Transcendence and Political Philosophy

In: The review of politics, Volume 55, Issue 2, p. 247-265

Abstract

Classical political philosophy does not claim to be superior to philosophy nor to revelation. Political philosophy is the highest of the practical sciences, itself a unique and legitimate source of specific knowledge that would limit politics to be politics. For the things beyond politics to be free to be confronted in their own nonpolitical order, the polity must itself be constructed in such a way as not to kill its saints or philosophers. Traditionally, theology has been its own science, not the queen of the practical sciences, but the queen of the sciences. This meant that theology, as an articulated statement of revelation, performed a needed check when politics itself became a substitute metaphysics. Since so much theology is itself modeled on the ideologies of modernity, classical political philosophy serves a double purpose, not only to limit the city to its own area, but to restrain those theologies based on modern ideologies. Thus political philosophy serves to allow revelation to be itself.