This 3-year project explores, elaborates upon, and further develops an approach to Homer, exploring further […]
Author: Dr. Michail Theodosiadis
Dr. Michail TheodosiadisReligion as a Means of Political Conformity and Obedience: From Critias to Thomas Hobbes
This study identifies common perceptions between Thomas Hobbes’ approach to religion with that of Critias the sophist. Despite the distance that separates the social environments within which each of these authors lived and wrote, in their political philosophy we can spot a shared set of concerns, whose importance transcend the historical and political contexts in which the authors lived and wrote: in the state of nature, where no organized commonwealth (or civil society) exists, capable of repressing the innate greed of men and women, savagery and conflict reign supreme; life is threatened by violence and extreme aggression. It is only the state of society that guarantees stability and good life. For both thinkers, belief in immaterial spirits protects the state of society; belief in God promotes obedience to civil law and guarantees human co-existence. In Critias’ mind, religion is a necessary means to avert aggression, even when the State’s executive powers are unable to punish offenders, using all necessary tools to prevent hostility and conflict. While civil law is the hallmark of peace and stability, belief in a transcendent entity that influences collective and individual modes of living, is an important addition to the pursuit of social peace. A few centuries later, Hobbes (influenced by the misery of the English Civil War) developed viewpoints that also highlight the role of religion in defending social peace. Nonetheless, in Hobbes’ mind religion could safeguard stability only (A) when ecclesiastical authorities submit to the judgment of an omnipotent Sovereign and (B) when the coercive mechanisms of the State supress religious pluralism, prohibiting different interpretations of the Bible, which Hobbes himself considered one of the main causes of conflict.
Self-Purification and Social Dramatization; from Simone Weil to Martin Luther King Jr.
This article begins with an analysis of Simone Weil’s notion of “impersonality”, which implies disengagement from earthly attachments, deep introspection, and connection with an “anonymous” God, that is, with an imagined spiritual force of purity, located beyond the observable secular world. “Impersonality” encourages purification (or catharsis) from frantic passions (excited by such attachments); it inspires love, which Weil associates with respect and selfless devotion to social justice. My goal is to identify a shared set of similarities between Weil and Martin Luther King Jr. on the issue of individual catharsis, acknowledging also important divergences. King—contra Weil—claimed that rejection of frantic passions is incited through connection with a “personal” (rather than “anonymous”) God, with a high moral power, which responds to individual prayers and leads men and women into the path of love. Like Weil, King associated love with mutual respect and social justice. Both Weil and King believed that individual catharsis should lead to civil disobedience, whose ultimate objective is collective catharsis, that is, the abandonment of deeply rooted attitudes and beliefs (on behalf of a collectivity) that (sometimes unknowingly) perpetuate injustices, causing great suffering. By reflecting on the viewpoints offered by these thinkers, the present study will attempt to shed light on the process by which collective catharsis shifts public attitudes. The aim of civil disobedience, I will explain, is to dramatize social evils (such as racism and social exclusion), making large portions of a society aware of their passive reproduction of attitudes that contribute to the perpetuation of such unjust practices.
The Byzantine cosmopolis beyond western liberalism
The present article reflects on Early Byzantine strands of political thought (more precisely, on viewpoints developed by Priscus of Panion and Procopius of Caesarea) in tandem with Anthony Kaldellis’ depiction of Byzantium as a representative politeia. It explains how Priscus’ and Procopius’ insights concerning the Eastern Roman Empire as lawful polity could allow us to envisage a new cosmopolitan paradigm, grounded on ‘bottom-up’ institutions of political representation. This paradigm could respond to a series of limitations that characterise the present standards of international cooperation, upon which transnational projects, such as the European Union, are predicated. These standards rely much on Immanuel Kant’s viewpoints on cosmopolitanism, but also on John Locke’s theory of Social Contract, which constitutes a genealogical evolution of Hobbes’ absolutist thought that I also intend to submit to scrutiny. In short, I set out to explain how this new cosmopolitan paradigm (based on this particular depiction of Byzantium as a ‘representative’ and ‘lawful constitution’) could respond to gaps identified in the liberal canon of international relations.
Βυζαντινή πολιτική θεωρία και σύγχρονο κράτος (Πανεπιστήμιο Δυτικής Μακεδονίας)
Βυζάντιο: πολιτική σκέψη και η πρακτική της εφαρμογή στο ευρωπαϊκό διακρατικό πεδίο– Η πολιτική σκέψη […]
Charles University, Prague – Early modern culture in the Greek diaspora: the Presence of Greeks in Italy and Ukraine
The first part of this lecture will shed further light on the anthropocentric becoming of the early modern culture of the Greek diaspora in Odessa and Mariupol, on its dialogue with the culture of the Greek emigrants in Italy, Austria and Switzerland, and, more importantly, on its decisive impact to the spread of democratic ideas in the Danubian Principalities. Along with Western ideas, borrowed from the Renaissance and the Enlightenment (which as mentioned earlier, partially owe their existence to the post-Byzantine Greek diaspora of Italy), the second part will emphasize the contribution of Greeks in Ukraine in the anthropocentric revival of the Greeks under the Ottoman Occupation.
Ἡ βαθειὰ ἀνθρωποκεντρικότητα τῆς λαϊκῆς εὐκοσμίας καὶ ἡ ἐλευθερία ὡς κάθαρση
Κύρια ἐπιδίωξη τοῦ φιλελευθερισμοῦ, κατὰ τὸν Bertrand Russell, εἶναι ἡ ἐξασφάλιση τῆς ἀτομικῆς ἐλευθερίας, ἡ ὁποία προϋποθέτει προστασία τῆς ἀτομικῆς ἰδιοκτησίας καὶ περιορισμὸ τῶν ἐξουσιῶν μιᾶς κυβέρνησης1 βάσει ἑνὸς συνόλου κανόνων κράτους δικαίου2 . Στὴ ρεπουμπλικανικὴ καὶ δημοκρατικὴ παράδοση, ὅπως ἐκφράζεται μέσα ἀπὸ τὴ σκέψη τῆς Hannah Arendt, ἡ ἐλευθερία ταυτίζεται μὲ τὴ συμμετοχὴ στὰ κοινὰ τῆς πόλεως3 . Πιὸ συγκεκριμένα, ἡ φιλελεύθερη κατανόηση τῆς ἐλευθερίας ὡς χειραφέτησης (ὡς liberation, μὲ βάση τὴν Arendt) ἀφορᾶ τὴν προστασία τοῦ ἀτόμου ἀπὸ τὶς αὐθαιρεσίες μιᾶς ἐξουσίας. Ἀπὸ τὴν ἄλλη, ἡ ρεπουμπλικανικὴ ἐλευθερία (γιὰ τὴν ὁποία ἡ Arendt χρησιμοποιεῖ τὴν ἀγγλικὴ λέξη freedom) δὲν σχετίζεται μὲ τὴν ἀποδέσμευση τοῦ ἀτόμου ἀπὸ ἐξουσιαστικοὺς περιορισμοὺς ἀλλὰ μὲ τὸν ἄνθρωπο ὡς πολιτικὸ ζῶο καὶ ἐνεργὸ μέλος μιᾶς δημοκρατικῆς πόλεως.