Download the full version of the textbook now at textbookfull.

com

German Political Thought and the Discourse of

Platonism: Finding the Way Out of the Cave
Paul Bishop

https://textbookfull.com/product/german-political-
thought-and-the-discourse-of-platonism-finding-
the-way-out-of-the-cave-paul-bishop/

Explore and download more textbook at https://textbookfull.com

 Recommended digital products (PDF, EPUB, MOBI) that
you can download immediately if you are interested.

The Political Thought of the Civil War Alan Levine

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-political-thought-of-the-civil-
war-alan-levine/

textbookfull.com

Out of the Northwoods The Many Lives of Paul Bunyan 1st

Edition Edmonds

https://textbookfull.com/product/out-of-the-northwoods-the-many-lives-
of-paul-bunyan-1st-edition-edmonds/

textbookfull.com

The Ecstatic and the Archaic An Analytical Psychological

Inquiry 1st Edition Paul Bishop

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-ecstatic-and-the-archaic-an-
analytical-psychological-inquiry-1st-edition-paul-bishop/

textbookfull.com

Rehabilitation from COVID-19 : An Integrated Traditional

Chinese and Western Medicine Protocol 1st Edition Wenguang
Xia
https://textbookfull.com/product/rehabilitation-from-covid-19-an-
integrated-traditional-chinese-and-western-medicine-protocol-1st-
edition-wenguang-xia/
textbookfull.com
Quaternary of the Levant Environments Climate Change and
Humans 1st Edition Yehouda Enzel

https://textbookfull.com/product/quaternary-of-the-levant-
environments-climate-change-and-humans-1st-edition-yehouda-enzel/

textbookfull.com

Rational Suicide, Irrational Laws: Examining Current

Approaches to Suicide in Policy and Law 1st Edition Susan
Stefan
https://textbookfull.com/product/rational-suicide-irrational-laws-
examining-current-approaches-to-suicide-in-policy-and-law-1st-edition-
susan-stefan/
textbookfull.com

Why We Argue And How We Should A Guide To Political

Disagreement In The Age Of Unreason Second Edition.
Edition Aikin
https://textbookfull.com/product/why-we-argue-and-how-we-should-a-
guide-to-political-disagreement-in-the-age-of-unreason-second-edition-
edition-aikin/
textbookfull.com

Book of Sith Secrets from the Dark Side Vault Edition

Daniel Wallace

https://textbookfull.com/product/book-of-sith-secrets-from-the-dark-
side-vault-edition-daniel-wallace/

textbookfull.com

Herodotus and Hellenistic Culture Literary Studies in the

Reception of the Histories 1st Edition Jessica Priestley

https://textbookfull.com/product/herodotus-and-hellenistic-culture-
literary-studies-in-the-reception-of-the-histories-1st-edition-
jessica-priestley/
textbookfull.com
The Bee Book 1st Edition Fergus Chadwick

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-bee-book-1st-edition-fergus-
chadwick/

textbookfull.com
 GERMAN
POLITICAL
THOUGHT
AND THE
DISCOURSE OF
PL ATONISM
Finding the Way
out of the Cave

Paul Bishop
 German Political Thought and the Discourse
of Platonism

“This book is a genuine tour de force. Paul Bishop reads the tradition of
German political thought through the prism of the allegory of the cave in
Plato’s Republic. His aim is not merely to re-contextualise and re-interpret,
but to reveal the continued relevance of the history of ideas to our own time.
In a series of penetrating interpretations ranging from Plato and Aristotle
via Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche to Heidegger, Adorno, and
Habermas, he addresses the central challenges of modernity—such as the rela-
tion between the individual and society, the promises and pitfalls of economic
development, and the role of the state. This is an original and engaging way
into the intricacies of German thought. Supremely erudite yet invariably acces-
sible, the book works on two levels: undergraduate students will be able to use
it as a general introduction, while scholars will benefit from its interpretative
subtleties and historical insights. German Political Thought and the Discourse of
Platonism is one of the most fascinating philosophical studies I have read in a
long time.”
—Henk de Berg is Professor of German at the University of Sheffield, UK, and
co-editor of Modern German Thought from Kant to Habermas (2012)

