The Exploration of the Three Waves of Modernity

Nature? History? God? Who need them anyways!

The exploration of the three waves of modernity

Jack Wise

PO-212

Dr. Opanasets

4 December 2015

According to Leo Strauss, political philosophy is the study of “ fundamental questions about the state, government, politics, liberty, justice, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority. It is ethics applied to a group of people, and discusses how a society should be set up and how one should act within a society. Through the three waves of modernity philosophers Nicolo Machiavelli, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Freidrich Nietzsche all hold theories on how to attain the ideal society.

The first wave of modernity in accorded in the European’s renaissance and is now know as the enlightenment. The first modern philosopher, Nicolo Machiavelli propelled the world into modern political thought. Machiavelli believed that society must abandon the teaching and morals of the “imagined republics” (Machiavelli, pg.75 ) of the classical philosopher. Theses imagined republics were Machiavelli’s reference to Aristotle’s and Plato’s just cities which were governed by moral and nature virtues. Machiavelli believed that ethics, and virtues don’t hold the truth in the political sphere when he stated “ political life proper is not subject to morality.” (45). Machiavelli’s teaching in the Prince started the shift towards modernity.

What rights Machiavelli declared in the Prince Thomas Hobbs and John Locke declared for all citizens. Following Machiavelli’s teaching of emancipation from classical thought, Hobbes and Locke believed that nature has zero effect on the morality towards the man. The classical philosophers Plato and Artistole believed that nature was the true standard and thus granted humanity three proposes: (1) preservation and health of a just communal city, (2) education of youth, (3) the purist to live the philosophic life (the good life). However, Hobbes and Locke believed that nature only gave the man the right to comfortable self-preservation. Where the classic philosophers saw nature as the golden moral standard, Hobbes and Locke saw nature as an anarchic battle between the right of self-preservation and the rights of the individuals. Hobbes’s and Locke define their individual state of nature in a similar fashion “ nasty, brutus, solitary and short”. They declare that only reason man ventured out of the state of natures was for self-preservation. Hobbes and Locke both established their own individual fundamental concepts for modernity. First, establishing the political importance of securing the rights of the individual and second, Hobbes laid the foundation for the modern democratic ideal of equality. Hobbes believed all men are equal because all men have the ability to murder one another. Hobbes and Locke’s ideal’s of the rights of individual’s propelled man thoughts into the second wave of modernity.

The philosophic teaching of Jean-Jacques Rousseau brought on the second wave of modernity. Rousseau teaching in First and Second Discourses was the radicalization of past philosopher’s concept’s of human nature and the role of the state of nature. The classic philosopher, Aristotle, taught that man was, by nature, a “sociable and political animal” ( Aristotle Politic 123). Under Hobbes and Locke, man became a political animal only to preserve their own self-interest. Rousseau disagreed with Aristotle, Locke, and Hobbes. He believed that man by nature is not political or social, in fact the man is not even a rational animal by its nature. According to Rousseau, man’s “state of nature is subhuman or prehumen” ( Rousseau 45). Rousseau believed that rationality is an acquired trait and does not come naturally to man. Where past philosopher’s believed that human nature is rigid and unchangeable, Rousseau believed that human nature is malleable; thus being able to change throughout time. According to Rousseau, whatever is not virtuous is also malleable. In this belief, Rousseau continued the first wave of modernity, the concept of emancipation humans from all insurmountable concept; Where past philosopher’s taught the importance of the widespread of the arts in sciences, Rousseau believed that this teaching contributed to the corruption of one's soul. This belief is seen in Rousseau frontispiece, the scene depicts the Titan Prometheus gifting the world with fire, which symbolizes