ancient Confucianism brings out the discontinuities between Enlightenment political thought and modern democracy.

The Fool, or the Fool Who Follows Him?: Don Quixote and Liberal Democratic Political Participation: Travis D. Smith (Concordia University)
Abstract: This paper reads Don Quixote using the tools of political anthropology, with a focus on the categories of tricksters and fools (see Horvath and Szakolczai, 2019, Horvath 2026). It engages the claim made in Plato’s Republic Book III that all non-ideal politics are like a charm or bewitchment, depicting denizens of the cave as true believers. My argument proceeds from the supposition that Don Quixote and Sancho Panza alike are always aware that they are living lies. In effect, the narrator knows that Sancho knows that Don Quixote knows that he is no knight. The story is an exhibition in earnest inauthenticity, the characters proceeding thusly supposing it right and best for making the world better and life meaningful. This is analogous to the way in which most political participation proceeds in modern liberal democratic society: People get involved and follow their favourites aware that everyone involved doesn’t really know what they’re doing—nevertheless imagining that their involvement contributes toward improving their lives and society generally. Cervantes aims to show that such activity not only betrays ignorance and naivety regarding power’s operations, but also results in those participants harming themselves and those around them through their very efforts. Righteous intentions backfire; victims are exploited; sacrifices are vain. As this paper also belongs to a broader research project on the metaphors of professional wrestling, the relationships between the characters and narrators in the novel will also be examined using the concept of kayfabe and distinctions between carnies and marks.

The Idea of Shuʿūb in Modern Arabic Political Theory: On Defining Peoplehood and Community: Mohamad Ghossein (UQAM)
Abstract: This paper deals with the appropriation of the Islamic notion of shuʿūb and analogous terms in modern Arabic political thought, focusing on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Shuʿūb, which loosely denotes “peoples” or ethnic groupings, has grounding in a Quranic verse (49:13) that emphasizes piety over ethnic or tribal affiliations. Accordingly, the paper begins by tracing the concept of 'peoples' in premodern contexts: in ibn Khaldun’s analysis of variables that contribute to group cohesion, in philosophical tracts where topographic variables are used to explain the peculiar customs of given societies, and within the shuʿūbiyya movement, a moniker used to loosely describe Islamic literary movements that contested the exclusion of non-Arab groups. Eventually, modern thinkers would deploy the term, which had already come to acquire an anthropological purpose, in the context of nationhood, alongside other similarly appropriated terms, like umma (“community”) or ijtimāʿ (“association”). In the second segment, I will discuss the appropriation of these terms across different modern sources, including nationalist, secular, religious revivalists, and so forth. Despite some ideational conflicts, which will be examined thoroughly – i.e., whether nationhood encompasses calls for federalization or a unitary state, or whether the religious or linguistic comes to define a community first, the paper seeks to highlight a common trend: the secularization and transformation of religious notions, whereby the boundaries between the ‘sacred’ and the ‘worldly’ become blurred when defining the political community. In the final analysis, I will build on this ‘sacralizing’ tendency as part of a broader commentary on existing literature dealing with mythos and nationhood.