“Paul Bishop offers a stunning revision of political thinking via Plato and his
continued presence in German philosophy. Plato’s Cave is the famous allegory
that depicts humans as doomed to remain prisoners deluded by shadows on
the cave wall when their only hope of freedom is to focus on the mystical fire
itself. In a powerful analysis of foundational dialogues with Plato from Aristotle
and Rousseau to moderns such as Nietzsche, Marx, the Frankfurt School and
Habermas, Bishop offers a compelling argument about the nature of politics
in the twenty-first century. Do we build societies based upon the revolutionary
potential of individual consciousness or must we provide an Ideal model after the
example of Plato? Digging for the Platonic heart of the German p ­ hilosophical
heritage, German Political Thought and the Discourse of Platonism plots new routes
into who we are and how we got here. This book is a must for political scien-
tists, German scholars, philosophers and all who seek positive visions for a viable
global future.”
—Susan Rowland is Chair of the Engaged Humanities and the Creative
Life M.A. at Pacifica Graduate Institute, USA. Her recent book is
Remembering Dionysus (2017)
“Paul Bishop’s new book takes us on an absorbing journey through the his-
tory of German political thought. Bishop’s central premise is that the discourse
of Platonism provides a gateway to understanding the connections between
thinkers ranging from Kant to Habermas. With clarity and concision, Bishop
brings the reader to a deeper comprehension of the German engagement
with Platonism. This book will appeal to anyone interested in the continuity
of German thought and its observations on fundamental questions regarding
human interaction with the world.”
—James M. Skidmore is Associate Professor of German Studies
and Director of the Waterloo Centre for German Studies
at the University of Waterloo, Canada
 Paul Bishop

German Political
Thought and
the Discourse
of Platonism
Finding the Way Out of the Cave
Paul Bishop
School of Modern Languages and Cultures
University of Glasgow
Glasgow, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-04509-8 ISBN 978-3-030-04510-4 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04510-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018962021

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse
of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by
similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt
from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein
or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to
jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover image: © Plato’s Cave 122cm × 183cm Oil on Canvas by Lalita Hamill

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Those who do not move do not notice their chains. ~
(Rosa Luxemburg, attrib.)

It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former

lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies
in the depth, where few are willing to search for it. ~
(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, MuR, §166)

The more people chant about their freedom and now free they are,
The more loudly I hear their chains rattling. ~
(George Orwell, attrib.)
 Preface

In the centre of Glasgow it is a short distance from Central Station to

the River Clyde and the several bridges that span it for the use of traffic,
for trains, or for pedestrians. Glasgow Bridge (or Jamaica Street Bridge)
was built between 1895 and 1899, replacing an earlier seven-arched
bridge that had been built in classical style by Thomas Telford in 1833
(itself a replacement for a yet earlier bridge built in 1772) but had subse-
quently proved to be too narrow and too shallow. From Glasgow Bridge
one can see the remains of another bridge, since disappeared: the first
Caledonian Railway Bridge, built between 1876 and 1878. This wrought
iron bridge carried four tracks, supported on giant cast iron cylinders
sunk to the bedrock—all filled with concrete, and extended above the
riverbed with great pillars of Dalbeattie granite.1 These massive pillars,
now redundant, bear the following inscriptions in Greek and English:

ΤΑ ΓΑΡ ΔΗ ΜΕΓΑΛΑ
ΠΑΝΤΑ ΕΠΙΣΦΑΛΗ ΚΑΙ ΤΟ
ΛΕΓΟΜΕΝΟΝ ΤΑ ΚΑΛΑ
ΤΩΙ ΟΝΤΙ ΧΑΛΕΠΑ

vii
viii   Preface

ALL GREATNESS
STANDS FIRM IN
THE STORM

It is tempting to read these inscriptions as a typical Neoclassical

Victorian statement of confidence in the industrial future of Glasgow,
but in fact these inscriptions are much more recent. In 1990, the art-
ist Ian Hamilton Finlay won a commission from a project organised
by Television South West Arts entitled New Works for Different Places:
TWSA Four Cities Project (the cities in question being Derry, Glasgow,
Newcastle, and Plymouth). Ian Hamilton Finlay’s design for a work of
public art in Glasgow involved inscribing the words now found on these
pillars, but what does the quotation mean?
The phrase is, in fact, a quotation from book 6 of Plato’s Republic,
based on the translation into German made by the German philoso-
pher, Martin Heidegger (1889–1976). It can be found in the conclud-
ing paragraphs of his Rectoral Address, made in 1933 to the University
of Freiburg, and it is a problematic translation in what is widely
regarded as a controversial speech. Leaving aside (for now) the con-
troversy surrounding Heidegger’s address, the original Greek, τὰ γὰρ
δὴ μεγάλα πάντα ἐπισϕαλῆ, καὶ τὸ λεγόμενον τὰ καλὰ τῷ ὄντι
χαλεπά, could also be translated as “for all great things are precarious,
and, as the proverb truly says, ‘fine things are hard.’” In some respects,
the English version seems (as Lairich Rig has pointed out) directly
contrary to the meaning of Plato’s statement, for the English transla-
tion says that great things endure, while the Greek text says that great
things are hard to achieve, emphasizing instead their instability and
their impermanence (ἐπισϕαλής: “prone to fall, unstable, precarious”;
Liddell & Scott, 9 edn.]).
Few people crossing the bridge seem to notice the quotations
(although maybe the members of the short-lived Glasgow rock band,
Midnight Lion, did; see their 2011 song, “All Greatness Stands Firm”).
Yet these inscriptions, as recent as they are, serve as a reminder of the
persistence of Platonic thought which, like the pair of granite pillars,
stands strong—even if it is not regarded, like the pillars, as any longer
 Preface   ix

