Suchergebnisse

This review argues that Edward Hall's outstanding new book on the political thought of three outstanding 20th-century thinkers – Isaiah Berlin, Stuart Hampshire and Bernard Williams – has three major substantial contributions to contemporary realism: it offers convincing realist interpretations of their oeuvres, extracts inspiring new ideas from their works for future theorizing and provides powerful arguments in defence of a liberal realist position. However, given Hall's expertise in Williams' thought, it might be surprising that the chapters about Hampshire seem the most interesting and most convincing parts of the book because they address some of the most fundamental issues of realism in an especially concise and well-written form.

This paper aims to advocate a Williamsian approach to political realism and contends that contemporary realist political theory is built on an 'a-theoretical core' that the paper will call 'political realism' in the broader sense (for a very different approach to Williams, see Hall, 2013). The central tenet of this thesis is that contemporary realist political theory fundamentally differs from mainstream political theory not only in its political outlook, but also in its views about the tasks and prospects of theorizing. In other words, 'political realism' imposes severe constraints on theorizing in a realist key and makes contemporary realist political theory especially vulnerable to criticisms coming from mainstream political theory. This paper contends, however, that the inherent limitedness of contemporary realist political theory is a fair price that is worth paying for a more realistic understanding of politics.The argument of the paper is built on the Williamsian assumption that mainstream political theory is ultimately a sort of 'applied morality' and that the fundamental problem with mainstream political theory as 'applied morality' is not so much its strong commitment to pre-political moral principles as its being fundamentally shaped by an ethical theory.

This paper aims to advocate a Williamsian approach to political realism and contends that contemporary realist political theory is built on an 'a-theoretical core' that the paper will call 'political realism' in the broader sense (for a very different approach to Williams, see Hall, 2013). The central tenet of this thesis is that contemporary realist political theory fundamentally differs from mainstream political theory not only in its political outlook, but also in its views about the tasks and prospects of theorizing. In other words, 'political realism' imposes severe constraints on theorizing in a realist key and makes contemporary realist political theory especially vulnerable to criticisms coming from mainstream political theory. This paper contends, however, that the inherent limitedness of contemporary realist political theory is a fair price that is worth paying for a more realistic understanding of politics.The argument of the paper is built on the Williamsian assumption that mainstream political theory is ultimately a sort of 'applied morality' and that the fundamental problem with mainstream political theory as 'applied morality' is not so much its strong commitment to pre-political moral principles as its being fundamentally shaped by an ethical theory.

The ambition of this article is threefold. First, it is to offer a realist reading of Aristotle's regime theory as it is laid out mostly in Books IV–VI of his Politics. The author argues that Aristotle's regime theory has three fundamentally realist claims about the workings of politics: first, the search for a perfect regime is not the only legitimate subject of political theory; second, every regime is built on a delicate balance of a particular understanding of political justice, a variety of sociological factors and the institutional design and political virtues of its politicians; third, there are almost as many different regimes as polities, and although they can be grouped into major regime types, there are many sub-types and mixed and transitory regimes. Second, the article argues that modern democratic theories have an unacceptable 'moralistic bias' from a realist point of view. Third, that a neo-Aristotelian regime theory can offer an attractive realist alternative to the predominant contemporary understandings of political regimes.

The 500th anniversary of Thomas More's Utopia has directed attention toward the importance of utopianism. This book investigates the possibilities of cooperation between the humanities and the social sciences in the analysis of 20th century and contemporary utopian phenomena. The papers deal with major problems of interpreting utopias, the relationship of utopia and ideology, and the highly problematic issue as to whether utopia necessarily leads to dystopia. Besides reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary utopian investigations, the eleven essays effectively represent the constructive attitudes of utopian thought, a feature that not only defines late 20th- and 21st-century utopianism, but is one of the primary reasons behind the rising importance of the topic. The volume's originality and value lies not only in the innovative theoretical approaches proposed, but also in the practical application of the concept of utopia to a variety of phenomena which have been neglected in the utopian studies paradigm, especially to the rarely discussed Central European texts and ideologies

Thinking through Transition is the first concentrated effort to explore the most recent chapter of East Central European past from the perspective of intellectual history. Post-communism can be understood as a period of scarcity and preponderance of ideas, the dramatic eclipsing of the dissident legacy (as well as the older political traditions), and the rise of technocratic and post-political governance. This book, grounded in empirical research sensitive to local contexts, proposes instead a history of adaptations, entanglements, and unintended consequences. In order to enable and invite comparison, the volume is structured around major domains of political thought, some of them generic (liberalism, conservatism, the Left), others (populism and politics of history) deemed typical for post-socialism. However, as shown by the authors, the generic often turns out to be heavily dependent on its immediate setting, and the typical resonates with processes that are anything but vernacular