In the Onto-Political Philosophy of Spinoza Contract Idea and Reflections

Abstract

In Spinoza, the concept of contract is a constituent concept, on which there are still disputes. This founding concept has been discussed many times from various points of view, and the similarities and differences of the concept with the tradition have been tried to show. Of course, the sources of the concept of contract in Spinoza should first of all be sought in its ontology, which is considered the founding element of politics. All this gives advice on a holistic reading of Spinoza’s philosophy. This holistic reading also makes clear the state of immanence centered in Spinoza. The groundwork of such basic concepts as power becomes more feasible. From ontology to ethics, from ethics to politics, all this route will show the line that will allow the emergence of the inherent elements of life. In fact, in Spinoza, reading the convention from the ontological plane eliminates most disputes and most similarities that have been tried to be established with tradition. Various thinkers –as will be shown in this study- base the issue here. Spinoza does not carry the inherent, joyful elements of life to the point of being transferable by a contract. Life unites with all its elements in a livable partnership. This partnership is a joyful partnership that takes its power from the ontological surface and multiplies its power with ethical and political participate. This work will try to show the various participation that make up the main issues.

Keywords: Spinoza, community, natural right, social contract, conatus.

Hegel’s Criticism of the Social Contract Theories

Abstract

History of humanity shows many explanations concerning the social existence of man with the aim to understand and, if needed, to change it. The modern theory of the sovereign state has been formed along with the theories of social contract, which aim at the legitimization of it. Whereas the usual philosophers referred to under this rubric generally are Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke and Thomas Hobbes, the philosophers interested in this topic are legion. Another important point is that the idea of natural right, which serves as a basis for these theories, has a long past that goes way back than the age of the aforementioned philosophers. The most important point that separates modern contract theories from those of the past is that they take their sources not from the Scriptures and the Church, but either from a presupposed state of nature or from a concept of free subject who determines her actions. When we look at the philosophers of the 18^th and 19^th Century Germany, we see that the first task for them is to expose and criticize their presuppositions. In this context Hegel’s thought represents the first total and philosophical critique. In this paper, the Hegelian criticism of the social contract theories, along with the thoughts of its predecessors, Kant and Fichte, will be discussed.

Keywords: social contract, state of nature, Hobbes, Kant, Fichte, Hegel.

The Word of the Contract: Locke and Hegel on the conventional and the Real

Abstract

While the nature of the contract presupposes the movement of abstract individuals towards abstract unity, a two-sided abstraction accompanies thought. Both are representative, one-sided. In G.W.F. Hegel’s philosophy, what is meant by the substantive element of right is real contracts, unlike conventional contracts based on moral nature, in other words, consensus. His emphasis on the normative as opposed to the moral to John Locke and other empiricists indicates a paradigm shift. Rather than an arbitrary and perishable contract, it is a preparatory reflection on what constitutes the modern state. The delusion or mistake of Locke and all kinds of empiricism is to reduce subjectivity to the facts of consciousness and to a representative world of mind, and to the structure that assumes objectivity as given and unchanging. The conventional structure of contract thought also brings with it a historical-ontological overcoming in the sense that they remain oppositional in the individual-society relationship. Hegel’s standpoint, as can be seen from his other works, is an ontology in that it is the metaphysics of reason versus the metaphysics of the understanding, and it differs from the dominant epistemological view of the previous era. In accordance with our subject, it is political ontology or, to put it later, the ontology of social existence.

Keywords: Conventional contract, real contract, representation, the metaphysics of the understanding, the metaphysics of reason, the ontology of historical being.

