Michael S Kochin
Biographic Data
| ID | 1445196 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael S Kochin |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael S |
| FAMILY NAME | Kochin |
| SIGNATURE | KOCHIN M S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Tel Aviv University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5934-7242 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 15 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Stand Columbia
The “Security Dilemma” and the Constitution of 1787
Life as literature
To become oneself, one must gain ownership of one’s language and authorship of the stories one tells. The partisans of vitalism, and the prophets of a new American literature, both claim that the way to own one's language is to seek out new experiences that have not yet been put into language and put them into a language of one’s own. Morris's alternative, set out in his critical writings but most fully exemplified in his 1957 novel Love Among th…
Friendship Beyond Reason
The ancient philosophers aimed to turn us away from thinking about particularizing affection to thinking about justifiable human relations. The aim of their protreptic discourses was to get their readers, who were citizens, sons, and fathers, to think about their lives by putting these relations into question. I show how this conversion works and explore its political consequences by reading the accounts of friendship in Plato, Aristotle, and Cic…
Nations Unchained
I examine transformations of “world orders,” of the basic norms governing relations between powers and between powers and peoples. I present three historical transformations of the world order: First, the transformation at the end of the eighteenth century of the Westphalian or Vattelian order in Europe based on the equality of states and the balance of power, into a world order based on nationalism and imperialism. Second, the transformation in …
Resistance, Charity, and Rebirth in Roberto Rossellini'sRome, Open City
With its use of contemporary events, location shots, and a plot that mixes comedy, tragedy, and passion play, Roberto Rossellini's 1945 film Rome, Open City founded the movement known as “Italian Neo-Realism.” The film vividly presents the Christian teaching on the relation between religion and politics. Rossellini asserts that a Christian Europe can be reconstructed only on a foundation of charity rather than hate, vengeance, or even justified p…
Academic Politics between Democracy and Aristocracy
The Republic’s account of the relation between talking about politics and doing politics illuminates the nature of political action. Plato’s Socrates argues that those who ought to govern are those who know about politics and who know what politics is about, since political things are images of ideas. Socrates’ alternative to democracy is thus an academic rather than an aristocratic elite—an elite of those who know. Yet the academic elite Plato i…
The Law Most Beautiful and Best
The Law Most Beautiful and Best: Medical Argument and Magical Rhetoric in Plato's Laws . By Randall Baldwin Clark. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2003. 192p. $55.00. A Journey into Platonic Politics: Plato's Laws . By Albert Keith Whitaker. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2004. 254p. $39.00. Plato's Laws, his longest and most comprehensive work on politics, is a conversation about the purposes and limits of legislation among three old men:…
The Constitution of Nations
Research Article| January 01 2005 The Constitution of Nations Michael S. Kochin Michael S. Kochin Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Good Society (2005) 14 (3): 68–76. https://doi.org/10.2307/20711224 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Michael S. Kochin; The Constitution of Nations. The Good Society 1 January 2005; 14 (3): 68–76. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/20711224 Download citat…
Postmetaphysical Literature
2004). Postmetaphysical Literature: Reflections on J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace. Perspectives on Political Science: Vol. 33, No. 1, pp. 4-9
Morality, Nature, and Esotericism in Leo Strauss'sPersecution and the Art of Writing
Strauss's historical investigation of the use of exoteric writing in Farabi, Maimonides, Halevi, and Spinoza, is in fact his history of the philosophers' exoteric accommodations to the permanent difference in human natures, the difference between the many who require a categorical moral teaching and the few who are capable of ordering their own lives in the face of the hypothetical status of all moral commands. The men of the Enlightenment aspire…
How Joseph Oe Maistre Read Plato's Laws
Maistre's Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg is modeled on Plato's Laws. Plato and Maistre both demand the political control of natural inquiry, and implement these controls through theodictic conversation. Maistre, following the lead of Plato's legislator, publishes an exemplary conversation about providence between a young man tempted by an atheistic Enlightenment and two older, wiser, and more learned men of affairs. Maistre defends providentialism …
How Joseph De Maistre Read Plato’s Laws
Maistre’s Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg is modeled on Plato’s Laws. Plato and Maistre both demand the political control of natural inquiry, and implement these controls through theodictic conversation. Maistre, following the lead of Plato’s legislator, publishes an exemplary conversation about providence between a young man tempted by an atheistic Enlightenment and two older, wiser, and more learned men of affairs. Maistre defends providentialism …
Plato's Eleatic and Athenian Sciences of Politics
