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Democratic Athens As an Experimental System: History and the Project of Political Theory

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Democratic Athens As an Experimental System: History and the Project of Political Theory Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics Democratic Athens as an Experimental System: History and the Project of Political Theory. Version 1.0 November 2005 Josiah Ober Princeton University Abstract: Athens as a case study can be useful as an “exemplary narrative” for political science and normative political, on the analogy of the biologicial use of as certain animals (e.g. mice or zebrafish) as “model systems” subject to intensive study by many researchers. © Josiah Ober. [email protected] 1 What is a historical case study good for? Can the political history of classical Athens legitimately be regarded as a case study: an experimental system or exemplary narrative, useful for investigating various aspects of democracy and related phenomena? I hope to show that the answer to that question is yes, but first it seems necessary to pose an analytically prior question: What is the goal of the investigation? What precisely is the use-value of the case? What, in short, is the exemplary narrative supposed to be good for? Those questions may make a proper historian a bit queasy. She might reasonably ask: Need history be good for something other than historical knowledge itself? The point is that as soon as I say that the historical experience of (e.g.) classical Athens is an experimental system, I seem to have abandoned the historian’s tried and true ground of supposing that it is sufficient to say that Athenian history is worth studying for its own sake. I admit to a personal fondness for this sort of traditional historian’s propriety. So, as a preliminary gesture, let me plant a stake in the ground (in Greek terms: a horos) by saying that I actually do suppose that Athenian history is interesting for its own sake. I will try to advance the argument for the use-value of Athens as an exemplary narrative as far as possible beyond that marker. I may be forced to give some of the ground in front of the stake by the end of the day. But the stake of “Athens interesting for its own sake” is the point behind which I would not retreat without making a desperate stand.1 The most obvious answer to the “exemplary for what?” question is, I suppose, “exemplary for other periods of history.” Which is to say that the case of democratic Athens might usefully be deployed for comparative methods of argument in historiography because, via close attention to a range of similarities and differences, the history of Athenian political development might tell us something meaningful about other periods of human experimentation with democracy and related forms of political organization. I think that such a claim, carefully framed, could be supported. I am very much in favor of comparative arguments in history, and I have quite often made reference to “exemplary narratives” drawn from the history of early modern Europe (e.g.) in order make a point about antiquity – especially in seeking to extend the range of interpretive possibilities that might be considered by historians of antiquity.2 But I do not have anything new to say about the method of comparative history – the advantages and problems with the comparative approach have been a matter of discussion for a long time among historians (students of antiquity will be likely to think, for example, of Plutarch’s Parallel Lives), and I can see no very obvious way that the theory of “the case” would allow me to add anything fresh or original to those discussions.3 Is it reasonable, then, to look outside the discipline of history in seeking to establish a use-value for the Athenian case? On the face of it, yes. The use-value of a given biological “model system” is not de facto limited to a particular academic discipline. The mouse is used in experiments by both medical pathologists and behavioral psychologists. Drosophila have proved just as useful for evolutionary biologists investigating geographic diffusion of visible traits as they have for molecular biologists who analyze the structure of individual genes. Arguably, the conceptual category “model system” connotes interdisciplinary use-value. So, if the exemplary historical narrative qua experimental system is indeed analogous to a biological model system, its use-value should potentially exceed the disciplinary domain of history per se. I will return, at the 2 end of this essay, to similarities and differences between model and experimental systems. I propose, then, to ignore comparativism within the discipline of history, and to argue instead that “historical narratives” can be usefully exemplary, can serve as “experimental systems” outside the discipline of history as such. The most obvious extra- historical field for which the case of Athenian democracy might seem to have use-value is political sociology. Classical Athens offers an example of a fairly rare and yet analytically significant socio-political phenomenon: direct participatory democracy as the primary system of governance for a society that was fairly large (i.e. too big to be explained in terms of face-to-face interactions), quite complex (literate, socially differentiated), and politically independent (i.e. not subject to superior external or internal political authority).4 There has been at least sporadic interest among political scientists in classical Athens as a case study in direct democracy. Some of my own earlier work on Athens was aimed at convincing political scientists that the Athenian case challenges the universality of the so-called “Iron Law of Oligarchy,” which asserts that participatory democracy will inevitably degenerate into oligarchy for structural reasons involving leadership roles.5 But I propose leaving political sociology to one side for the time being in order to focus on the possibility that the historical case of democratic Athens may be usefully employed within a different academic field: ethical and political theory. That is to say, I want to argue that the Athenian case may be useful for normative thinking about problems of justice, rights, and obligations.6 I am quite aware that asserting that a particular historical case might usefully inform normative theory means confronting a familiar obstacle – and the obstacle may be regarded by some students of normative theory as simply impassible. The brick wall in question is defined by David Hume’s famous assertion that “one cannot derive an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’.”7 And so, presumably (perhaps a fortiori), not from a ‘was.’ An expansive interpretation of the scope of Hume’s dictum might, therefore, seem to write history out of ethical and political philosophy. Before exploring ways to get around the wall, we should ask whether there is any very good reason to want to get around it. After all, the experimental system must, by definition, model something that relevant disciplinary practitioners actually care to learn more about. If consideration of the historical case does not offer something needed (or anyway valued) by normative theory, it seems senseless to proceed with the endeavor of inviting political theorists to take cognizance of the case of classical Athens. It may come to seem akin to urging astrophysicists to begin experimenting with fruit-flies, on the grounds that experiments on drosophila have materially advanced other scientific fields.8 Claiming that experimenting with historical cases could usefully advance the project of normative theory is not, on the face of it, much easier to sell than fruit-flies to physicists. Political theorists are very interested in texts written in the historical past (by, e.g. Hobbes, Locke, and Mill), but they tend to regard past historical practice as irrelevant to their scholarly project and they have long tended to regard “historicism” as a gross methodological error.9 Theorists use the charge of “historicism” somewhat loosely and in ways very reminiscent of the ways some historians’ use the term “essentialism”: In each discipline-specific argumentative context, she who fails to defend herself against the damaging charge must regard her argument as effectively refuted. This casual and pervasive use by political theorists and historians of terminological short-hand to produce 3 knock-down methodological refutations has, I think, unnecessarily limited intellectual intercourse between political theorists and historians.10 By way of personal anecdote: When I first came to Princeton in 1990, I frequently attended meetings of the Political Philosophy Colloquium (which centered, then as now, on the general problem of liberalism and its critics) and meetings of the Davis History Seminar, then focused on imperialism and colonialism. I was graciously welcomed in both forums, but I quickly found that framing interventions in each venue, without leaving oneself open to knockout punches of “historicism” on the one hand, or “essentialism” on the other, was a severe challenge (even for someone professionally involved, as I was and am, in the study of rhetoric). Now, the strong Humean imagined above might say that “historicism” is not just a scare-term like “essentialism,” that it serves a function that is more serious than simply shoring up current canons of disciplinary taste. He might suggest that “historicism” for the political theorist is equivalent to the historian’s concern with “anachronism” – i.e. shorthand for a methodological error that is so basic as to render any claim infected by the error invalid a priori. For instance, in response to a historian’s charge of “essentialism” I might respond: “yes indeed, my argument does assume that some particular and modest aspects of human behavior are innate, rather than socially constructed and contingent, but I hope to convince you that making this sort of essentialist assumption will allow me to explain a fuller range of the historical phenomena we are seeking to understand.” I suppose that most historians would be willing to hear me out, judging the potential validity of my “essentialist” assumption on the basis of its explanatory power or lack thereof.
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