Supject, Predicate, and Evolvement

A Theory of Language is typically divided into studies of Semantics and of Syntax. The former is concerned with Meaning, while the latter, more commonly known as Grammar, proposes structural rules for sentence formation. But Syntax is never completely removed from the problem of Meaningfulness, as can be seen in the Systematic commitments of the basic Subject-Predicate formation. For Aristotle, that ordering reflects the Substance-Attribute structure of all entities, while for Kant, it conforms to the Permanent-Temporary construction of Proposotional Knowledge. In contrast, Nietzsche and Bergson, for example, argue that such Syntax falsifies the world that Language tries to describe, as, e. g. 'Lightning strikes' artificially divides a unitary process into a subsisting Subject and something that it momentarily does. Evolvementalism agrees with Aristotle and Kant that regarding Individuals, the Subject precedes the Predicate. However, it agrees with Nietzsche and Bergson that a transition occurs in the event described. In 'John runs', 'John' refers to an Individual, and 'runs', to an Action of his. But this Action transforms the initial 'John' to one who is identical, except with the additional experience as now part of him. So, traditional Syntax is not adequate to Evolvemental processes.

Language, Body, and Soul

A Theory of Language typically takes its point of departure by distinguishing between the physicality. e. g. sound or scrawl, and the Meaning, of a linguistic Sign. Usually, this distinction is conceived in terms of the Body vs. Soul contrast, with the latter as the essential aspect of a Sign, and the former, inessential. In the Formaterial Individual, the fundamental pair are the processes of Externalization and Internalization. In the sphere of Language activity, the primary locus of the interaction between Externalization and Internalization is Communication, i. e. speaking and listening, writing and reading, of which the 'interior monologue' is only a special case. Hence, any abstraction from the Communicative context, i. e. the study of Signs, Speech, Writing, Thinking, etc. is not merely a derivative or superficial Theory of Language, but one that misses its fundamental nature.

Spirit and Letter

A pair of opposing concepts receiving little attention from either orthodox or heterodox Philosophy of Language is 'Spirit' vs. 'Letter'. The contrast 'Spirit of the Law' vs. 'Letter of the Law' is familiar, but it does not seem to fall easily under the rubrics of either Sense vs. Reference, or Speech vs. Writing. For, a Law has no Referent, and Speech can violate its Spirit as much as can Writing. One example which exposes the contrast is the Golden Rule--'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. Read literally, this Principle endorses a belligerent person's, i. e. someone who wants others to pick a fight with them, efforts to pick a fight with others, which most would agree violates its Spirit. Kant's response is, rather than either bemoaning or cheering the insubordination of Letter to Spirit, to write a better Law, one that would more precisely capture the Spirit of the original--'Act only on that maxim that you can at the same time will to be a universal Law'. While the latter does not roll easily off of a tongue, even of one of the few who are conversant with it, it better expresses the Spirit of high-minded reciprocity than does the Golden Rule. Shortcomings in all laws are similarly treated--their Letter of a Law is a not necessarily conclusive Evolvement of its Spirit.

Derrida, Writing, and Evolvementalism

Plato initiated a long tradition which has held that Speech is a copy of Thought, and Writing is a copy of Speech. This hierarchy has been provocatively challenged in recent decades by Derrida, who not merely demonstrates that Thought and Speech are inconceivable without Writing, but also suggests that they are both modes of Writing. Despite his being better received in the areas of Literary Criticism and Cultural Studies, his studies offer important contributions to topics in traditional Philosophy. His analysis of the Grammatological nature of Thought reinforces Wittgenstein's rejection of the possibility of a Private Language, and undermines atomistic theories of Consciousness and Self, thus continuing Heidegger's critique of the subjectivistic 'History of Western Metaphysics'. His notion 'Differance' complements Deleuze's challenge to the traditional priority of Identity over Difference. Formaterialism is a further attempt at the latter, and, so, it also appreciates the subversion of the traditional priority of Mind/Soul/Spirit over Body, implied by the Thought-Speech-Writing hierarchy. However, it conceives of the latter as a progression in the process of Communication--a Thought is externalized as Speech, and then further externalized as Writing. In other words, with respect to Communication, they are Evolvementally related, with Writing potentially the most highly Evolved Action of the three. Also, despite the multi-facetedness of Derrida's innovative analyses of Writing, he seems to have missed its most obvious characteristic--that it functions as retention, i. e. Writing is a committing to Memory. So, his thesis that Consciousness is fundamentally Writing is hardly a divergence from a tradition that begins with Plato's theory that Thought is Recollection.