Plato'sStatesmanandLawsare usually linked together as “Plato's later political theory.” Yet these dialogues offer contradictory descriptions of the relation between law and reason and thus between political science and philosophy. In particular, the Eleatic Stranger of theStatesmanpresents an account of the “second-best” regime that differs from that of the Athenian Stranger in theLaws. The Eleatic Stranger's account of the second-best is wrong; …
Weeds
Weeds: Cultivating the Imagination in Medieval Arabic Political Philosophy Michael S. Kochin Any reader of Plato’s dialogues in their entirety feels the constant tug of two very different solar motions. In the Laws the young field-legates (agronomoi) of the city move in a twelve-month cycle through each of the divisions of the city’s territory (Laws 760) in obedience to the law and the gods of the city. Socrates, too, moves through the city, ques…
When is buying votes wrong
Decollectivization of Agriculture and the Planned Economy
Theory: I take a resource dependence perspective on the reform of collectivized agriculture. Hypothesis: Collective farms resist breakup if they are dependent on resources distributed through the command economy. The state's role in the distribution of resources is explained by its relationship to the peasantry before collectivization. Methods: I use comparative case histories of Russian and Chinese agriculture. Results: Large-scale decollectiviz…
Postmetaphysical Literature
2004). Postmetaphysical Literature: Reflections on J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace. Perspectives on Political Science: Vol. 33, No. 1, pp. 4-9
Morality, Nature, and Esotericism in Leo Strauss'sPersecution and the Art of Writing
Strauss's historical investigation of the use of exoteric writing in Farabi, Maimonides, Halevi, and Spinoza, is in fact his history of the philosophers' exoteric accommodations to the permanent difference in human natures, the difference between the many who require a categorical moral teaching and the few who are capable of ordering their own lives in the face of the hypothetical status of all moral commands. The men of the Enlightenment aspire…
When is buying votes wrong
Plato's Eleatic and Athenian Sciences of Politics
Plato'sStatesmanandLawsare usually linked together as “Plato's later political theory.” Yet these dialogues offer contradictory descriptions of the relation between law and reason and thus between political science and philosophy. In particular, the Eleatic Stranger of theStatesmanpresents an account of the “second-best” regime that differs from that of the Athenian Stranger in theLaws. The Eleatic Stranger's account of the second-best is wrong; …
The Constitution of Nations
Research Article| January 01 2005 The Constitution of Nations Michael S. Kochin Michael S. Kochin Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Good Society (2005) 14 (3): 68–76. https://doi.org/10.2307/20711224 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Michael S. Kochin; The Constitution of Nations. The Good Society 1 January 2005; 14 (3): 68–76. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/20711224 Download citat…
How Joseph Oe Maistre Read Plato's Laws
Maistre's Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg is modeled on Plato's Laws. Plato and Maistre both demand the political control of natural inquiry, and implement these controls through theodictic conversation. Maistre, following the lead of Plato's legislator, publishes an exemplary conversation about providence between a young man tempted by an atheistic Enlightenment and two older, wiser, and more learned men of affairs. Maistre defends providentialism …
Weeds
Weeds: Cultivating the Imagination in Medieval Arabic Political Philosophy Michael S. Kochin Any reader of Plato’s dialogues in their entirety feels the constant tug of two very different solar motions. In the Laws the young field-legates (agronomoi) of the city move in a twelve-month cycle through each of the divisions of the city’s territory (Laws 760) in obedience to the law and the gods of the city. Socrates, too, moves through the city, ques…
Decollectivization of Agriculture and the Planned Economy
Theory: I take a resource dependence perspective on the reform of collectivized agriculture. Hypothesis: Collective farms resist breakup if they are dependent on resources distributed through the command economy. The state's role in the distribution of resources is explained by its relationship to the peasantry before collectivization. Methods: I use comparative case histories of Russian and Chinese agriculture. Results: Large-scale decollectiviz…
Decollectivization of Agriculture and the Planned Economy
Theory: I take a resource dependence perspective on the reform of collectivized agriculture. Hypothesis: Collective farms resist breakup if they are dependent on resources distributed through the command economy. The state's role in the distribution of resources is explained by its relationship to the peasantry before collectivization. Methods: I use comparative case histories of Russian and Chinese agriculture. Results: Large-scale decollectiviz…
When is buying votes wrong
Plato's Eleatic and Athenian Sciences of Politics
Plato'sStatesmanandLawsare usually linked together as “Plato's later political theory.” Yet these dialogues offer contradictory descriptions of the relation between law and reason and thus between political science and philosophy. In particular, the Eleatic Stranger of theStatesmanpresents an account of the “second-best” regime that differs from that of the Athenian Stranger in theLaws. The Eleatic Stranger's account of the second-best is wrong; …
Weeds