fulfilling a useful function. Although this is not a book about Glasgow,

but about German Political Thought, Ian Hamilton Findlay’s choice
for his inscription of a quotation from Plato, following the translation
made by Heidegger, provides us with a suitable symbol for the surpris-
ing presence of the Republic in the hustle and bustle of a great city as, in
the background, the trains trundle noisily over the second Caledonian
Railway Bridge into and out of Central Station; and maybe it might
prompt us to ponder the truth or otherwise of Plato’s assertion—how-
ever one chooses to translate it.
While the central theme of this volume may at first sight appear
obscure, or even quirky, this book has been written in the conviction
that it is neither of these things (however inadequate its treatment in the
following pages may be) but in fact of major significance. For we live
in a time when the focus on all things German—the enduring success-
fulness of the German economy, the role of German economic policy
in determining the fate of the euro zone, the German response to the
refugee crisis—keeps growing by the day. On 25 July 2014 the mag-
azine Newsweek placed on its title cover the following slogan: “Spot a
problem. Analyse it. Solve it. Welcome to the German Century,” while
inside Rose Jacobs wrote a story entitled “On Top of the World: This
Could Be the Start of a Century of German Success.”2 In an article pub-
lished in the Financial Times on 20 June 2015, Simon Kuper argued
that “we need German thinking.”3 And on 24 September 2015 Time
magazine named Angela Merkel not just “Person of the Year” but also
“Chancellor of the Free World.” Even those who criticize Germany rec-
ognize its importance; witness the cover of the New Statesman of 25
June 2012 which depicted Merkel as a Terminator and described her
as “Europe’s most dangerous leader.”4 Since the election of President
Trump, Merkel has come to be seen—despite domestic political prob-
lems—as more important than ever.
At the same time, this significance of the Germans is not something
to be taken for granted: as became clear when putting together a book
proposal for this title. According to one commissioning editor for a
major university press, the subject of German Political Thought was
going to be “too niche” for her list. Evidently, I disagree with this con-
clusion. To borrow a phrase from one of the articles mentioned above,
x   Preface

we need to understand German thinking (which does not exclude

us from understanding how other people, such as the French, also
think…).5 And a point of entry into the tradition of German Political
Thought is one that is by no means foreign to us, for it can be found in
the discourse of Platonism.
After all, there has long been a culture of engagement with the dis-
course of Platonism in the English-speaking world,6 even if this engage-
ment has, in more recent times, become attenuated. In the middle of the
seventeeth century, a group of philosophers and theologians, known as the
Cambridge Platonists because of their connections with the University of
Cambridge, revived interest in the philosophical discourse of Platonism.7
Among the Cambridge Platonists were such figures as Ralph Cudworth
(1617–1688), the author of a study originally planned in three vol-
umes, entitled The True Intellectual System of the Universe (1678; 3 vols,
1845),8 and Henry More (1614–1687), the author of (among many
other works) a Manual of Ethics (1666), the Divine Dialogues (1668),
and a Manual of Metaphysics (1671). Other members of this group of
thinkers were Benjamin Whichcote (1609–1683), John Smith (1618–
1652), Peter Sterry (1613–1672), Nathaniel Culverwell (1619–1651),
John Worthington (1618–1671), as well as Viscountess (Anne) Conway
(1631–1679), George Rust (d. 1670), and John Norris (1657–1711).
In the eighteenth century, the London-born scholar Thomas Taylor
(1758–1835) undertook an extensive programme of translating
Platonic and Neoplatonic works. Taylor composed for himself the fol-
lowing motto: “No servile scribe am I, nor e’er shall be, / My sire is
Mind, whose sons are always free,” and his epitaph (again, written by
himself ) expresses the resilience of attitude with which he went to his
grave: “Health, strength, and ease, and manhood’s active age, / Freely
I gave to Plato’s sacred page. / With Truth’s pure joys, with Fame my
days were crown’d / Tho’ Fortune adverse on my labours frown’d.” As
these lines hint, Taylor’s life, personally as professionally, was not an
easy one; yet, although he was mocked in his day and excluded from
the academic establishment, and although the accuracy of his work
has been questioned (but also defended), he proved to be instrumental
in cultivating and nurturing an interest in the discourse of Platonism
among such British writers as William Blake (1757–1827), Percy Bysshe
Visit https://textbookfull.com
now to explore a rich
collection of eBooks, textbook
and enjoy exciting offers!
 Preface   xi

