Suchergebnisse

Part I: Two historiographical problems in search of solutions -- Introduction : the two problems -- Logic and method in the history of political thought -- Part II: The pastness of past political thinking -- The pastness of the historical past -- Oakeshott on the history of political thinking -- Pocock and Skinner on Oakeshott -- Part III: The varieties of past political thinking -- Hobbes's Leviathan : ideology and philosophy -- The logic of the history of political philosophy -- Conclusion : the use and abuse of history.

This book is a critique of Cambridge School Historical Contextualism as the currently dominant mode of history of political thought, drawing upon Michael Oakeshott's analysis of the logic of historical enquiry. While acknowledging that the early Cambridge School work represented a considerable advance towards genuinely historical histories of political thought, this work identifies two major historiographical problems that have become increasingly acute. The first is general: an insufficiently rigorous understanding of the key concept of "pastness" necessarily presupposed in historical enquiry of all kinds. The second is specific to histories of political thought: a failure to do justice to the varieties of past political thinking, especially differences between ideology and philosophy. In addressing these problems, the author offers a comprehensive account of the history of political thought that establishes the parameters not just of histories of ideological thinking but also of the much disputed character of histories of political philosophy. Since rethinking history of political thought in Oakeshottian terms requires resisting current pressures to turn history into the servant of currently felt needs, the book offers a sustained defence of the cultural value of modernist historical enquiry against its opponents. An important work for political theorists, historians of political thought and those researching intellectual history, the philosophy of history and proposed new directions in contemporary historical studies.

Originally published in 1987. This book analyses what Englishmen understood by the term contract in political discussions during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It provides evidence for reconsidering conventional accounts of the relationships between political ideas, groups and practices of the period. But also suggests cause for examining the general history of modern European contract theory. It considers contract as a term appearing in a spectrum of works from philosophical treatise to sermons and polemical pamphlets. Looking at the various vocabularies relating to contractualist ideas, the author suggests that standard histories of social contract theory and particular histories of English political thought during this unstable period have misrepresented the meaning of the term contract as a key term in political argument. He shows that there were in fact three different categories of contract theory but allows that the various kinds of contractualism did share certain broad features. This study of a crucial age in the history of appeals to contract in political argument will be of interest to political philosophers and historians.

In this chapter, the author discusses Oakeshott's offering of a philosophical account of the relationship between poetry & practical life in "The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind." The barbarism of science & practical activity, & the philosophical elucidation during this era of cultural decline reflects an appropriation of the domain of the poetic by the forces of science & practical activity. Participation in the "conversation of mankind" can surpass this barbaric culture by participation in the nonsymbolic world of art & poetry which are characterized by completely nonpractical playfulness. Play & play forms are the venues for society to expresses its interpretation of life & the world. Oakeshott's defense of liberal education advocates the liberal arts as one avenue to the understanding of & participation in the play element that will restore the "intimations of poetry" to the current bog of barbaric & domineering bores of practical life. 12 References. J. Harwell

ON THE SAME WEEKEND AS EAST GERMANS OFFICIALLY exchanged East Marx for real Marks, another kind of exchange took place between East and West German professors at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Bielefeld. The recently established Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Erforschung des politischen Denkens, in the person of Volker Gerhardt (Cologne), had invited some sixty senior philosophers, political theorists and political scientists from both sides of the inner-German border to discuss basic questions in political philosophy. The meeting was not a conference. The organizer, recognising the absence of any shared traditions of inquiry and debate, had issued invitations to a mere meeting. It was the first such meeting since the collapse of the East German Communist regime. In fact, it offered the first opportunity after almost six decades of dictatorships in the East for academics from the former front-lines, as it were, to reflect openly together on their subject, on their academic pasts and on their possible academic futures. Initially, the atmosphere was very tense. But, amazingly, the tensions soon evaporated. A strange sort of civility came to characterize the discussions both inside and outside the conference rooms. Conflicts were largely avoided, to the obvious relief of most participants. From an inner- German perspective, the meeting was a great success. At the end, Ernst Vollrath (Cologne) summed up a general view: 'We have begun to see that we can learn from one another.' But this reciprocity was not evident in the academic discussions. Something else was involved apart from the surface issue of Marxism-Leninism versus the rest of the world. It is worth reflecting on the development of the meeting and on what this something else was.