Ignoble Lie

The split between Philosophy and Political Science has put blinders not only on the former, but on the latter, as well. For example, in the past century, a school of Political Science, primarily inspired by Leo Strauss, has cast Plato as Machiavellian. At the center of this interpretation is, seemingly, the notion of a 'noble lie', a recourse to myth to persuade citizens to do something beneficial to them, because they lack the intellectual capacity to understand that beneficiality. Despite the fact that in the Republic, Socrates, at most, only briefly entertains, without outright advocacy, in a specific context, its possible value, Straussian Allan Bloom's interpretation of Plato's Poltical Philosophy turns on the premise that the entire Republic is a 'noble lie'. Perhaps this self-styled 'Platonist' found the Republic's advocacy of the abolition of private property to be inconvenient, and perhaps the seeming Oligarchical and Plutocratic activities of Neo-Conservatives have been inspired by Bloom's Machiavellian placement of a lie as the fundamental premise of Political Philosophy. But any such interpretation of Plato does not begin to take into account the rest of his Philosophical System, with which his Political Theory is interrelated, a combination which reinforces the plausibility that the Republic is a sincere expression of Plato's views. The Philosophy-Political Science split is no doubt rooted in the priority of Theory over Practice accorded by Plato, a tradition which Phronetocratic Principles, and Formaterialism and Evolvementalism, in general, reject. Recent events suggest that the split has more than Academic implications.

The Evaluation of Rhetoric

Rhetoric is typically evaluated according to any, usually one, of three criteria--truthfulness, eloquence, and effectiveness. Because Truth pertains to what is already the case, while Rhetoric aims at what is not yet the case, truthfulness is an inadequate criterion. Hitler's murderous plans were no doubt eloquently expressed, so, nor is eloquence an adequate gauge. Likewise for effectiveness. A notion that entails all three is Comprehensiveness. The point of departure of Rhetorical Comprehensiveness is current conditions, which, the more fully accommodated, the more inclusive the audience will be. Likewise, the more expansive the aims of Rhetoric, the more robust will be its language, and, hence, the more inspirational and successful it will prove to be. In other words, the more Comprehensive Rhetoric is, the better it will motivate Individuals to follow it, i. e. the more Evolved it is.

Philosophy and Rhetoric

The current chasm in Academia between Philosophy and Political Science can only guarantee that Philosophy of Language will continue to lose sight of its original mission. The traditional tracing of the topic to Plato's Cratylus misses his more general treatment of it. His entire body of work stands as a challenge to Rhetoric, i. e. Speech that aims to persuade. Rhetoric is essentially monological, the limitations of which are exposed by Plato's confronting Rhetoricians with the master dialogician, Socrates. It is debatable whether or not these dialogues arrive at conclusive Truth, but it is less arguable that Rhetoricians are out of their depth in them. Contemporary Philosophy of Language, with its micro-analyses for the most part completely oblivious to the Political role of Speech, has lost sight of Philosophy's advocacy of Truth in the public arena. It is thus inadequate to the distinction between Rhetoric, which falls short of respecting the Individuality of others, and, e. g. Dialogue and Pedagogy, which are more Evolved Speech, both personally and Politically.

Insurance Policy

The topic of the primary current political debate in the United States is usually referred to as 'Health-Care Reform', which is a response to a problem usually described as 'The Broken Health-Care System'. This framing of the debate is misleading, and obscures the deeper conflicts at issue. First, what is actually being debated is not 'Health-Care', but Health-Insurance. Second, there currently is no general Health-Insurance 'system' in place, which means that whatever passes would the creation of a system, not a reform of a broken one. Hence, the debate is ultimately between two sets of interests--citizens who have no or limited insurance, and insurance companies that would stand to suffer financially from the implementation of a national system. A word the use of which epitomizes the deeper Principles involved is 'policy', which derives from the Greek for 'public government'. So, the phrase 'insurance policy' is ambiguous--both Plutocratic and Democratic. That a public agenda is dictated by private financial interest is Plutocratic, while that the terms of an insurance contract is subject to governmental oversight is Democratic. At the most fundamental level, what is at issue is whether the health of each is the concern of each, or is the concern of all. Evolvementalism regards the latter as the more highly Evolved of the two, and hence, more highly Evolved than any compromise between the two. However, the Principle 'Evolve as much as possible' is with respect to given conditions. So, the implementation of any American public Health-Insurance system would constitute an Evolvemental step.