The Foundations of Social Life in Epicurus’ Thought

Abstract

In the Hellenistic period, people’s coexistence practices evolved from polis to empire. In previous periods, people lived in political organizations like polis and they thought that happiness would be achieved in this structure. With the evolvement of these coexistence practices into the empire, people experience great anxiety because they cannot find their way in their lives. Happiness has turned from the citizen’s pursuit of happiness in the polis to the individual’s pursuit of happiness in the empire, and in this process, it has become an effort to find a way to get rid of pain and fear. All this social and political change has also been reflected in the field of philosophy, allowing the development of ideas on how citizens can achieve happiness in the empire as individuals, not together with citizens in the polis. Epicurus is the most important philosopher of the idea of the social contract in the Hellenistic period. In this article, Epicurus’ idea of the social contract will be discussed within the framework of his canonic, physics, and ethics. First, the philosopher’s epistemology and its connection with his ethics will be handled and it will be discussed how understanding and explaining nature can be related to the social contract.  Furthermore, the formation stages of social life, how people make agreements, and what kind of characteristics the wise person are examined within the framework of the concepts of knowledge, benefit, security, and justice. By emphasizing that justice should be beneficial by its nature, it is asserted that it should be situated on a different ground from the law.

Keywords: agreement, sage, security, utility, natural justice, law.

The Blind Side of the Social Contract and Michel Serres’s Call for a Natural Contract

Abstract

The subject of this article is Michel Serres’s concept of the natural contract. Serres proposes this concept because he finds that theories of the social contract ignore the connection of human beings with nature. He argues that nature should be a subject of rights, that its rights impose duties on us, and that on the basis of these duties, a contract should be invented that reorganizes our relations with nature in law, politics, and science. The aim of this article is to examine his argument and clarify its philosophical framework and conceptual components. There are two reasons for this goal: The first is related to the criticism of Serres’s imprecision and incomprehensibility. Serres has a distinctive literary style. He does not write in analytical order and with the usual academic references. However, this does not mean that his intellectual production is ambiguous and uncertain. The article will show that the natural contract is a very precise and rigid concept and can be presented in an analytical order. The second reason is related to the insufficient research of Serres’s philosophy in Turkey. Our article should also help to remedy this deficiency. It is divided into four sections. The introductory section highlights Serres’s anti-war position. The first section explains his distinction between “objective violence” and “subjective war” and points to the Epicurean and Lucretian roots of his contract model. The second section is devoted to the conceptual components of the natural contract. This section argues that Serres’s proposal is not a metaphor, discusses its differences from environmentalism, and explains concepts such as “epistemodicy”, “The Third-Instructed”, and “symbiosis”. In addition, this section examines the parallelism Serres identifies between pollution and property, as well as his call for a transition from property to rent. Finally, the conclusion addresses the relationship between Serres’s proposal and current legislation.

Keywords: Michel Serres, natural contract, social contract, philosophy of law, ecology.

Abandoning Anthropocentrism in the Making of Political Community: On the Citizenship Rights of Domesticated Animals in Donaldson And Kymlicka

Abstract

In their book Zoopolis. A Political Theory of Animal Rights, Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka argue that non-human animals can have the right to be represented in the political arena by reliable human proxies, but they should better have the right to directly participate in the political processes of the community in which they live. Donaldson and Kymlicka assert that non-human animals -particularly domesticated animals- have specific capacities to express and represent themselves in political communities composed of humans and non-human animals. Through a genuine understanding of democracy, shaped by the ideas that animals can have a ‘voice’ in the political arena and that they can have direct participation in political communities, we can establish a society founded on principles that respect the rights and interests of the animals we live with and we can consider these principles as a part of the political agenda that shapes deliberative processes in the political community. In this paper, we will discuss Donaldson’s and Kymlicka’s political approach to the animal rights debate particularly by focusing on their understanding of citizenship rights for domesticated animals. We will refer to their political theory of animal rights as a promising theoretical context for a case study that has recently led to significant debates on animal rights in Turkey about prohibiting horse carriages in Princes’ Islands.

Keywords: non-human animals, citizenship, domesticated animals, animal rights, welfarism, abolitionism.

David Hume’s Critique of the Contract Theory: The Role of Convention and Habit in Social and Political Order

Abstract

David Hume, one of the most eminent philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment, analyzes social order and political society in his works by means of moral philosophy, which he calls the science of human nature. Hume takes a critical stance against social contract theory, which became one of the most debated topics of political philosophy in the 17th century first with Thomas Hobbes and then with John Locke, in both A Treatise of Human Nature and in Political Essays. Hume’s opposition to the contract theory is twofold. First, in Treatise, he conducts a philosophical inquiry into the origins of justice or respect for property, fidelity to promises and allegiance to government which he calls the artificial virtues. He points out the historical facts and shows that consent cannot be the source of political authority in his essay “Of the Original Contract” published in the following years. The aim of this study is to show that the basis of Hume’s criticisms of social contract theory is convention and habit implemented with common interest and experience. In this context, first, the source of justice, promise and allegiance will be examined and then it will be discussed why the duty of allegiance to government arises not from consent, as social contract theorists claim, but from utility of society and common interest.

