The political dimension of the contemplative life : engagement and disengagement in Plato, Seneca and Gandhi

This dissertation provides a detailed study of an unusual approach to the opposition between contemplative and active lives. The approach that I focus on argues, first, for withdrawal from conventional forms of political action on the grounds that the political life is ineffective in accomplishing good in conditions of injustice. This position is supported by presenting a moral critique of existing politics, positing an underlying moral failure among the citizens and their leaders as the cause of our political shortcomings. Any effective attempt to address these shortcomings must therefore be able to contribute to a moral re-orientation. Ordinary political methods fail to do this, however, because they must adopt and appeal to the prevailing moral outlook in achieving and exercising power. Secondly, then, the approach suggests that under existing circumstances of injustice, the contemplative life, a life devoted to attaining personal spiritual perfection through pursuing knowledge of one's real good, is better suited to achieving the good ideally sought through politics. In motivating the contemplative life as a model of political action, the approach draws on an ideal extra-political entity, a normative cosmology, to serve as an alternative context for action, in contrast to the world of political competition. I trace this line of thought through the writings of three rather different thinkers, Plato, Seneca and Gandhi. In the case of each author, I study a particular dialogue in the context of their thought more broadly: Plato's Gorgias, Seneca's De Otio, and Gandhi's Hind Swaraj. The thesis takes up some of the key problems that arise from their similar approaches to the contemplative life as a model of the political life in order to evaluate its relevance from a contemporary perspective. These include the claim that political discourse should be directed towards a correct understanding of our own real good, the view that there exists a real good for each of us that we do not often perceive, the notion that a normative cosmology can play a role in motivating our political engagements, and the question of whether the contemplative life can be relevant to a participatory politics.

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