Free Speech

In the United States, all public Speech, other than that which is harmful, is equal before the Law. But, not all such speech is equally Evolved. No doubt the framers of the Constitution were seeking to protect specifically the kind of dissident expression that is today still politically repressed in half the world. Part of Mill's defense of Free Speech is that even contrary opinions are beneficial to the whole, since they can spur a prevailing agenda to greater comprehensiveness. However, not all protected Speech is so civic-minded. Some of it is mere emotional venting, and some of it is partisan baiting or posturing. A lot of it is a self-interested demand. More infrequently, what is expressed is an opinion as to what might be collectively beneficial, one that respects principles of intellectual integrity. Now, while the Law does not distinguish between these various types of public Speech, they are Evolvementally unequal--only the last type is worthy of a Phronetocracy. By dignifying the other types, the U. S. Constitution promotes a complacency that is hindering the Evolvement of America into the Participatory Democracy that is presumably its primary Principle.

Expression

'Expression' is a term that is occasionally misleadingly used in descriptions of language. It will sometimes apply to any word or sequence of words. A more accurate definition would be: 'an expressive word or sequence or words'. That is, a word or sequence of words that has not been explicitly put forth in order to convey something or other does not qualify as an 'Expression'. In other words, a linguistic Expression only appears in a communicative context, and, hence, entails an Expresser, just as does any non-linguistic Expression, e. g. a smile, which entails someone who smiles in order to communicate a happy mood to someone else. Expression is thus an externalization of e. g. some information, something wanted to take place, a feeling, etc. and, hence, is a species of Exposition. Exposition is one of the components of Conduct, and, hence, is subject to Phronetic evaluation. The casual use of the term 'Expression', just like all depersonalized treatments of Language, abstract from a fundamental Phronetic context.

Language Games

A regular focal point of Philosophies of Language has been the relation between 'Sense' and 'Reference'. The Reference of a term is some object, while its Sense is an internal connotation. In the classic example, The Morning Star and the Evening Star have the same Reference, because they both point to the same object. But they have different Senses, i. e. that one appears in the morning, the other in the evening. The difference between Sense and Reference is brought out by the expression "The Morning Star = The Evening Star", because asserting that the Referent is the same as itself is trivial, whereas revealing the commonality behind the two Senses is informative. So, many of the debates in Philosophy of Language concern whether or not the Meaning of a term is its Sense or its Reference. Now, the limitations of this framing of Philosophy of Language is born out by an expression such as 'Take one step forward', which, plainly has no Reference, and, thus, which demonstrates that Language is more than merely descriptive. The later Wittgenstein is usually credited with recognizing this limitation, which he attempts to correct by broadening the scope of Language under the rubric 'Language Games'. Despite the subsequent influence of his innovation, the credit is misplaced, because Peirce broke down those methodological barriers a good fifty years before Wittgenstein's efforts, and they are implicit in Kant's Practical turn. Of especial concern to Evolvementalism is how the notion of 'Language Games' glosses over the distinction between what might be called retrospective Language, e. g. descriptions, and prospective Language, e. g. imperatives and interrogatives. In the Formaterial scheme, retrospection is Temporal, and prospection is Spatial, so, because Formaterialism insists on the incommensurability of Time and Space, it rejects Wittgenstein's homogenizing of e. g. descriptions and imperatives. That is not to say that they do not combine in Formaterialism, but, rather, their combination, which is ingredient in all Language acts, is potentially Evolvemental, which means that even the Wittgensteinian innovation misses the Phronetic and Political significance of Language.

Philosophy of Language and Evolvement

Probably the most predominant Philosophical topic of the past century is Language, with the nature of Meaning as its central problem, i. e. how a manifold of sounds and scrawls can have significance beyond themselves. At one pole of the spectrum of responses is that Meaning is derived from how these manifolds are structured, because these structures are universal, and, hence, are comprehensible by anybody. On this view, Meaning is a property of Language in itself, just as it is in Mathematics. At the other end, Meaning is a function of context, and, hence, an expression of the commonality of interests of the participants in those contexts. On this view, Language is no more than arbitrary signs, just as it is in Morse Code. Corresponding to these two theories of Meaning are two main criteria of Understanding. One is a clear and distinct private cognition of the universal features of a word, sentence, or group of sentences. The other is a fulfilling behavior sequence. For Evolvementalism, Language and Meaning are features of Communication, which entails that they are fundamentally context-bound. But, Communication can also be more or less articulated, which is a degree of refinement of the Language involved. Articulation is a structural diversification of Language, and, hence, a diversification of the Communicative context. Communication is thus an Evolvement, to a lesser or greater degree, of its participants, in which Meaning is an objectification in the Language involved of that degree of Evolvement.