Keywords: social Contract, rules of justice, promise, allegiance to government, convention, habit.

The Theory of Sui Generis Contract in Kant: From the Local to the World

Abstract

Immanuel Kant is among the modern contract theorists and he develops a sui generis contract theory that is rooted in the systematic unity of his critical philosophy. Justifying the contract as an idea of ​​reason, Kant reformulates the concepts of traditional contractarianism such as consent, agreement, political obligation and property. In this context, Kant actually reveals the logical structure of contract theories. Thus discussions on the historical reality of a contract and that of a state of nature are excluded. When Kant considers the contract and the state of nature as an assumption, he points out that they are not historical facts. When he justifies the contract as an idea of reason, he develops an ideal understanding of contract. Accordingly, in line with his critical philosophy, the contract as an ideal undertakes the task of criticizing the status quo. The idea of contract as a criterion of criticism is placed also at the center of Kant’s thoughts about the rule of law, public sphere, republicanism and the world republic. Moreover, Kant’s contract theory includes a distinctive theory of property and it problematizes the issue of property by subjecting the legal status of private property to possible consent, transforming it into a matter of justice.

Keywords: consent, contract, republicanism, natural condition, civil condition, justice, property.

The Contracting Attitude of John Rawls

Abstract

In this study, it is critically discussed how John Rawls differs from other contracting thinkers while structuring his own social contract and how valid this contract is. Unlike other thinkers, Rawls, who did not act from a state of nature while putting forward his contract, claimed that conscious individuals in the established state order could choose the principles of justice impartially thanks to the veil of ignorance in the initial situation. He tried to support this statement by claiming that it was based on the thought of categorical imperative of Immanuel Kant. However, unfortunately, at the core of the criticisms made to Rawls; In nature, there are thoughts such as the fact that the hypothetical artificial contract does not have a reality in general, the state of nature is not taken into account in the theory, he cannot completely eliminate utilitarianism while structuring his theory, and the theory of justice as the fairness it reveals is not really a Kantian interpretation. Accordingly, when we evaluate Rawls’s theory of justice as fairness within the framework of the social contract, the most important criticism made against him is that although he claims that he produces a real theory of social contract, he cannot actually do it. In this context, the claim that Rawls grounded the social contract he established within an existing state structure is controversial.

Keywords: John Rawls, social contract, Immanuel Kant, veil of ignorance, the theory of justice as the fairness.

Rereading Rousseauean Account of Socialisation with Spinoza

Abstract

Jean-Jacques Rousseau is the philosopher who reflected on the grounds of law and right by means of the social contract which is but the effort of bringing the divine authority down to earth. However, he also referred to this same ground of social convention as the only possible source for any kind of inequality between human beings. To understand Rousseau as one of the most important figures of contractarianism, one would be required to read his philosophy especially in terms of his conception of ‘general will’ (volonté générale). This conception, as it was used throughout the Social Contract, would make it possible to understand better the role of human desire in the process of socialization, which seems to have remained suspend between society and nature. According to him, the main target of political thinking is to answer the question as a result of which rational decision-makings would the plurality of individual desires (volonté particulière) be reduced to the general will of the common people. What we will try to show in this article is that rereading Rousseau in terms of Spinoza who denied separating reason from body and emotions, would emphasize the feeble vein of naturalism lying hidden in his philosophy. Such an effort would help us understand better Rousseau’s conception of the transformation of power to right.

Keywords: social contract, power, right, freedom, security, state of nature, general will.

