Abstract

COLEN, José. Democratic institutions: the spell of Plato and the return to the classics. Diacrítica [online]. 2012, vol.26, n.2, pp.209-232. ISSN 0807-8967.

The purpose of this paper, that reflects an ongoing research, is to suggest the usefulness of an analysis of the readings of Karl Popper and Leo Strauss on Plato's political philosophy. Very different as they are, both thinkers saw in the Republic one of the most powerful critics of democracy and built interpretations and polemic arguments by contrast with Plato's arguments. There are currently two arguments questioning liberal or constitutional democracy. The first originates in the social sciences, which point out a number of defects that are innate in the system: asymmetry in information and agency problems between governors and governed. The other is rather popular or media-based but it shares with the first the criticism of democratic decision-making mechanisms albeit adding an extreme view of politics and politicians that justifies apathy or even contempt for everything that is “political”. The two interpretations, by Popper and Strauss, different as they are, also share with each other certain characteristics like anti-historicism, axiological non-neutrality and a certain (critical or zetetic) rationalism. We consider that they have the ability to widen, temporally and spatially, the horizon of the debates about contemporary regimes and democracy.

Keywords : Democracy; political legitimacy; Plato; Karl Popper; Leo Strauss.

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