Matter and Form

Matter and Form explores the relationship between natural science and political philosophy from the classical to contemporary eras, taking an interdisciplinary approach to the philosophic understanding of the structure and process of the natural world and its impact on the history of political philosophy. It illuminates the importance of philosophic reflection on material nature to moral and political theorizing, mediating between the sciences and humanities and making a contribution to ending the isolation between them.

Matter and Form explores the relationship that has long existed between natural science and political philosophy. Plato's Socrates articulates the Ideas or Forms as an account of the ultimate source of causality in the cosmos. Aristotle's natural philosophy had a significant impact on his political philosophy: he argues that humans are by nature political animals, having their natural end in the city whose regime is hierarchically structured based on differences in moral and intellectual capacity. Medieval theorists attempt to synthesize classical natural and political philosophy with the revealed truths of scripture; they argue that divine reason structures an ordered universe, the awareness of which allows for psychic and political harmony among human beings. Enlightenment thinkers challenge the natural philosophy of classical and medieval philosophers, ushering in a more liberal political order. For example, for Hobbes, there is no rest in nature as there are no Aristotelian forms or natural places that govern matter. Hobbes applies his mechanistic understanding of material nature to his understanding of human nature: individuals are by nature locked in an endless pursuit of power until death. However, from this mechanistic understanding of humanity's natural condition, Hobbes develops a social contract theory in which civil and political society is constituted from consent. Later thinkers, such as Locke and Rousseau, modify this Hobbesian premise in their pursuit of the protection of rights and a free society. Nevertheless, materialist conceptions of the cosmos have not always given rise to liberal democratic philosophies. Historicist influence on scientific inquiry in the nineteenth century is connected to Darwin's theory of evolution; Darwin reasoned that over time the process of natural selection produces ever newer and more highly adapted species. Reflecting a form of social Darwinism, Nietzsche envisions an aristocratic order that draws its inspiration from art rather than the rationalism embodied in the history of natural and political philosophy. Matter and Form's interdisciplinary approach, by international scholars in philosophy and political science, suits it for researchers, teachers and students of these fields.

Chapter 1 Introduction
Part 2 Part I. Ancient Science, Natural Teleology, and the Order of Politics
Chapter 3 Chapter 1. The Polis Philosophers
Chapter 4 Chapter 2. The Immortality of the Soul and the Origin of the Cosmos in Plato'sPhaedo
Chapter 5 Chapter 3. Plato's Science of Living Well
Chapter 6 Chapter 4. Understanding Aristotle'sPolitics through Form and Matter
Part 7 Part II. Heavenly Perfection and Psychic Harmony
Chapter 8 Chapter 5. Making "men see clearly": Physical Imperfection and Mathematical Order in Ptolemy'sSyntaxis
Chapter 9 Chapter 6. Liberalism in the Naturalistic-Psychological Roots of Averroes' Critique of Plato'sRepublic
Part 10 Part III. Skepticism, Mechanism, and the New Politics
Chapter 11 Chapter 7. Skepticism, Science, and Politics in Montaigne's Essays
Chapter 12 Chapter 8. Parmenidean Intuitions in Descartes's Theory of the Heart's Motion
Chapter 13 Chapter 9. Hobbes's Natural Condition and his Natural Science of the Mind inLeviathan
Chapter 14 Chapter 10. Hobbes and Aristotle: Science and Politics
Chapter 15 Chapter 11. From Metaphysics to Ethics and Beyond: Hobbes's Reaction to Aristotelian Essentialism
Chapter 16 Chapter 12. Hobbes and Aristotle on Biology, Reason and Reproduction
Part 17 Part IV. The Scientific Roots of Liberalism and Contemporary "Biopolitics"
Chapter 18 Chapter 13. Locke and the Problematic Relation between Natural Science and Moral Philosophy
Chapter 19 Chapter 14. Rousseau's Botanical-Political Problem: On the Nature of Nature and Political Philosophy
Chapter 20 Chapter 15. Contrasting Biological and Humanistic Approaches to the Evolution of Political Morality
Chapter 21 Dialogue of the Sciences and the Humanities