UGC 112 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Oast House, Scientific Revolution, Ochlocracy

• School: University at Buffalo
• Department: Undergraduate College
• Course: UGC 112
• Professor: Boyd Timothy

Document Summary

Constitutional: power is shared with some governing body (i. e. parliament) Can be traced back to works by the ancient greeks/romans. Polybius- 3 benign rules of government, but each with a malignant form of power attached to it: monarchy -> tyranny. If a monarch abuses human rights or misuses his power, he turns into a tyrant of dictator instead of a leader of the people: aristocracy -> oligarchy (rule of the best -> rule of the few) The members of an oligarchy use their power to benefit themselves: democracy -> ochlocracy. O(cid:272)hlo(cid:272)ra(cid:272)(cid:455) = (cid:862)mo(cid:271) rule(cid:863), (cid:862)rule (cid:271)(cid:455) the (cid:374)o(cid:374)-desira(cid:271)les(cid:863) This is why we have the electoral college, so that we can protect ourselves from these so-called non-desirables: there can be a cycle between all of these through revolution. The greeks wonder which is the best form of government. Locke also examined and made observations about these different methods of governing. Social observations go hand in hand with scientific revolution.