Wednesday Wisdom

Who or What is Publius?

Publius was one of the founders of the Roman Republic and its first consul in 509 BC. As Roman aristocrat, he allied with Lucius Junius Brutus to overthrow the last Roman king, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (“Tarquin the Proud”). He earned the name Publius Valerius Publicola (Latin for “friend of the people”) because of his reforms which championed ordinary Romans. He worked to establish the new government based on elected magistrates instead of kings. He is remembered as a symbol of republican virtue by defending liberty against tyranny. His policies set the stage for Rome’s mixed system of checks and balances between consuls, the Senate, and the people. Later Romans historians like Livy and Greek historian Plutarch portrayed him as one of the greatest early leaders of the Republic of Rome.

Publius is also the pen name or pseudonym of some the greatest American thinkers who wrote the law of the land in the United States Constitution. These founders marketed the document with the Federalist Papers to the colonies and the world as a new republic ideal. The Federalist Papers were a series of writings by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay to logically explain all the reasoning behind the decisions involved in the laws that would govern a new republic in a defining doctrine of law called the Constitution. Inspired by the Republic of Rome and by the age of enlightenment thinkers of Jonathan Locke, Jean-Jaque Rousseau, Montesquieu and Thomas Hobbes, these founding Fathers of the United States brought forth a collection of the best ideas on philosophy and governance. Thoughtful of history and disciplined in their words, The Federalist Papers, although originally intended to defend the Constitution and allay fears of the power of a central government, offer a lens into the intentions of the framers that sought to balance liberty and order in a republic.

The Federalist Papers, written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay under the name Publius, were a powerful defense of the proposed U.S. Constitution and drew deeply on philosophy of the Enlightenment. Hamilton emphasized the need for a strong central government, reflecting Thomas Hobbes’s insight from the Leviathan that unchecked human passions can lead to disorder, though he rejected Hobbes’s call for absolute monarchy. Madison, often called the “Father of the Constitution,” blended Jonathan Locke’s idea of natural rights and government by consent from his Two Treaties of Government with Montesquieu’s principle of separated powers from his Spirit of Laws to argue for a republic that balanced liberty with stability. Jay, in his essays on foreign affairs, echoed the Roman Republic’s lesson that unity was essential for security and prosperity in a dangerous world. The Roman model also supplied the logic of checks and balances, where no one branch of government could dominate, preserving ethical rule through accountability. Montesquieu’s philosophy was central, since dividing power between executive, legislative, and judicial branches would, as Madison argued in Federalist No. 51, prevent tyranny by obliging government to control itself. Locke’s principles of protecting life, liberty, and property inspired the federalists’ logic that a stronger union was needed to safeguard individual rights more effectively than the weak existing Articles of Confederation. Jean-Jacque Rousseau’s concept of the “general will” from his Social Contract is articulated in Madison’s argument that a large republic refines and enlarges public opinion, aligning self-interest with the common good. The Federalists combined ethical appeals to justice with logical structures to ensure liberty and order. By grounding their arguments in these traditions, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay showed that the United States Constitution was not only practical but also morally defensible as a goverment that manages the battle between freedom and power.

These 85 essays were published in New York newspapers and are an intellectual mission to convince a burgeoning yet skeptical country to adopt bold ideas and establish a federal democratic republic.

The Federalist Papers still remind us that good goverenace is not automatic, it requires vigilance, debate and compromise.

And now you know...

Thank you, Dad, for the gift of curiosity

Philosophy is the art of thinking, the building block of progress that shapes critical thinking across economics, ethics, religion, and science.

METAPHYSICS: Literally, the term metaphysics means ‘beyond the physical.’ Typically, this is the branch that most people think of when they picture philosophy. In metaphysics, the goal is to answer the what and how questions in life. Who are we, and what are time and space?

LOGIC: The study of reasoning. Much like metaphysics, understanding logic helps to understand and appreciate how we perceive the rest of our world. More than that, it provides a foundation for which to build and interpret arguments and analyses.

ETHICS: The study of morality, right and wrong, good and evil. Ethics tackles difficult conversations by adding weight to actions and decisions. Politics takes ethics to a larger scale, applying it to a group (or groups) of people. Political philosophers study political governments, laws, justice, authority, rights, liberty, ethics, and much more.

AESTHETICS: What is beautiful? Philosophers try to understand, qualify, and quantify what makes art what it is. Aesthetics also takes a deeper look at the artwork itself, trying to understand the meaning behind it, both art as a whole and art on an individual level. A question an aesthetics philosopher would seek to address is whether or not beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.

EPISTEMOLOGY: This is the study and understanding of knowledge. The main question is how do we know? We can question the limitations of logic, how comprehension works, and the ability (or perception) to be certain.