Shelley (1792–1822), and William Wordsworth (1770–1850),9 as well

as among such American Transcendentalist thinkers as Ralph Waldo
Emerson (1803–1882), Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888), and
G.R.S. Mead (1863–1933), that last of whom was to become the secre-
tary to Helena Blavatsky (1831–1891), the founder of the Theosophical
Society. Taylor was, in the phrase (borrowed from Empedocles) that has
been applied to him, “an exile from the orb of light,”10 but he helped
carry the light of Platonism into the modern world.
Over and above the specific Platonic context of Idealism, the nine-
teenth century saw the establishment of a philosophical movement known
as British Idealism, whose influence lasted into the twentieth century.
Among the figures in the first generation of this movement were T.H.
Green (1836–1882), F.H. Bradley (1846–1924), and Bernard Bosanquet
(1848–1923), while a second wave of thinkers including J.M.E.
McTaggart (1866–1925), H.H. Joachim (1868–1938), John Henry
Muirhead (1855–1940), and R.G. Collingwood (1889–1943) carried it
forward. Its last exponent was the philosopher Geoffrey Reginald Gilchrist
Mure (1893–1979), whose career included serving as Warden of Merton
College and as Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford.11
There is a specifically Scottish (and even Glaswegian) dimension
to this revival of interest in Idealism.12 This dimension is embodied
in such figures as Edward Caird (1835–1908), who held the Chair of
Moral Philosophy at Glasgow, Alfred Edward Taylor (1869–1945),
who held chairs in Moral Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews
(1908–1024) and then at the University of Edinburgh (1924–1941),
and James Hutchison Stirling (1820–1909), the author of a major work
on Hegelian philosophy called The Secret of Hegel (1865), a book whose
“rather terse translations of the Logic, with commentary in the style of
[Thomas] Carlyle,” made it “almost as impenetrable as Hegel himself.”13
So it would be wrong to think of the Idealist tradition as having died
away in the course of time and having nothing to say to us today: the
work of Terry Pinkard has helped clarify “the legacy of Idealism” for
modern philosophy,14 and a volume co-written by Jeremy Dunham,
Iain Hamilton Grant, and Sean Watson argues persuasively for the
Idealism as “a rich and untapped resource for contemporary philosophi-
cal arguments and concepts.”15
xii   Preface

As this title of James Hutchison Stirling’s book—The Secret of

Hegel—suggests, British Idealism was more influenced by German
Idealism in general and Hegel in particular than it was by the dis-
course of Platonism.16 Yet rather than examining the links between
German and British Idealism, this study aims to uncover another tra-
dition within German Thought itself—the discourse of Platonism. By
this, I do not mean Platonism in the strict sense that it acquired spe-
cific German forms (as will be analysed by the contributions to the
Brill Companion volume being assembled by Alan Kim),17 and could
thus be described as “German Platonism.” Rather, we are using the dis-
course of Platonism to refer to a leitmotif that can serve as an Ariadne’s
thread through a complex labyrinth of political-theoretical texts, mainly
(although, as we shall see, not entirely exclusively) written in German.
This book has arisen from a course offered to undergraduate stu-
dents, and it seeks to offer the conclusions, arrived at while teaching
it, to a wider audience. It does so, out of a sense there we still need to
engage with both traditions: with the discourse of Platonism and with
the problem of how—in terms of the famous allegory in book 7 of the
Republic—we are to find our way out of the cave; and with the tradition
of German Political Thought as a whole. The response of my students to
this basic proposition has encouraged me to write this book as a sum-
mary of what, in our lectures and seminars, we have discovered together.
When going through the course approval process to introduce
the course, its aim and outcomes were sent for comment to an exter-
nal academic consultant. To my surprise, this senior academic sug-
gested that there would be no use to students of business in studying
the figures now discussed in this book: among whom are Marx, the
Frankfurt School, and Habermas. Can it really be the case that these
figures have nothing to say to us? (Now it is true that, outside the arts
and humanities seminar room, Marx has largely been regarded as hav-
ing an ever decreasing explanatory value. Yet in May 2013, the for-
mer Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, in his address to the 6th
Subversive Festival in Zagreb, explained why he believes Marx must
“remain central to our analysis of capitalism,” even if he insisted “we
should remain ‘erratic’ in our Marxism.”)18 Later on, the same academic
consultant also queried the use of the term “the good life,” apparently
 Preface   xiii