The Weberian Rehabilitations of Habermas’s Political Philosophy: The Democratic Transformation of the Liberal Rule of Law

Abstract

This article attempts to examine the deliberative democratic theory in Between Facts and Norms, Jürgen Habermas’s mature work of legal and political philosophy, aiming to overcome the tension between two main political regimes of the 20th Century; namely the liberal state of law (Rechtsstaat) and the social-welfare state (Sozialstaat). The starting point of this study lies in the effort to understand and transform the Kantian dualities, playing a central role in Weber’s sociology of law, which Habermas has subjected to critical reading throughout in his career. One of the most fundamental issues addressed in Between Facts and Norms is to re-build a structural analysis in a post-metaphysical age that aspites to mediate between the empirical facticity and abstract validity while recognizing the normative gap offered by Weber’s critical investigations, which left behind both the social contract tradition and modern natural law theory. It is important to recognize that Habermas’s political struggle requires him to work through persistent antinomies in German intellectual traditions such as, the so-called formal versus material elements in law, legal positivism and natural law, the Rechtsstaat and the Sozialstaat, the state’s monopoly of violence and the right of resistance. This article in essence argues that Habermas has developed a theory of “social-republicanism”, which aims at overcoming these dualities each time without rejecting the basic principles of rule of law. The investigation into Habermas’s defense of the democratic Sozialstaat examines the subject matter under five subheadings: 1) Understanding how Weber had revised the modern natural law theories and his reservations for the social welfare state in his Economy and Society, 2) Explaining Habermas’s efforts to translate his system/lifeworld theory into juridical terms in his Theory of Communicative Action, 3) Clarifying the goal of developing a theory of constitutional democracy in Between Facts and Norms that corrects the inadequacies of excessively substantive and overly formalistic alternatives, 4) Discussing a theory of legal adjudication that is neither inherently elitist nor rationally incoherent and illegitimate and finally 5) To uncover a strategy for bringing closer the advantages of the rule of law and the welfare state models without destroying neither of them. In conclusion, this reading model suggested above proposes to understand Between Facts and Norms as Weberian rehabilitations of Habermas’s political philosophy.

Keywords: Weber, Rechtsstaat, Sozialstaat, Habermas, empirical facticity, abstract validity, social republicanism, deliberative democracy.

The Social Contract, Democracy and the End of Politics: Hobbes and Rancière

Abstract

This study will focus on how the theme of “the end of politics” is operationalized in the context of Jacques Rancière’s understanding of politics and how Thomas Hobbes’ idea of social contract should be read around this theme. For this purpose, firstly, the meaning of the distinction Rancière makes between “politics”, “polis” and “political philosophy” in his various works will be emphasized, the disagreement he establishes between politics and philosophy will be analyzed in the context of the theme of the end of politics, and then Hobbes’ idea of social contract will be tried to be read in line with the concepts of equality, freedom, and democracy. For this purpose, first of all, the distinctions Rancière makes between the forms of political philosophy in his work should be emphasized. Thus, it will be understood which of these forms of political philosophy Hobbes falls under. Furthermore, the claims on whether Hobbes’ political philosophy is a starting point for Rancière’s understanding of politics will be discussed and whether the concepts of democracy and equality in Hobbes are compatible with the concepts in Rancière’s philosophy will be discussed. Here, the similarities between Hobbes’ concept of democracy and Rancière’s concept of post-democracy will be shown along with the relationship Rancière establishes between “the method of equality” and “the method of inequality”.

Keywords: democracy, end of politics, dissensus, archipolitics, parapolitics, metapolitics, post-democracy.

Body, Bind and Bond as Metaphors:An Essay on Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Political Philosophy

Abstract

This article deals with Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “body” [corps], “bind” [lien], and “bond” [nœud] metaphors and analyzes the role of these metaphors in understanding his political philosophy. Rousseau’s concepts of general will, sovereignty, government, law, and society are enriched and enhanced in their meanings when the multiple uses of metaphors such as “the will of the people as a body”, “body politic”, “subjects in a body”, “an intermediary body”, “two bodies”, “body of the State”, “the artificial body of the Government” , “body of the people”, “the body of man”, “death of the body politic” “body of the nation” etc. are applied. On one hand, the use of these metaphors shows how narrow and reductionist are attempts to define the philosopher’s approach as “organicist”, on the other hand, they should be regarded as starting points in terms of updating his notions of ​​equality and liberty. Rousseau’s normative approach appears as a critique of a political reality rather than as a utopia. The metaphors of the body, bind, and bond indicate the strategy of “encircling the real” while developing a normative order.