Existentialism and Evolvementalism

In common parlance, 'Existentialist' usually has connotations of 'meaninglessness' and despairing', which are misleading indicators of what the Philosophical version of the term refers to. 'Existentialism' typically describes a group of Philosophers, most prominently Nietzsche, Kierkergaard, Heidegger, Jaspers, and Sartre, whose affiliation seems so loose that a common Principle is difficult to discern. Indeed, Heidegger and Sartre are more overtly bound by their allegiances to Husserlian Phenomenological methodology. But, even though there is no single Principle that they all explicitly espouse, one that has been used to characterize their works is 'Existence precedes Essence'. In the terminology of these pages, 'Existence' is 'Individuality', and 'Essence' is 'Particularity', so that what each of the Existentialists presents is a theory of the internal structure of Individuality, which contrasts with the traditional definition of a Person as a Particular of a given sort, e. g. 'Rational Animal'. The alleged 'meaninglessness' of Existentialism is telling in its partial accuracy--that Existence has no pre-given Meaning frees Individuals to create it, and what 'despair' attaches to is the failure to grasp the liberating possibility involved. Evolvementalism disputes that Existence 'precedes' Essence, since it holds that Particularity is developmentally anterior to Individuality. It also appreciates the later work of Sartre, which methodically demonstrates, contrary to conventional American 'wisdom', that not merely are Individuality and Socialism not antithetical to one another, but that the latter, not Capitalism, is the collective organization that best accommodates the former. Amongst the Existentialists, Sartre best supports the Evolvemental thesis that Individuality entails involvement in a collective.

Eternal Recurrence and Evolvement

Few self-styled 'Nietzscheans' have reckoned with one of his central thoughts, 'Eternal Recurrence', and many of those who have classify it as a topic in the Philosophy of Time. They thus miss its lineage from Schopenhauer's Naturalistic challenge to Hegelian Spiritualism, i. e. regarding the privileged status in Nature that the latter accords Humanity, and, so, they miss how Eternal Recurrence serves as correction to the nihilistic Pessimism that Schopenhauerism can breed. For Nietzsche, the thinking of Eternal Recurrence is high noon, the incipience of self-creation through self-affirmation, the moment when the God of Formlessness, Dionysus, looks in the mirror, in which Apollo, the God of Form, appears. It is, thus, far from happenstance that Nietzsche hencforth devoted himself with developing his theory of Will to Power, a Form-creating force. While Evolvementalism rejects the implication that the Formal Principle is derivative, and that Eternal Recurrence is the soundest theory of Temporality, it recognizes in Nietzsche's thinking of Eternal Recurrence an emergence of an Individual, and of the potential for Humans to make History, not merely to suffer it, be it Natural or Spiritual.

Philosophy of History and Evolvementalism

While History offers a narrative of events, a Philosophy of History presents a theory of the grounds and structure of any such narrative. There have been three main theories of Historical structure--ascent, descent, and circular, and for millennia their contents were cosmic or natural events. The emergence of the Philosophy of specifically Human History began with the work of Vico, a circular theory, and Kant soon proposed a teleological, perhaps Messianic, scheme of the development of Humanity. For Hegel, the appearance, in History, of a Philosophy of History is a moment of self-awareness that signals that History is the Dialectical ascent of Rational Spirit. Marx appropriates Dialecticism, but rejects Spiritualism, positing Materialism as the motor of Human History, with the conflict of Economic Classes as the Dialectical forces, and with the dawning of Class Consciousness as the pivotal moment. Marx thus inherits a theory of History that, despite his Materialistic variation of it, remains of an exclusively Human History. In contrast, the other main 19th-Century Philosophy of History, Evolutionary Theory, is of Natural events, in which Human History is merely a special case. In contrast with both, Evolvementalism entails a Philosophy of Natural History, in which Human History is unique phase, the main theme of which is the emergence of the Individual, in which the awareness of one's Particularity qua Particularity is a transformative moment.

Menial Labor

Political Philosophies tend to be the products of abstract inspirational Beauty, which might be why they have traditionally slighted one perennial social problem, namely, how menial labor is to be performed. Hence, Aristotelian Aristocracy is impossible without slavery, the lower classes of Theocracies and Monarchies reflect either a 'divine' will, or a 'natural' ordering, and in Capitalism, the 'losers', as determined by the 'Invisible Hand of the Market', usually have little choice but to accept drudgery in exchange for subsistence. Perhaps, automation will one day solve the problem, but in the meantime Marxism tackles one aspect of it head on, namely, by attempting to eliminate the meniality from menial labor. Marx' psychological thesis is that labor becomes menial only when performed for someone else, that e. g. cleaning up after oneself is, except among the lazy, never construed as burdensome. So, one of the aims of Socialism is to transform the nature of labor by having all tasks concern the self-interest of each, i. e. as pertaining to something they themselves own. A complement to that notion is a system of a rotation of chores, as is often in effect in many cooperative enterprises, a step in the direction of which might be a mandatory 'National Service', currently being entertained by some American politicians. Along with mandatory voting, the latter would be an Evolvemental developmental in American public life.