without realizing that this term, originally associated with Aristotle, has
remained a philosophical constant for centuries—indeed, millennia.19
Have we, even or precisely at the highest levels of our educational sys-
tem, become deaf to one of the key ideals of ancient Greek philosophy
as well as to the insights of German Political Thought alike?
So while the idea of intellectual continuity has fallen out of fashion
in the rush to embrace postmodernism, the notion of a persistence of
discourse offers a way in which to reappraise a tradition which brings
together some of the most fascinating philosophical and political the-
oretical texts ever written. How to approach them remains a challenge
for the reader in the twenty-first century, coming to them as she or he
will with all the distractions of the (social) media–driven (post)modern
world. Yet given the importance of Germany for our current time, in a
century which—if Newsweek is right—will belong to Germany, then it
is not an idle exercise to try and understand the intellectual tradition
of political thought that emanates from this country. To understand
the Germans, we need to begin with the Greeks—and we shall have to
mention the French (or, at least, the Swiss) as well ….
The choice of texts discussed in this volume has been hugely influ-
enced by the selection made by the German philosopher Norbert
Hoerster in a collection which became a classic of its kind, an anthology
of political philosophical texts extracted from works by Plato, Aristotle,
Cicero, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas; by Machiavelli, Hobbes, and
Locke; by Hume, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Kant; by Hegel, Marx
& Engels, and J.S. Mill.20 Hoerster (b. 1937) taught philosophy of law
and social philosophy at the University of Mainz, holding the Chair of
Law and Social Philosophy until his retirement in 1998. Although he
has become perhaps best known for his controversial views on bioethics
and his strong defence of humanism, Hoerster became a name famil-
iar to many German students of philosophy, and in this collection he
achieved a powerful pedagogical tool that deserves to be better known
in the English-speaking world.
In short, this study is an exercise in exploring a tradition. It should
be noted how this notion of tradition is being used—not in the sense of
a set of views that are (to use an expression deployed by Neil Kinnock
in his leader’s speech at the Labour conference in Bournemouth, 1985)
xiv   Preface

“pickled” into “a rigid dogma, a code,”21 but rather in the sense that
“tradition” has been defined by Peter Kingsley—as “indicating some-
thing neither rigid nor fixed but fluid and accommodating,” as “a
kind of receptacle allowing for the pooling and absorbing of individ-
ual resources, so that new contributions transform the old until they are
transformed in turn.”22
Although I cannot match the scope of George Klosko’s magisterial sur-
vey of political theory,23 or the deftness of analysis offered by Grahame
Lock in his audio course on Western political theory,24 I nevertheless
hope that readers might become interested in or even intrigued by the
persistence in Western thought of the discourse of Platonism and con-
sider for themselves what it might mean to find a way out of the cave.

Glasgow, UK Paul Bishop

Notes
1. For information regarding the remains of the first Caledonian Railway
Bridge and Ian Hamilton Finlay’s inscriptions, I am indebted to the
following sources: Elizabeth Williamson, Anne Riches, and Malcolm
Higgs, Glasgow [The Buildings of Scotland] (London: Penguin, 1990),
622–623; Lairich Rig, “All Greatness Stands Firm in the Storm,” avail-
able online http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1658814, accessed
19.4.2017; Public Monuments & Sculpture Association, National
Recording Project, “All Greatness Stands Firm in the Storm,” availa-
ble online http://www.pmsa.org.uk/pmsa-database/2309/, accessed
19.4.2017; Sea Kayaking with seakyakphoto.com, available online
http://seakayakphoto.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/all-greatness-stands-
firm-in-storm.html, accessed 19.4.2017.
2. Rose Jacob, “On Top of the World: This Could Be the Start of a
Century of German Success,” Newsweek, 25 July 2014.
3. Simon Kuper, “Why We Need German Thinking,” Financial Times,
Weekend Supplement: Life & Arts, 2.
4. Mehdi Hasan, “Angela Merkel’s Mania for Austerity Is Destroying
Europe,” New Statesman, 25 June 2012.
5. Sudhir Hazareesingh, How the French Think: An Affectionate Portrait of
an Intellectual People (London: Allen Lane, 2015).
 Preface   xv

6. John H. Muirhead, The Platonic Tradition in Anglo-Saxon Philosophy:

Studies in the History of Idealism in England and America (London and
New York: Allen & Unwin and Macmillan, 1931).
7. C.A. Patrides (ed.), The Cambridge Platonists (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1980).
8. Ralph Cudworth, The True Intellectual System of the Universe: Wherein
All the Reason and Philosophy of Atheism Is Confuted, and Its Impossibility
Demonstrated, with a Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable
Morality, 3 vols (London: Thomas Tegg, 1845).
9. For further discussion, see Anna Baldwin and Sarah Hutton (eds),
Platonism and the English Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2005).
10. See “Synopsis of the Pagan Creed,” §20, in “On the Theology of the
Greeks” [1820], in Thomas Taylor (trans.), Collected Writings on
the Gods and the World [Thomas Taylor Series, vol. 4] (Sturminster
Newton, Dorset: Prometheus Trust, 2006), 185–213 (211); originally
§21 in “The Creed of the Platonic Philosophers,” in “The Life and
Works of Thomas Taylor, the Platonist (Concluded),” in The Platonist
1, nos. 11 and 12 (December 1881–January 1882), 179–187 (184–
186, esp. 186).
11. See David Boucher (ed.), The British Idealists (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997).
12. See David Boucher (ed.), The Scottish Idealists: Selected Philosophical
Writings (Exeter and Charlottesville, VA: Imprint Academic, 2004).
13. David Boucher, “The Scottish Contribution to British Idealism and
the Reception of Hegel,” in Gordon Graham (ed.), Scottish Philosophy
in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2015), 154–181 (p. 163). See James Hutchison Stirling, The
Secret of Hegel: Being the Hegelian System in Origin, Principle, Form
and Matter (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green,
1865).
14. Terry Pinkard, German Philosophy 1760–1860: The Legacy of Idealism
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
15. Jeremy Dunham, Iain Hamilton Grant, Sean Watson, Idealism: The
History of a Philosophy [2011] (Abingdon and New York: Routledge,
2014).
16. For an introduction to the thinking of German Idealism, see Rüdiger
Bubner, German Idealist Philosophy (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1997);
xvi   Preface