Weeds: Cultivating the Imagination in Medieval Arabic Political Philosophy Michael S. Kochin Any reader of Plato’s dialogues in their entirety feels the constant tug of two very different solar motions. In the Laws the young field-legates (agronomoi) of the city move in a twelve-month cycle through each of the divisions of the city’s territory (Laws 760) in obedience to the law and the gods of the city. Socrates, too, moves through the city, ques…
Morality, Nature, and Esotericism in Leo Strauss'sPersecution and the Art of Writing
Strauss's historical investigation of the use of exoteric writing in Farabi, Maimonides, Halevi, and Spinoza, is in fact his history of the philosophers' exoteric accommodations to the permanent difference in human natures, the difference between the many who require a categorical moral teaching and the few who are capable of ordering their own lives in the face of the hypothetical status of all moral commands. The men of the Enlightenment aspire…
How Joseph Oe Maistre Read Plato's Laws
Maistre's Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg is modeled on Plato's Laws. Plato and Maistre both demand the political control of natural inquiry, and implement these controls through theodictic conversation. Maistre, following the lead of Plato's legislator, publishes an exemplary conversation about providence between a young man tempted by an atheistic Enlightenment and two older, wiser, and more learned men of affairs. Maistre defends providentialism …
How Joseph De Maistre Read Plato’s Laws
Maistre’s Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg is modeled on Plato’s Laws. Plato and Maistre both demand the political control of natural inquiry, and implement these controls through theodictic conversation. Maistre, following the lead of Plato’s legislator, publishes an exemplary conversation about providence between a young man tempted by an atheistic Enlightenment and two older, wiser, and more learned men of affairs. Maistre defends providentialism …
Postmetaphysical Literature
2004). Postmetaphysical Literature: Reflections on J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace. Perspectives on Political Science: Vol. 33, No. 1, pp. 4-9
The Law Most Beautiful and Best
The Law Most Beautiful and Best: Medical Argument and Magical Rhetoric in Plato's Laws . By Randall Baldwin Clark. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2003. 192p. $55.00. A Journey into Platonic Politics: Plato's Laws . By Albert Keith Whitaker. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2004. 254p. $39.00. Plato's Laws, his longest and most comprehensive work on politics, is a conversation about the purposes and limits of legislation among three old men:…
The Constitution of Nations
Research Article| January 01 2005 The Constitution of Nations Michael S. Kochin Michael S. Kochin Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Good Society (2005) 14 (3): 68–76. https://doi.org/10.2307/20711224 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Michael S. Kochin; The Constitution of Nations. The Good Society 1 January 2005; 14 (3): 68–76. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/20711224 Download citat…
Academic Politics between Democracy and Aristocracy
The Republic’s account of the relation between talking about politics and doing politics illuminates the nature of political action. Plato’s Socrates argues that those who ought to govern are those who know about politics and who know what politics is about, since political things are images of ideas. Socrates’ alternative to democracy is thus an academic rather than an aristocratic elite—an elite of those who know. Yet the academic elite Plato i…
Resistance, Charity, and Rebirth in Roberto Rossellini'sRome, Open City
With its use of contemporary events, location shots, and a plot that mixes comedy, tragedy, and passion play, Roberto Rossellini's 1945 film Rome, Open City founded the movement known as “Italian Neo-Realism.” The film vividly presents the Christian teaching on the relation between religion and politics. Rossellini asserts that a Christian Europe can be reconstructed only on a foundation of charity rather than hate, vengeance, or even justified p…
Nations Unchained
I examine transformations of “world orders,” of the basic norms governing relations between powers and between powers and peoples. I present three historical transformations of the world order: First, the transformation at the end of the eighteenth century of the Westphalian or Vattelian order in Europe based on the equality of states and the balance of power, into a world order based on nationalism and imperialism. Second, the transformation in …
The “Security Dilemma” and the Constitution of 1787
Life as literature
To become oneself, one must gain ownership of one’s language and authorship of the stories one tells. The partisans of vitalism, and the prophets of a new American literature, both claim that the way to own one's language is to seek out new experiences that have not yet been put into language and put them into a language of one’s own. Morris's alternative, set out in his critical writings but most fully exemplified in his 1957 novel Love Among th…
Friendship Beyond Reason
The ancient philosophers aimed to turn us away from thinking about particularizing affection to thinking about justifiable human relations. The aim of their protreptic discourses was to get their readers, who were citizens, sons, and fathers, to think about their lives by putting these relations into question. I show how this conversion works and explore its political consequences by reading the accounts of friendship in Plato, Aristotle, and Cic…
Stand Columbia
Political science (14 works) · Law (13 works) · Law (10 works) · Politics (10 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Art (6 works) · Literature (5 works)