Dimensions of Marxism

Marxism combines three main theses, one Moral, one Metaphysical, and one Historical. The first is that all Economic systems hitherto, up to and including Capitalism, are institutionalized stealing, from workers, by the entrepreneurial or ownership Class. The second is that all reality consists of Matter, so non-Material doctrines are myths that serve only to reinforce exploitative Economic relations. Finally, it holds that the primary governing Principle of human affairs is the inevitable Dialectical ascent of History to Socialism, which is the true Economic, Moral, and Metaphysical doctrine. Standard critiques of Marxism, that it is fundamentally an envy of wealth, and that it is 'Evil', fail to address its Moral and Metaphysical theses in an intellectually credible manner, while, on the other hand, the course of events, including the efforts of e. g. Stalin to force the issue, has damagingly refuted its Historical thesis. Evolvementalism agrees that much of Capitalism, especially Corporatism, is a hindrance to the growth of the Individual, but is uncertain that Socialism is the exclusive remedy. It also concurs, in general, with the Marxist diagnosis of the role of Spiritualism in the service of Economic and Political exploitation, but rejects its reductive Materialist Monism, especially given that it shares with traditional Spiritualisms and Dualisms the lack of a substantive definition of Matter, such as the one proposed by Formaterialism. Finally, it regards Dialecticism of any kind, Marxist, Hegelian, et al. as a special case of Evolvementalism, one in which the generation of an 'Antithesis' is a Diversification of precisely and uniquely a factor of 2. Likewise, Evolvementalism regards Class Conflict as only one of an infinite variety of possible social antagonisms that an Evolvemental episode can, but not necessarily will, sublate.

Abilities and Needs

One of Marxism's better-known Principles is 'From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs'. A Capitalist analogue can be articulated as 'Each will sow what they reap.' Evolvementalism rejects the latter on three main grounds. First, it disagrees with the implied Social Atomism, i. e. that the fate of each is independent of that of any other. Second, it holds that what is one's own best 'self-interest' is not what or how much one receives, but one's growth as an Individual. Finally, it disputes the priority expressed in the Principle--one reaps in order to sow at least as much as one sows in order to reap. More generally, Evolvementalism finds the entailed critique of Marxism, namely, that one has a Right to withold any of one's Inessential Property from someone whose full exercise of ability is still insufficient to meet their needs, as small-minded. On the other hand, the Marxist Principle is consistent with Evolvementalism to the extent that the fulfilment of need is a necessary condition of Individual Evolvement, and that the Evolvement of one potentially promotes the Evolvement of each and all.

Capitalism and Democracy

One of the great confusions in contemporary American life is the purported equivalence of Capitalism and Democracy. To begin with, one is an Economic system, the other a Political system. That Fascism is a form of Capitalism, and that a Democracy can be Socialist, proves that they are not identical. At its inception, as Smith explicitly conceived it, Capitalism was a great Democratizer, a leveller of Feudalism in its various manifestations, especially British Nobilism. But its non-coincidence with Democracy became evident within a few decades, as British Capitalistic Industrialism reverted to Feudal inequality. In contemporary America, it is difficult to appreciate, under the knee-jerk hysteria, that Marxism was initially devised as an exposure of the Democratic short-comings of Capitalism, an analysis that, regardless of that doctrine's own flaws, remains unconfronted by American Capitalist thought. Consequently, for example, the rebuilding of Iraq entails both an electoral process, and the fight for economic control of the country by transnational corporations. The Democratization of Feudalism was, and still can be, a great Evolvemental step in human civilization, but the globalization of Capitalism is not necessarily a continuation of any Evolvemental process.