translated from Rüdiger Bubner, Deutscher Idealismus [Geschichte der

Philosophie in Text und Darstellung, vol. 6] (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1978).
And for further discussion, see Karl Ameriks (ed.), The Cambridge
Companion to German Idealism (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2000); Matthew C. Altman, The Palgrave Handbook
of German Idealism (Houndmills, Basingstoke, and New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2014).
17. Alan Kim (ed.), Brill’s Companion to German Platonism (Leiden and
Boston: Brill, forthcoming).
18. Yanis Varoufakis, “Confessions of an Erratic Marxist in the Midst of
a Repugnant European Crisis,” available online https://yanisvaroufakis.
eu/2013/12/10/confessions-of-an-erratic-marxist-in-the-midst-of-a-re-
pugnant-european-crisis/, accessed 02.08.2016.
19. See William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic
Joy (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009); Bettany
Hughes, The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good
Life (London: Jonathan Cape, 2010); John Cottingham, Philosophy
and the Good Life: Reason and the Passions in Greek, Cartesian and
Psychoanalytic Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
20. Norbert Hoerster (ed.), Klassische Texte der Staatsphilosophie [1947]
(Munich: dtv, 2011).
21. Neil Kinnock, Labour Party Conference Speech, 11 October 1985. A
commentary on this speech, published on the British Political Speech
website, notes that parts of Kinnock’s speech, such as its remark about
“the grotesque chaos of a Labour council—a Labour council—hiring
taxis to scuttle round a city handing out redundancy notices to its own
workers,” exemplifies Aristotle’s principle in his Rhetoric, book 3, that
metaphor can set something “more intimately before our eyes” (1405b;
Aristotle, Complete Works, ed. Jonathan Barnes, 2 vols (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1984), vol. 2, p. 2241). For an example of a
static approach to the notion of tradition, see T.J. Reed, Thomas Mann:
The Uses of Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974).
22. Peter Kingsley, Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic: Empedocles and
Pythagorean Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 160.
23. George Klosko, History of Political Theory: An Introduction, vol. 1,
Ancient and Medieval, vol. 2, Modern, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2012–2013).
24. Grahame Lock, Political Philosophy: An Audio Course on Western
Political Theory (Gouderak: Home Academy, 2016).
 Acknowledgements

I should like to acknowledge the help and support received when

writing this book from the students who participated in the course
on German Political Thought in the autumn semester of 2014 and in
subsequent years; from the feedback and suggestions for extension and
improvement of the original proposal of this book given by two anon-
ymous reviewers for Palgrave Macmillan; from the Commissioning
Editor at Palgrave Macmillan, Esme Chapman, and her Editorial
Assistant, Chloe Fitzsimmons; and from Assistant Editor at Palgrave
Macmillan, Beth Farrow. And, as always, from Helen Bridge, without
whom I would not know that the political is also the personal.

xvii
 A Note on Gender Inclusive Language

Throughout this book I have, where possible, used gender inclusive lan-
guage; where translations used do not use gender inclusive language, the
reader is invited to update the term “man” and associated pronouns and
possessives to include women, men, and transgender individuals, how-
ever they identify.

xix
 Contents

1 What Is Politics? 1

2 Plato and the Cave 25

3 Aristotle and the Empirical Approach 61

4 Rousseau and the Social Contract 93

5 Kant and the Categorical Imperative 127

6 Hegel and the Dialectic 155

7 Marx and Engels: The Revolution 195

8 Nietzsche and Heidegger: A Glance to the Right 223

9 The Frankfurt School—Adorno and Horkheimer 285

10 Habermas and Communicative Action 315

xxi
xxii   Contents

11 By Way of Conclusion 329

Bibliography 363

Index 397
Visit https://textbookfull.com
now to explore a rich
collection of eBooks, textbook
and enjoy exciting offers!
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 The allegory of the cave 30

Fig. 2.2 Diagram of the divided line 36
Fig. 3.1 Aristotle’s six kinds of government 75
Fig. 5.1 Outline of Kant’s system 129
Fig. 6.1 Organisational diagram of Hegel’s state 180
Fig. 8.1 Main concepts in Heidegger’s thinking 247
Fig. 8.2 Heidegger’s appropriation of Plato’s cave allegory 256
Fig. 8.3 Plato’s allegory of the cave as “sensory image of human
Dasein” 258
Fig. 9.1 Influences on the Frankfurt School 286

xxiii
 1
What Is Politics?