Keywords: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, body, bind, bond, metaphor, political philosophy

A Transcendental Principle for Public Will: Kant and the Social Contract

Abstract

In this study, Immanuel Kant’s position in the social contract tradition will be discussed. The social contract regards in Kant’s political thought as an idea of reason. At this point, Kant understands from the “idea of reason” the idea of a state which is related to the idea of social contract. In his moral philosophy, Kant attributes a significant role to duty, limiting the will to law-making, while in his political thought he argues that the state is constituted as an external relation that is itself a duty. For Kant, the social contract, on the other hand, is secondary and derivative, an idea of reason which is necessary for the state to justify its legitimacy, and which is not nature in its origin. It is efficient in setting the standard that ensures the judgment of the constitution and law-making and has a crucial role in judging the consistency of the state and law by the practical subjects that Kant describes as equal and free moral beings. Thus, the aim of this study is in terms of Kant’s political thought and philosophy in general, it is to make an inquiry on the possibility of the idea of the social contract to create a harmonious and integrated system in his treatment of man as a public and autonomous being who can live in a society by communicating his views and judgments with other people.

Keywords: legality, judgment, state, constitution, republic, autonomy, authority, publicity, critical thinking, freedom.

The Neglected Dimension in the Social Contract Theory: The Generation Problem

Abstract

Social contract theory explains that people form a political body with their common will and submit to a legitimate power voluntarily. Although social contract theory has taken different forms in different contexts throughout history, it has often neglected the question of the subordination of future generations, since the concept of the contract ideally takes place in the ‘here and now’. The fact that the concept of generation is a concept that is often fragmented by other sociological categories and rarely politicized has a great effect on this neglect. Today, the increasing importance of both the generation concept and the social contract makes it necessary to reconsider the relationship between these two. Within the scope of this study, this relationship is discussed with two important questions: “Why should a generation submit to a contract which it did not participate?” and “How can justice be achieved between different generations with its political, financial and ecological aspects?”. When these questions are taken as the starting point, functionally the discussion continues through the separation of political and ethical dimensions. While the political dimension is examined through the problem of political subordination, the ethical dimension is handled with conceptual and theoretical tools related to intergenerational justice and rights debates.

Keywords: social contract, generation, contract of government and society, contractarian and contractual ethics, ıntergenerational justice.

The Transition from Mother-Right to Father-Right as an Example of Social Contract: Eumenides of Aeschylus and Its Depiction by J. J. Bachofen

Abstract 

The claim that human societies were matriarchal in prehistory was first comprehensively and systematically expressed by the Swiss lawyer and historian of Roman law, Johann Jakob Bachofen (1815-1887). Bachofen deliberated this claim based on the view that human history also progressed with evolutionary development. According to Bachofen, humanity has moved from mother-right to father-right, from sensual pleasure to rational principles, from disorder to systematic formations, from polytheism to monotheism; and the basis of these developments is the consensus on the supremacy of the paternal right. Bachofen chose law as the ground on which to base his theory, he built on this ground using myths for which he greatly benefited from the classical education he received. He used ancient Greek and Roman mythology, especially tragedies. In particular, he focused on Eumenides, the last play of Aeschylus’s tragedy Oresteia, and argued that the court scene at the end of Eumenides indicates a transformation that would be a manifestation of a social agreement. This agreement takes place between the old and the new gods, between humans and gods, and ultimately between humans and humans, and marks the transition from mother-right to father-right. According to Bachofen, the basis of this transition is the abandonment of an irregular and personal pursuit of rights, an individual quest for revenge, and the social acceptance of a public legal system. In this study, Bachofen’s maternal right theory will be explored through the author’s presentation of the transition from maternal right to paternal right in Eumenides, and his interpretation of the court scene at the end of Eumenides as an indicator of social consensus and acceptance of the transition from mother-right to the father-right will be examined.

Keywords: mother-right, father-right, J. J. Bachofen, Aeschylus, Eumenides, Athena, Apollon, Orestes, Erinyes.