Property

Property is one of the central issues of Political Philosophy, and a distinction needs to be drawn between 'Property Relations', or 'Possession', and 'Property Rights', since a stolen item might be a Possession, but not a piece of Property. Evolvementalism distinguishes four main types of Property Relation--'Natural', i. e. one's own body; 'Essential', i. e. what the vital processes of the body need; 'Instrumental', i. e. anything that aids or promotes those vital processes; and 'Inessential', i. e. anything else. It also distinguishes four main types of Property Acquisition--'Creation', i. e. produced by one's own efforts; 'Transfer', i. e. a sanctioned, or a mutually voluntary relocation, often as part of an Exchange; 'Finding', i. e. an unexpected encounter; and 'Expropriation', i. e. a relocation involving at least one involuntary party. In most systems, the only Property Relations that are not Property Rights are those that are the product of Expropriation. But what qualifies as the latter differs from system to system, and within them, from case to case. For example, the turning of a profit by a business owner from the work of an employee is a Transfer in Capitalism and Expropriation in Socialism. And, whether or not one has a Right to a Finding depends on circumstances. In a Phronetocracy, Property Rights are protected, how a particular Relation or Acquisition will generally be determined on a case by case basis, and the classification of the Acquisition of Inessential Property will in part be determined by the classification of the resultant Relation. That is, the Acquisition of Inessential Property from an involuntary party, for Essential or Instrumental purposes, can modify its classification as Expropriation, e. g. taxation can be a legally-sanctioned Transfer, as might be the taking of a bottle of milk from a multi-billionaire by a poor woman to feed her starving child. Complicating any particular Relation or Acquisition is the history of the item concerned, e. g. the sale of stolen goods to an unwitting buyer. Hence, the entire status of all Property Rights in the United Status is questionable, given how the country's wealth has been based on the development of land perhaps Expropriated from Native Americans, via the involuntary efforts of African-American slaves.

Voting and Evolvement

Voting has Evolvemental significance for both the collective and the Individual. For the Political entity, Freedom is the Material Principle, i. e. its Becoming-Diverse, and Equality is the Formal Principle, i. e. its Becoming-the-Same. So, since Evolvement is an increase of the Material Principle without loss of the Formal Principle, electoral processes, namely an exercise of Freedom in which Equality is also promoted, constitutes an Evolvement of the Political entity. For the Individual, voting is a process of deliberately going outside oneself, so, in other words, it is an Action in which one Evolves. Since, voter suppression is antithetical to Political Evolvement, Universal Voting Rights are entailed by Phronetocratic Principles. Furthermore, since voluntarily not voting is contrary to Individual Evolvement, making voting mandatory, with 'none of the above' as an option, is a promotion of Evolvement, and, hence, is Phronetically justified.

Freedom, Equality, and Justice

In the Republic, Plato asks 'What is Justice?', and his method of answering is based on an analogy between a Just person and a Just society. His ultimate solution is thus question-beginning, because the definition of a 'Just' society pertains to relations between a member and the whole, so his presumption from the outset that there is an analogy between them is unacceptable. Furthermore, the untenability of the analogy as proposed becomes patent, with the discordance in the consequences that, on the one hand, a Just person is a fully Rational person, but on the other, most members of a Just society are incapable of full Rationality. A perhaps less convoluted definition of Justice can be derived from a consideration of the U. S. Constitution, which entails two main Principles, Freedom and Equality. The former can be defined as 'Each citizen can do as they please, so long as there is no interference with anyone else doing likewise.' The latter can be defined as 'The vote of one person counts no more than that of any other.' That they are conflicting Principles only occasionally becomes manifest, e. g. the debate over the limits of the role of wealth in the electoral process--the exercise of Free Speech vs. an undue influence on the choosing of leaders. The Constitution does seem to recognize its internal tension, by attempting to balance the embodiment of the Freedom Principle, i. e. the Executive branch, with that of the Equality Principle, i. e. the Legislative branch, via the functioning of a third branch, i. e. the Judiciary. However, the general bias of the Supreme Court to the Freedom Principle, e. g. classifying the spending of money as 'Free Speech', the classification of a Corporation as a 'Person', etc., not to mention its susceptibilty to being filled on the basis of political loyalty, reveals it as an ineffective balancer of the two Principles. Even two of the most respected thinkers of the past several decades are incapable of rising above the tension--Nozick's theory of Justice is derived from the Freedom Principle, while Rawl's is based on the Equality Principle. The shortcoming of each of these is that 'Justice' is 'the art of the balance between Freedom and Equality'. It is an Art, because there is no higher Principle that harmonizes them in the abstract, and it is one that can only be exercised in concrete cases. A Phronetocracy is a Just society, because the wisest leader is an Artist of Justice.

