essentially autonomous territories called satrapies was the dominant form of political organization in the hellenistic world.
essentially autonomous territories called satrapies was the dominant form of political organization in the hellenistic world.
what was the dominant form of political organization in the hellenistic world?
essentially autonomous territories called satrapies
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although weil's political philosophy is strongly influenced by notions that are passed down from aristotle, kant, hegel, and marx, it is important to note his focus on the concrete aspects of human life as it is lived. the project of coherence for weil is one that must constantly restart, and it always risks being disrupted by novel forms of violence. weil has noted that "action" is "the last category of discourse", and in this way it is the category in which human activity is understood as a "the unity of life and discourse", that is, the category which gives new concrete content to both actual lived human attitudes and to the discursive categories that elaborate concepts in order to understand that activity. all weil's political thought starts in this way from the view point of the individual, that is from the moral question of freedom, and leads to a reflection on political organization. this political organization is to be understood organically, as are his analyses of the social mechanism and the relationship, which weil develops from ferdinand tönnies between the community and civil society. but this organic development of communities and their interaction, often antagonistic with civil society, also leads to a reflection of the development of a theory of the state. in this way, the requirement for justice, which helps to enlarge the moral requirement of universalizability to a fully-fledged political requirement, goes hand in hand with the requirement that modern society provide a framework in which the individual's goals, objectives and projects are meaningful. this requirement of meaning reconnects political activity to weil's larger project of coherence, because it is only within an organized state that such a requirement for meaning can be fulfilled. this return of the theoretical aspect of weil's theory corresponds to the place that discursiveness takes in his practical philosophy. for weil, the choice of philosophy, which is the choice of coherence, is a choice made in order to overcome and subsume violence by giving it a discursive form. in order for that coherence to be an actual concrete articulation of meaning, this leads the individual to become aware of their discursive commitments through open discussion. in this way, discussion because a serious mode of political action, because for weil "acting is deciding after having deliberated" and it is only through open discussion that the conflicts, problems and differences see the light of day in order to afterwards be resolved through political compromises that reconcile different social strata and communities based around a criteria of justice. this criterion gives voice to the plurality of goals, needs, struggles, and values that exist at the interior of a given political organization. the historic and contingent content of theses commitments are developments of the natural evolution of the state, which weil defines as "the organic set of institutions of a historic community". thus, in "philosophie politique", weil analyzes the state from a variety of perspectives. he provides a formal analysis of the modern state, which is based on a "formal and universal" notion of law, and provides an encyclopedic analysis of different forms of political organization from autocratic to constitutional. underlying these analyses is a defense of constitutional democracy whereby "each citizen is considered as a potential ruler, and not only as ruled". this notion of potentiality implies a state defined by all citizens' capacity and eligibility to decision-making positions. it also implies a process of decision-making defined by open, public, transparent discussion involving all citizens, which is therefore universal in scope. in this sense, and by the general criteria of universalizability present in his thought, the notion of the state, and the objective to understand and overcome violence implies a form of cosmopolitanism whereby the progressive globalization of society leads to a global form of political organization. this global political organization would allow individuals to participate in an actual concrete form of freedom that gives voice to their concrete particularity and to the concrete particularity of their community. in this way a cosmopolitan global structure of states links back to the ultimate goal of weil's theoretic philosophy, which is to explain the unity of action and discourse. because, for weil, it is in political organization that humanity's activity, as well as history itself, becomes meaningful, political organization is the backdrop against which moral action is possible and the concrete content of an individual's life can be articulated.
éric weil