The Citizens’ Contract: Rousseau’s Challenging Legacy

Abstract

Rousseau’s thought defeats the contractual tradition’s claim to ground the legal order at three main stages, to the point of turning this tradition upside down. The first of these stages is the rejection of the way in which the state of nature is understood in the contractual theories preceding Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s thought, by showing that the assumptions put forward about the state of nature in these theories were in fact reflecting the reality of the actual corrupt sociability. In the second stage, the principle that constitutes the source of the laws and that determines their legitimacy shifts its place and moves from the individuals and their rights transferred by the contract to the contract itself. In other theories, the principle of sociality refers to the individual due to the right or rights she has in the natural state, and in this context, the contract is the tool that serves the purpose of securing these rights, especially the right to life and property. In Rousseau, on the other hand, the contract itself becomes a critical principle and presents us the normative core that will evolve into Immanuel Kant’s original contract. In the third and final stage, a restructuring of the concept of citizenship takes place in the Social Contract: Through an analysis of the relationship between the human, the individual and the citizen in a way that foreshadows the Hegelian dialectical progress, we come to realize that the category of citizenship in Rousseau is conceived on the basis of an collaboration,  a relationality that sets the scene for legislative activity and laws, with the consequence that  the contract expresses a dynamic inter-citizenship. Rousseau thereby opens an unbridgeable horizon in modern practical philosophy by turning the contractual tradition upside down while being a part of it.  This article aims to show this horizon and to reveal the projections of Rousseau’s conception of the contract that manifests itself as a particular “inter-citizenship” that has survived to the present day.

Keywords: Rousseau, social contract, citizenship, liberty, equality.

American Federalists, Hannah Arendt and Republicanism: Representative Democracy Versus Council System?

Abstract

This article aims to investigate a topic that has largely been overlooked in the scholarly literature on social contract theory and republicanism: a comparative discussion of the republican perspectives of Hannah Arendt and the American federalists. We discuss two interrelated problems. Our purpose is 1) to explore their relationship to contract theory, and 2) to examine their perspectives on representative democracy through a comparative analysis of their interpretations of the republican principle. Let us recapitulate our two main arguments. First, on the one hand, the federalists followed the abstract and rationalist outlook of social contract theory and made an original contribution to this tradition with a pragmatic and procedural outlook; on the other hand, they inherited a series of problems, especially the problem of amnesia, from the same school of thought. Arendt, however, reminded us that the hypothetical and ahistorical assumptions constitute an obstacle to understanding the historical dimensions as well as the ontological origin of the concept of contract, and responded to the abstract and rationalist approach of contract theory with a ‘contractarianism’ that stresses the historical dimensions of contracts and the political legacies they inherit. Furthermore, she also questioned the conceptions of power and constitution that were transmitted from contract theory to the American federalists. Second, the perspectives of Arendt and the American federalists represent two important turning points in republican political philosophy. While the American federalists put on paper the first systematic defense of representative democracy, they completely detached the republican principle from citizen participation. Arendt, by contrast, reinterpreted the republican principle in the context of active citizenship and, like Rousseau, articulated a radical critique of representative democracy. Her most original contribution was to wholly identify the republican principle with public participation and to argue that the practice of active citizenship (i.e., political freedom) requires an institutional framework starting from the local level, a radical democratic and confederal participatory network she called the “council system”.

Keywords: Arendt, American federalists, republicanism, contract theory, representative democracy, council system, federalism and confederalism, democratic theory, modern political thought, contemporary political philosophy.

A Critical Reading on the Theories of the Social Contract: Carole Pateman and the Missing Half of the Story

Abstract

Contract theories, which settled at the beginning of modern political philosophy, were born with a new imagination of sociality by destroying some of the codes of the previous political imagination. The most important of these political codes is the patriarchal absolutist understanding of power, which bases its legitimacy on divine law or the paternity and lineage rights of sacred texts. Along with the contract theories, the power that takes its source from the transcendent and absolute power or powers is replaced by new social-political relations that take the place of the agreement between equal and free people. However, this understanding of the origin, function and legitimacy of the new state and society has been criticized by both socialist and feminist theories in terms of the concepts of individuality, equality and freedom on which it is based. In this study, only the feminist perspective will focus on these criticisms, although they are not completely separate from each other. Because feminism’s strong and effective claim towards contract theories is that the understanding of the individual, which is located at the very center of these theories with its physical strength, rational capacity and isolated character, is masculine, and moreover, unlike traditional power, it is brothers, not fathers, who determine the existence and character of social contracts.