Rights

The notion of 'Right' is familiar in American life--The Bill of Rights, the Right to Bear Arms, the Right to Free Speech, Human Rights, the Right to Remain Silent, even the Right to Party. But it is difficult to glean from these a univocal sense of 'Right'. There have been two main theories of Right, neither of which stem from Plato or Aristotle, for whom it was apparently nothing meaningful at all. The first, which can be called the In-Itself concept, holds that a 'Right' is something that is innately endowed to every creature, usually Humans, but sometimes Animals in general. The second rejects the sufficiency of the In-Itself version, arguing that a 'Right' is something that is intrinsically related to its being recognized, so it construes a 'Right' as a context-bound social construct. While the U. S. founding documents at times vaguely allude to the first type, the Rights that the Constitution presents are plainly of the second type, namely, it implicitly defines a 'Right' as 'An action, the interference with which is illegal.'--e. g. having the 'Right' to Free Speech means that there exists a law that forbids the suppression of speech. So, U. S. 'Rights' are first and foremost context-bound, specifically a function of the Laws, leaving other notions, e. g. Human Rights, the Right to Shelter, etc. vacuous in the absence of Laws that would create them. Now, Phronetic Axiology attaches to Conduct, which means receiving something has no normative standing. On the other hand, in a Phronetocracy, e. g. all subsistence needs are to be accommodated, but any imperative to do so derives from the idionomic motivation of Leadership, not from an in-itself demand by the needy.

The United States and Democracy

The classification of a Political entity usually confuses two topics, each of which, in turn, entails a further division into two areas. The two topics are: the means of choosing leaders, and, the processes of governance. That they need to be distinguished is evident from an example of an absolute dictator being elected, for one term, every ten years. Is this a Democracy or a Dictatorship? Obviously, it can be both. Now, in the processes of governance, pure Democracy, e. g. a referendum on every issue, is highly unfeasible. But it is not impossible, since technology may one day facilitate instantaneous voting, and the wisest leadership intuitively grasps the interests of the citizenry. Plainly, neither of these is the current case in the United States, and given the well-documented influence of wealth on governmental activity, it is difficult to classify the U. S. processes of governance as a 'Democracy'. On the other hand, the Constitutional Principle of 'one person, one vote' does qualify as 'Democratic'. However, the classification of the United States' means of choosing leaders needs to further distinguish between de jure and de facto--what that process is in theory, and what it is in practice. Given the low voter turnouts in even the most dramatic elections, often hoped for by many politicians, and the undue influence of wealth on the process, exacerbated by the continued refusal of corporate interests to accommodate free time and space for political advertising, it is difficult to classify the United States as a de facto Democracy with respect to choosing leaders, as well.

Myths of Law

For some doctrines, the stability of Law derives from its eternality, the generally-accepted paradigm of which are Mathematical relations. In such doctrines, the derivation of Laws from a presumed irrefutable origin suffices to demonstrate their immutability. The issuance of Laws from a Divine source, e. g. the Ten Commandments, as presented in a religious document, is the most familiar example of such a rigorous derivation. Analogously, Kant attempts to deduce a set of Laws from the very concept of Reason alone. And, the United States Constitution is offered as an elaboration of some 'self-evident Truths'. But, all of these efforts have been challenged at their roots: Moses may have authored the Ten Commandments, Reason is an arbitrary behavioral criterion, and the conception of 'Human Rights' may be no more than inspirational. Nietzsche has perhaps most thoroughly demystified Law--the effort to eternalize it has always been part of the myth-making that is taken as essential to effective governance. But true Democracy entails transparency, to which Myth, and perhaps even Majesty, are antithetical. The true portion of the glib 'Laws are made to be broken' is that Laws are made, so, hence, they can also be unmade, just as if one Constitutional Amendment can be repealed, so can any other. Between the awe of Law and the disdain for it, there is respect for it, and nothing breeds respect for it better than the understanding of it as an effective dimension of a healthy society, the product of wise leadership.

Straussism and Evolvementalism

The interest here in the Political Philosophies of Plato and Aristotle is not to be confused with a similar-seeming invocation of them, in recent decades, on the parts of Leo Strauss and some of his followers. Strauss's ostensible purpose is to expose the speciousness of the presumed universality and inalienability of 'Rights' that have been the foundation of Modern Democracy. In contrast to such 'Rights', argues Strauss, those Ancient doctrines are exemplary because of their idea of an impersonal 'Good', from which Aristocratism is derived as the best form of Rule, since only the few 'best' have the capacity to cognize that idea. However, what he actually accomplishes is indistinguishable from Oligarchism, Plutocratism, or Theocratism, since his notion of the 'Ancient' Era includes the Medieval Era, he fails to appreciate that for Plato and Aristotle, an Aristocracy and a Democracy are not mutually exclusive, and his attack on the Modern concept of 'Right' never once targets what is perhaps the most pervasive example of it, namely Property 'Rights'. Rather, the Political Philosophy here is derived from the Evolvemental Principle, in particular from the idea that society as a whole is Evolving, a process which combines homogenizing and innovating processes. While the Law accounts for the former, it is Individuals who are the source of the latter. So the Rule of Law is a necessary but not a sufficent condition of a healthy society, which also requires the scope of understanding of the Wisest to initiate and guide its growth.

