ABSTRACT
Classical political philosophy has been understood histori cally to be that discipline which studies the finalities of po litical life in the light of the common good of society and of a virtuous people. These are not different ends but merely distinct ways of formulating one unique goal: a virtuous life lived by men who set the tone for any community acts as a yeast which leavens the social order into harmony and thus brings forth a genuine public good. This equivalence covers a cluster of problems whose resolutions require political wis dom. Nonetheless, any refinement of the identity between common good and good people would deepen their ultimate union rather than weaken it. In turn, these issues cannot be abstracted totally from metaphysical considerations. The po litical philosophy in question was thought by its authors to be an introduction to wisdom. Any common good in any politi cal community synthesized with civil virtue reflects and par tially enshrines the structure of being. The philosophy of being is the heart of philosophical wisdom. This common Western doctrine began with Parmenides; it was continued by Plato; it culminated in the pagan world with Aristotle; it was transfigured by Christianity in Aquinas. The ancients discovered a kind of stability and consistency in reality which is menaced by its dialectical and existential opposite, noth ing, chaos, corruption, death. Pagan antiquity had a number of ways to symbolize what Christians grasp as the problem of
the Nothing. Just as all goodness lies on the side of being; just as all evil and negations are consequences of nonbeing, so too stability in matters political demands not demonstration but monstration, exploration. The good which is common in politics and the desirability of a life stiffened in virtue are as axiomatic for a decent social order as is the judgment of sinderesis in the moral order and the judgment of being in the metaphysical order. We discover an identity, granting certain refinements, between the triad, Being: Goodness: Virtue. The weakening of anyone of the members of this triad weakens the other two.
