Democracy, Philosophy and Philosophers

Abstract

In view of the rise of populist movements in recent decades, the question of democracy has once again become a pressing one. For most observers populism as it presents itself today means a right-wing authoritarian anti-liberal political orientation. Not everyone shares this view. For some, populism does not represent an ideology, or a substantive political position, for them it is a form of practice, a way of drawing boundaries. And, therefore, it can take on a left-wing or a right-wing form. According to these commentators, populism in both its left or right-wing version is held to be essential to, if not identical with, the notion of the political itself. So, those advocating a neutral, non-ideological, conception of populism argue, that if politics is a matter of contesting different interpretations of what constitutes the best life, it is coeval with democracy. By this, they do not mean that all regimes are democratic. They mean, rather, that whoever takes politics seriously must think of it as battleground where different conceptions of what it is to live well in a given community has to be fought over. In ancient Greece political philosophers had a different idea of what constituted politics. For them it was the search for the best form of communal living, putting emphasis on harmony and social cohesion. For this reason, the ancients were negatively disposed towards democracy to begin with. Remnants of hostility to democracy remain in the thought of those modern thinkers who identify democracy with the populism they reject. In this essay, I want to trace the history of attitudes toward democracy, through a selection of philosophers: Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Hegel, C. B. MacPherson, Carl Schmitt and Chantal Mouffe. I want to show that democracy, even in its modern meaning, is problematic and, for that reason, it receives different definitions and different ways of defending it.