Classical Rationality as the Basis of Utopism
Classical Rationality as the Basis of Utopism and its Criticism from the Viewpoints of Language and Experience
The constant return to utopian projects of re-organizing society testifies that utopism is deeply rooted in the structure of the Classical episteme. In this case to break with utopian line of thinking means to uncover and eliminate all the presuppositions which inevitably lead to the transformation of social ideals into utopias. If we approach the problem of utopism from this point of view, it becomes rather the object of epistemology than ethics or politics.
The connection of Utopia with the fundamentals of Classical theory of knowledge reveals itself clearly, if we remember that the author of the first Utopia, as well as the classical model of reasoning, was the same person Plato. In his most famous work "Republic" the possibility of constructing an ideal society follows directly from his ontology and method of reasoning. So we can say that the theory of knowledge and politics were bound together from the very beginning.
Plato founds his method on the idealization procedure borrowed from mathematics and spreads this line of reasoning, where general is considered to be more cognizable and trustworthy, to all spheres of knowledge including social studies. From the logical point of view the idea/form of a thing always precedes the thing: "We should always know what equality is in itself before we know that certain things are equal". Having proved that "general" precedes "individual" logically, Plato makes a gross overstatement and treats ideas as primary to things not only logically, but also ontologically. He endows his forms/ideas with substance and places them in a special ideal world. The world of ideas "divine, mental, immortal, uniform" takes priority over the world of things "mortal, sensible, diverse, separable and perishable" not only as more cognizable but also as pertaining to "Good".
Starting from the proven priority of
The constant return to utopian projects of re-organizing society testifies that utopism is deeply rooted in the structure of the Classical episteme. In this case to break with utopian line of thinking means to uncover and eliminate all the presuppositions which inevitably lead to the transformation of social ideals into utopias. If we approach the problem of utopism from this point of view, it becomes rather the object of epistemology than ethics or politics.
The connection of Utopia with the fundamentals of Classical theory of knowledge reveals itself clearly, if we remember that the author of the first Utopia, as well as the classical model of reasoning, was the same person Plato. In his most famous work "Republic" the possibility of constructing an ideal society follows directly from his ontology and method of reasoning. So we can say that the theory of knowledge and politics were bound together from the very beginning.
Plato founds his method on the idealization procedure borrowed from mathematics and spreads this line of reasoning, where general is considered to be more cognizable and trustworthy, to all spheres of knowledge including social studies. From the logical point of view the idea/form of a thing always precedes the thing: "We should always know what equality is in itself before we know that certain things are equal". Having proved that "general" precedes "individual" logically, Plato makes a gross overstatement and treats ideas as primary to things not only logically, but also ontologically. He endows his forms/ideas with substance and places them in a special ideal world. The world of ideas "divine, mental, immortal, uniform" takes priority over the world of things "mortal, sensible, diverse, separable and perishable" not only as more cognizable but also as pertaining to "Good".
Starting from the proven priority of