Keywords: sexual contract, social contract, patriarchy, individual, freedom, equality.

Ahmet Midhat’s Translation of Social Contract

Abstract

Ahmet Midhat Efendi (1844-1912) is a prolific author who lived in 19th c. Ottoman Empire. In addition to his authorship, he was also a journalist and a publisher and he did translations as well. In these various fields he sometimes led the way. In Ittihad – journal which was published by Ahmet Midhat – he translated the Social Contract of Jean Jacques Rousseau as Mukavele-i Ictimaiyye in 1876 and this was the first translation of Social Contract in Turkish. However, due to the political interventions, this translation was interrupted and he was exiled to the Rhodes Islan after a while, this translation remained incomplete. Ahmet Midhat Efendi, by following the translation trend of his era, made comments on the texts while translating it wherever he thinks it is compulsory under the titles of “izah or ijmal” and by doing so he tried to make the translation appropriate for the Turkish reader. In this study, the Social Contract translation of Ahmet Midhat will be covered in terms of its conceptual contribution to the Turkish political thought and following the ideas of Walter Benjamin and Jacques Derrida on text and translation the impact of the comments and translation of Ahmet Midhat upon the Ottoman political thought.

Keywords:Ahmet Midhat Efendi, social contract, translation, deconstruction, political philosophy.

Contractarianism and America in Early Modernism

Abstract

The aim of this study is to show that it is not coincidence that the concept of contractarianism which is the political and legal product of early modern political thought, emerged in England in the 17th century by centring on Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. The conceptual progress which gave birth to contractarianism, does neither arise from rational power uniquely attributed to Europe, nor be explainable on the basis of domestic political dynamics in England only. England went through a political turbulence which was finally over with a constitutional revolution after a devastating civil war, a series of republican attempts and a monarchical restoration. Contractarianism, however, would be better understood by focusing on the New World, outside rather than inside the Island. Thus, I will discuss, by approaching the political experiences of spaces outside of England from a postcolonial perspective, how those experiences are related to Hobbes’ and Locke’s philosophy, following the period in which capitalism’s deeply rooting in England. In order to do this, I will first delve into Hobbesian state of nature with a specific focus on the concept of perpetual war with which Hobbes identifies the life of indigenous people of America. Then I will show how Lockean conception of property can finely be related to personal identity, which he considers as epistemological, rather than political notion.

Keywords: Hobbes, Locke, America, social contract, postcolonialism.

Human Rights within the Framework of Social Contracts: From Theory to Practice

Abstract

The human rights discourse is seemingly encountering with a crisis that questionnaires it validness and there exists some insoluble themes deepening the crisis in relation. The human rights are occasionally deemed as universal principles except from individual and social practices, while they are supposed to be intrinsic to a pre-defined human nature. Constituting a background for natural law theories that are molded at the periphery of social contract, human rights percept arises to be inefficient when it inspires from natural law or divine law concepts, and it fails in solving conflict of modern times. This paper aims to reveal a perspective that is not centered on social contract, instead targeted for diminishing problems before human rights through a genuine perspective. It is fair to say that human rights are eligible for sustaining their existence and meaningfulness just through practical manner. The study focuses on the possibility of yielding human rights politics does not refer to a universal moral law, a unuversal essence or human nature determinations that form the basis of rights, and that is not metaphysical in this sense. To this end, it rejects the traditional percept that envisages a human nature immanent in natural law; and it also stands off legal positivism that simply degrades human rights to written codes.

Keywords: Social contract, human rights, ethics, practice, politics.

Carole PATEMAN. Cinsel Sözleşme. Translator Zeynep Alpar. İstanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Yayınevi, 2017. 346 pages.

Ertan Kardeş (Editor). Çağımız ve Thomas Hobbes. İstanbul: Vakıfbank Kültür Yayınları, 2021. 286 pages.