All forms of political order are phenomena of movements. The classic typology of political constitutions that Plato elaborated and Aristotle modified to an extent therefore represents both: a description of the different constitutions identified—monarchy, aristocracy, oligarchy, and so forth—and the passages from one constitutional form to another, as from an aristocracy to an oligarchy, for example. In the realm of human action there is no stability, Aristotle stated, as if it were a cosmo-political law, and the constitutional forms that arise from such action are no exception to this law.¹ Their status in political reality is an institutional...

This chapter explores Tilo Schabert’s identification of the crisis of modern civilization as well as his distinctive response to it. Unlike many other critics of modernity, Schabert does not propose a broad program of social transformation or renewal as a way to circumvent the deprivations of modern life. Instead of a call to sweep away sclerotic institutions or laying out a way to revive a flagging sense of citizenship and community, he locates a hidden arena that remains relatively untouched by the mediocrity, selfishness, and boredom that he associates with contemporary society. For Schabert, the exercise of power and creativity...

A full consideration of who is a person in politics must somehow broaden a constitutional approach to persons as free and equal subjects before the law so as to include the capacity to act. We get a sense of what this might entail in what Hegel calls “the individual as the subject of history”—one who has the capacity to move history forward, often by breaking with established rules—as distinguished from the individual as object of history—that is, a person whose recognition is accorded by law. In what senses persons may be distinguished in these ways is the...

Tilo Schabert reports that a key factor in Boston mayor Kevin White’s decision not to seek reelection was that he no longer liked people very much. White told the Harvard Crimson: “If you want to go into politics . . . you got to like people. In the end I began not to like people. It was time to get out of politics.”¹ He had built and sustained a party of friends for over twenty years, and the key motivation that sustained that party, and the structure of Boston politics, was gone.

Schabert identifies friendship as a one of the...

Can power be creative? An empirically discernible phenomenon in the realm of human experience, power can be studied as a universal force both empirically (in physics) and theoretically (in theoretical physics and in metaphysics). In physics, power may be defined as “the rate at which work is performed or energy is transmitted, or the amount of energy required or expended for a given unit of time.”¹ We may speak more specifically of “motive power,” which, in thermodynamics, “is an agency, as water or steam, used to impart motion . . . to machinery.”²

Political power seems at first to be...

This essay examines Tilo Schabert’s idea of the creative person in politics in the context of (a) its translation into political concepts, (b) the benefits of engagement in political activity for an innately creative person, and (c) the way creative persons may be uniquely and perhaps singularly effective in democratic politics. The study opens with Schabert’s roots in Platonic philosophy and concludes with a Machiavellian take on the creative person in contemporary democratic politics.

Schabert’s concept of the person is inspired by Plato, who pointed to the relations between types of souls and forms of regimes.¹ Following Plato, Schabert writes...

Aristotle really is a storehouse. This is true not only concerning his political analysis, but also with respect to his small asides, which focus on the more everyday aspects of the lives of citizens. These keenly observed miniatures bring to light characteristics of human behavior that claim universal validity, especially in those moments when people do actually interact with each other. Whether these human interactions always have to be political is not quite clear and can be left open to debate for a while. Aristotle suggests otherwise. These characteristics of human behavior and conduct seem to be valid for many...

The key to understanding the nature of government is to be found in the old debate between realists and political utopians of many kinds. This controversy has several fields, including the epistemological issues of political knowledge, the disagreements between philosophers and historians, and the political controversies of liberals with 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 political wisdom and practical wisdom?¹ Is it that the first deals with universals and the latter one with the particulars? If it...

For a French specialist in political sociology, it is a unique experience to read Tilo Schabert, reflecting with and against him, and it is a privilege to write for a book whose contributors are mainly philosophers. In the small world of the French academy, Tilo Schabert is what one could call—tongue in cheek—“un drôle de collègue.” One cannot pigeonhole him in one of the categories used in France to classify political scientists. He is a political philosopher conducting fieldwork and interviews, a scholar who pays serious attention to tiny, yet significant details, such as the fact that none...