Before we embark on our exploration of the tradition of German

Political Thought, we should ask ourselves a fundamental question:
what is politics? In conversation, we use the term very loosely: it can
refer to party politics (“do I vote Labour or Conservative? SNP or
Ukip?”), to global issues (“who will be the next President of America?”),
or closer to home (and often more insidiously) to what is going on at
work—“office politics” (“who moved my cheese?”). Yet the origin of the
term is far more circumscribed and precise.1
For the word “politics” derives from the ancient Greek word polites,
meaning “a citizen of the polis,” that is, of the city state. Those matters
which were of concern to all citizens of a city and which, as a result,
required a communal decision in order to resolve them, were called ta
politika. Correspondingly, the conduct of the process whereby commu-
nal decisions were arrived at was called politike techne. In other words,
politics originally had a precise, limited meaning: the conduct of pol-
itics took place in public, it was a privilege of all free citizens (and so,
not of slaves) to participate in it, and it concerned itself exclusively with
matters of public interest.

© The Author(s) 2019 1

P. Bishop, German Political Thought and the Discourse of Platonism,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04510-4_1
2    
P. Bishop

In the intervening centuries—indeed, millennia—the sphere of

­ olitics has broadened, as the public sphere itself has expanded and
p
become more diverse. Alongside the spheres of economics (the world
of business and commerce) and of society (the world of family, friends,
neighbours, and fellow citizens), the sphere of politics has expanded and
become increasingly entangled with those other spheres. (Can politi-
cians create jobs? How much money should private financial concerns
give to political parties? Then again, what is the private and what is the
public sphere? Is it a purely private matter if a man hits or psychologi-
cally abuses his wife? Or she him?) As a result, the clear division found
in antiquity between private and public, between economics and poli-
tics, has blurred to the point of almost disappearing completely.
We should also examine the origin of another word we shall be using:
“theory.” For the political thought we shall be examining in this volume
could also be described as “Political Theory,” a major division of aca-
demic activity, particularly in universities in the United States. Again,
the original meaning of the word “theory” is perhaps slightly differ-
ent from what we might expect, especially given the disdain displayed
toward theory rather than practice (“that question is purely theoretical”)
or the virtual hijacking of the term by literary theory (an approach to
textual analysis that has broadened into cultural studies and often refers
to itself simply as “Theory”). For the term derives from the Greek word
theoria, meaning “sight” or “vision.” Essentially a contemplative act or
activity, it refers to a kind of mental (or even spiritual) contemplation
as opposed to practical actions (that is, praxis ). Today, we use the term
“theory” more broadly to refer to any systematic, scientific attempt to
develop a coherent explanation about an aspect of reality; whether the
goal of this attempt is to explain, or to control, that reality, remains an
open question. In the case of Plato especially, however, it is helpful to
recall this primary meaning of theory.
We can turn to two twentieth-century thinkers in the German
tradition for further explanation as to what politics involves. To use
a term found in the work of the German Neo-Kantian philosopher
Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945), we could describe politics as a reflec-
tion of the fact that humankind is an animal symbolicum, i.e., a “sym-
bolic animal.”2 In the sense that Cassirer uses this term, he means
 1 What Is Politics?    
3

that human beings, unlike other animals, inhabit a universe that

is symbolic: that is to say, we inhabit a system that goes beyond the
immediate present and physical contingency to develop a historical
perspective, an ability to plan for the future and—ultimately—a sense
of self. Writing in the 1940s, Cassirer—a German Jew who found
himself in exile in the USA—was well aware of the problems of the
contemporary politics of his age, which he discusses in The Myth of
the State (1946).3 Nevertheless, there is good reason to extend the
list of different kinds of symbolic form with which Cassirer provides
us in his philosophical masterpiece, the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms
(1923–1929)—language, myth, and knowledge (or scientific cogni-
tion)—and in his Essay on Man (1944)—myth and religion, language,
history, and science—by adding “politics,” for it conforms exactly to
the sense Cassirer gives to the term “symbolic form.” In 1921 Cassirer
defined “symbolic form” as follows: “Under a ‘symbolic form’ should
be understood every energy of mind [Energie des Geistes ] through
which a mental content of meaning [geistiger Bedeutungsgehalt ] is con-
nected to a concrete, sensory sign [konkretes sinnliches Zeichen ] and
made to adhere internally to it.”4 Or as Cassirer put it in Language
and Myth (1946): symbols are not “mere figures which refer to some
given reality by means of suggestion and allegorical renderings” but
“forces, each of which produces and posits a world of its own,” and
thus “the special symbolic forms”—such as myth, art, language, and
science—“are not imitations, but organs of reality, since it is solely
by their agency that anything real becomes an object for intellectual
apprehension, and such is made visible to us.”5 And understood in
this sense, it is possible to talk about law as a symbolic form and to
locate the heart of Cassirer’s thinking in the politics of the just indi-
vidual.6 In the sense that Cassirer and others use the term, we could
think of “politics” as a symbolic form as well.
At the same time, the German sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920)
provides us with some more concrete definitions of the political. In a
famous lecture, the second of a series given to a students’ political union
in Munich in 1919 (during the German November Revolution in the
wake of the country’s defeat in the First World War), Weber defined for
his audience what he understood by “Politics as Vocation”:
4    
P. Bishop

