Schmitt’s political philosophy concretely presents us the vantage point of the political understanding of philosophical concepts. Obviously, it does not mean that the concepts which are already philosophical become political in Schmitt’s style of philosophising; rather than this kind of approach, Schmitt’s view denotes that spring of the political cannot, even a little, be submerged in the realm of the philosophy or in other subfields, that is, that the political clearly derives from the very beginning of what the political scope includes in itself as its very possibility. In this sense, it is quite plausible to consider Schmitt’s concept of the political as conceptualisation of ontology of the politics. However, even if it seems to be the general conceptualisation of thought in politics, it should be better to think of the concept of the political (der Begriff des Politischen) as the concept of modern political approach which have arouse with the appearance of the concept of modern state. In this context, Schmitt (1995, p. 19) begins his essay (The Concept of the Political) with his famous statement: “The concept of the state presupposes the concept of the political.”[1] What it does imply is nothing, but the modern state established upon the top of the bureaucracy, legitimate power to reign over the society (die Gesellschaft), and apparently, to perpetrate violence to its enemies proclaimed before. As it is blatantly mentioned before, the concept of the political does clearly refer to the ontological establishment of the political sphere. By doing so, Schmitt implicitly posits that which can be defined by an in itself should rather be independent of other related subfields such as religious, cultural, economic, legal and scientific (1995, p. 23). According to Hegelian point of view, the state is the peak point of the social organisation, and thus, clearly superior to the society. If it is necessary to interpret Schmitt’s approach compared to that of Hegel, then, probably, the main concern of this comparison should basically turn out to be to and fro reciprocal views of these thinkers in regard to constitution of their political philosophies, in other words, whereas Hegel understands the state as the most superior power of society, Schmitt considers of it as the main ‘apparatus’ of decision making, or better, as the most decisive organ and the appearance of the political. In this context, the concept of the political is rooted in nothing, but its self-proclaimed being of the state. As Schmitt (1995, p. 26) depicts, “The political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy.”[2] That is the ontological basis of the concept of the political because of the fact that this sentence defines the political field as being independent of others. In addition to this, Schmitt (1995, p. 28), in the footnoteof given page, indicates that “In his Republic, Plato strongly emphasises the contrast between the public enemy (πολέμιος) and the private one (έχυρός), but in connection with the other antithesis of war (πολέμος) and insurrection, upheaval, rebellion, civil war (στάσις). Real war for Plato is a war between Hellenes and Barbarians only (those who are by nature “enemies”), whereas conflicts among Hellenes are for him discords (στάσεις).” He rather seems, therefore, to be on the track of the dialectical understanding of Hegel in terms of that which has affected the realistic political philosophy of Hegel has clearly been influencing that of Schmitt. As a consequence, political decision making, which is based on the distinction between the public enemy and friend, is much more different than one’s private decisions on the person with whom he/she might have positive or negative relations. Moreover, positions of the friend and enemy should not be taken for granted because of that, when doing so, namely crystallising friendenemy grouping as a distinction eternal, it might turn into abstraction consisting in nothing in reality and punishing the decision maker, or the state, severely. The friend-enemy grouping rests completely on situations which might be exposed to alteration. However, this never means that the grouping is reasonable without its appearance, and, that it does not encompass the possibility of physical killing. Hence, the concept of the political directly refers to the danger of killing or being killed by the enemy: this is the absolute point which turns it into being an ontological and eruditely constituent category in political philosophy. As Schmitt (1995, p. 35) clearly emphasises, “War as the most extreme political means discloses the possibility which underlies every political idea, namely, the distinction of friend and enemy.”[3]
REFERENCES
Schmitt, C., (1979), Der Begriff des Politischen, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.
Schmitt, C., (1995), The Concept of the Political, [Tr. George Schwab], London: The University
of Chicago Press.
1 “Der Begriff des Staates setzt den Begriff des Politischen voraus.” (1979)
2 “Die spezifisch politische Unterscheidung, auf welche sich die politischen Handlungen und Motive
zurückführen lassen, ist die Unterscheidung von Freund und Feind.” (1979)
3 “Der Krieg als das extremste politische Mittel offenbart die jeder politischen Vorstellung zugrunde liegende Möglichkeit dieser Unterscheidung von Freund und Feind.” (1979)
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