Rule of Persons and Rule of Law

According to both Plato and Aristotle, in an Aristocracy, the best form of Government, laws are unnecessary, because all citizens never fail to act justly. But the contingency and ephemerality of the availability of 'the best' require recourse to more effective means to social stability. The most venerable of those means has been the Hereditary Monarchy, but recent centuries have seen, primarily in Europe and the Americas, the rise of the Rule of Law, usually under the rubric 'Democracy'. The pioneering works of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau cannot be fully appreciated in abstraction from their being proposed as alternatives to Hereditarism. Furthermore, their promotion, in the name of stability, of an increased impersonalization of Political Philosophy, is accompanied by a more strident rejection of Aristocratism--not merely is the latter usually impracticable, but, given the essentiality of the fallibility of Human Nature, it is Metaphysically impossible. But the wholesale elimination of the study of the Rule of Persons from Modern Political Philosophy is not merely theoretically misguided, but potentially malign. In even the most impersonal of Political entities in history, the United States of America, the Law constitutes only one dimension of the processes of Ruling. For, in the Executive branch of the Government, personal ability is of the essence, and the stability of Law is indifferent to any distinction between, say, the performance of a President who sets as national policy travelling to the Moon, and that of one who dishonestly and recklessly launches an invasion of another country. The Rule of Persons is as relevant today as it was 2500 years ago, and one of the aims of Evolvementalism is to provide a criterion for evaluating Executive performance--the degree of its promotion of Evolvement=the scope of its comprehensiveness=how wise it is. Thus, in a Phronetocracy, the Rule of Persons becomes meaningful once again.

Ancient and Modern Political Philosophy

A reader of Aristotle's Politics would be justifiably bewildered to find it endorsing 'Aristocracy' as the best type of Political entity, but devoting most of its discussion to what qualify as only inferior types. Reading it as part of a standard American Academic curriculum will likely do nothing to dispel the bewilderment, because that work most typically appears within a Political Science Department, whereas Aristotle's clarification of the issue is generally only presented across campus, in the Philosophy Department, the Academic division in which his Nichomachean Ethics is typically studied. It is the latter work that describes who the 'best' are, and the Principle of the social context in which they interact. Plato, usually regarded as inferior to Aristotle as a systematizer, is actually the better organized of the two when it comes to the presentation of Political Philosophy. For, Bestness is covered by the Republic, while his Laws is reserved for his treatment of inferior types of Government. Given this clarification, what can now be gleaned from both these pioneers of Political Philosophy is their common belief that the Rule of Persons is, potentially, at least, superior to the Rule of Law and the Rule of System. Perhaps nothing crystalizes the differences between Ancient and Modern Political Philosophy than the fact that the most noteworthy, and, possibly, the only Modern treatment of the Rule of Persons comes from Machiavelli, whose portrait of a Ruler would likely be characterized by Aristotle as of the 'Worst'. Accordingly, by advocating a Phronetocracy--the Rule of the Wisest--Evolvementalism personalizes Political Philosophy in order to re-institute the relevance to the topic of 'Bestness'.

Political Philosophy and Legitimacy

Political Philosophy can be understood as a response to the rule of Force--it is an attempt to legitimize specified Ruler-Ruled social arrangements. For Aristotle, that legitimization is the Teleology of Reason, i. e. the natural tendency towards governance by Reason, a thesis revived and variously revised centuries later by especially Kant and Hegel. Medieval Theocracy derives its authority from Divine sources. Hobbes argues that certain Political arrangements are a necessary corrective to natural deadly social antagonism. While Theocracy and Hobbesianism continue to have their advocates, more so than Rationalism, probably the predominant Modern Political Philosophy is Locke's, in which Government serves to facilitate and regulate natural, mutually benefical associations, as exemplified by Economic contracts. The essence of most subsequent Political debate has been regarding the degree of Government intervention necessary--from none at all (Anarchism), to minimal (Conservatism), to frequent and ongoing (Progessive Liberalism), to a complete overhaul (Marxism). The Phronetocratic analysis likewise takes Economic phenomena as a point of departure, but for entirely different purposes. What is significant to this perspective is the complexity of Contemporary Economics--e. g. a few localized foreclosures can lead to an International recession, as has been seen recently. Such complexity is, first of all, a reminder that Economic relations are only dimension of the complexity of all social relations. Secondly, any such complexity entails differences in the degree of comprehension of understanding it. So, since, as has been previously shown, inter-Individual association is natural and beneficial, the distinction between Leaders and Followers, based on their relative degrees of comprehension of the situation, in such associations, is also natural and beneficial to all concerned. Hence, a Phronetocracy, the Leadership of the Wisest, is legitimate.