Between Wisdom and Knowledge

The key to understanding the nature of government is to be found in the old debate between realists and political utopians of many kind. This controversy has several fields including the epistemological issues of political knowledge, the disagreements between philosophers and historians, and the political clashes of liberals wih conservatives. As for the status of political knowledge, the first systematic treatment of the subject goes back to Plato and Aristotle. What is the difference between political philosophy or wisdom and practical wisdom? Is it that the first deals with universals and the latter one with the particulars? If it is so, how can we connect the two, for if we fail to do that we might end up with being compelled to admit that political philosophy as political wisdom is totally useless; and historians, who claim to be concerned only with particulars, will gain an upper hand in the debate with philosophers.(1) At the bottom of the political clashes between liberals and conservatives is to be attributed, by and large, to the problem whether government and governing can be limited by rational means like institutions, or, as conservatives often voice, the fundamentals of wielding power always remain the same, i.e. due to man's ambiguous nature, the rules of wielding power do not change. This realistic approach has a long history starting with ancient historians esp. Thucydides or Livy, conceptualized forcefully by Machiavelli, Machiavellian ideas partly taken up by Thomas Hobbes, and the realistic view refashioned by Carl Schmitt among others. On the other hand we have those political utopians like Plato, Locke, Rousseau or John Rawls who thought that political power can be tamed, and by means of justifying institutions man could change the character of politics. By the formal end of communism, we all live in a post-communist world(2), which may have brought about a new situation with regard to the understanding of what government is. The failure of the communist experience, however, has not discredited the different representatives of modern gnosticism. Just the opposite has occured: the mainstream intellecutal trend in a post-communist world has been nurtured by different forms of gnosticism producing a post-post-modern mind that is characterized by a historical determinism, also called 'progress' entailing a cultural self-hatred, a hostility towards every form of 'substantialism' or 'essentialism' thus creating a limitless space for relativity, and a scientific arrogance against faith. Tilo Schabert has been suggesting that in all regimes we have politicians who are 'princes', who „represent in one person the classical features of political leadership, or to use a classical term, statecraftâ€.(3) The princely figures are a type which has „appeared at all times and all placesâ€, and certainly is not just „one politician among manyâ€. The princes have common features without copying each other or knowing about each other, and what they are in common is that „they prouduce, in a general enactment of forms, the form that is enacted by their own conduct of governmentâ€. It means that a prince is an originator or creator, an artist whose work cannot be repeated or copied – the prince himself is a form that produces unlimited number of variations of government. Tilo Schabert states that „governing is creativityâ€, and even goes as far as to declare that Between Wisdom and Knowledge http://www.lsu.edu/artsci/groups/voegelin/society/2008 Papers/Andras L...