Abstract

RAATH, Andries. Political and legal philosophical perspectives on politocratic communitarianism: A discourse with Danie Goosen and Koos Malan. Tydskr. geesteswet. [online]. 2016, vol.56, n.2-2, pp.573-591. ISSN 2224-7912.  http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2224-7912/2016/v56n2-2a4.

The philosophical roots of political communitarianism emanate from Aristotelian teleology, Scholastic ontology of being and Hegel's dialectic idealism. It represents and culminates evolutionary in the organismic state. A key issue underlying the discourse on state and legal philosophical implications of politocratic communitarianism is whether this philosophical approach can avert state absolutism and abuse of power. It is argued that the implications of this legal and political philosophy testify to the contrary. The implications of politocratic legal and political philosophy point towards statism and that all societal forms serve the interests (and needs) of the organismic state: it is a form of abstract trans-individual community life; it is of necessity a totalitarian (and absolutistic) form of political community; it functions without recognition of fundamental rights, and it is an inner-dialectical and undifferentiated form of political association.

Keywords : Aquinas; Aristotele; communitarianism; concrete universal; Hegel; politocracy.

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