What do we understand by politics? The concept is extremely broad and

comprises any kind of independent leadership in action. One speaks of the
currency policy of the banks, of the discounting policy of the Reichsbank,
of the strike policy of a trade union; one may speak of the educational
policy of a municipality or a township, of the policy of the president of
a voluntary association, and, finally, even of the policy of a prudent wife
who seeks to guide her husband. Tonight, our reflections are, of course,
not based upon such a broad concept. We wish to understand by poli-
tics only the leadership, or the influencing of the leadership, of a political
association, hence today, of a state.7

For Weber, the question of politics inevitably involves the question of

power, including its expression as physical force (and, in this sense, as
“violence”):

“Every state is founded on force,” said Trotsky at Brest-Litovsk.[8] That

is indeed right. If no social institutions existed which knew the use of
violence, then the concept of “state” would be eliminated, and a condi-
tion would emerge that could be designated as “anarchy,” in the specific
sense of this word. Of course, force is certainly not the normal or the only
means of the state — nobody says that — but force is a means specific
to the state. Today the relation between the state and violence is an espe-
cially intimate one. In the past, the most varied institutions — beginning
with the sib[9] — have known the use of physical force as quite normal.
Today, however, we have to say that a state is a human community that
(successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force
within a given territory. Note that “territory” is one of the characteris-
tics of the state. Specifically, at the present time, the right to use physical
force is ascribed to other institutions or to individuals only to the extent
to which the state permits it. The state is considered the sole source of the
“right” to use violence. Hence, “politics” for us means striving to share
power or striving to influence the distribution of power, either among
states or among groups within a state.
This corresponds essentially to ordinary usage. When a question is said
to be a “political” question, when a cabinet minister or an official is said
to be a “political” official, or when a decision is said to be “politically”
determined, what is always meant is that interests in the distribution,
maintenance, or transfer of power are decisive for answering the questions
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
 PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free

distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or
any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and

Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree
to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be
bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund
from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in
paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be

used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people
who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a
few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic
works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.
See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with
Project Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the
collection of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the
individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the
United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law
in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do
not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing,
performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the
work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of
course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg™
mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely
sharing Project Gutenberg™ works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg™ name associated
with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this
agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached
full Project Gutenberg™ License when you share it without charge
with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also
govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most
countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the
United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the
terms of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying,
performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this
work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes
no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in
any country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other

immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must
appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™
work (any work on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears,
or with which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is
accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
 This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is derived

from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a
notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright
holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the
United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must
comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through
1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted

with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works posted
with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning
of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project

Gutenberg™ License terms from this work, or any files containing a
part of this work or any other work associated with Project
Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this

electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1
with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form,
including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you
provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work
in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in
the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or
expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or
a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original
“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must
include the full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in
paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,

performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing

access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:

• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive
from the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the
method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The
fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark,
but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty
payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on
which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your
periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked
as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information
 about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation.”

• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who

notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt
that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project
Gutenberg™ License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg™ works.

• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of

any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in
the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90
days of receipt of the work.

• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™

electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend

considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe
and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating
the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may
be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to,
incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a
copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or
damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer
codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for

the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3,
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the
Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim
all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR
NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR
BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH
1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK
OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL
NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT,
CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF
YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you

discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving
it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by
sending a written explanation to the person you received the work
from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must
return the medium with your written explanation. The person or
entity that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide
a replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work
electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to
give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in
lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may
demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the
problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied

warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted
by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation,

the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation,
anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with
the production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or
any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission

of Project Gutenberg™
Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.
It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and
donations from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the

assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a
secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help,
see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project

Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,

Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to

the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without
widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can
be freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the
widest array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many
small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to
maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating

charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and
keep up with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in
locations where we have not received written confirmation of
compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of
compliance for any particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where

we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no
prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in
such states who approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make

any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of
other ways including checks, online payments and credit card
donations. To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About

Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,

including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how
to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.