Suchergebnisse

Introduces a special journal issue on "Political Theory and Political Philosophy". Adapted from the source document.

It is argued that contemporary Marxism is in a crisis from which it is not likely to recover. Nevertheless, discussion of Marxism in the context of contemporary political philosophy is appropriate for two reasons: (1) Marxists set the agenda for current political & philosophical debate; & (2) Marxism has recently, at least in the West, given rise to a new & lively debate about the value of fundamental Marxian notions such as the idea of historical materialism & exploitation by the so-called (& self-styled) "analytical Marxists." The Marxians have undertaken a critical evaluation of Marxist political philosophy & have departed from orthodox Marxism. The analytical Marxists have tried to rephrase & uphold the framework of Karl Marx's political & materialist philosophy or have taken it upon themselves to construct a new Marxist edifice of political philosophy, even to reconstruct the whole Marxist scheme. This analytical Marxism is discussed in detail, along with endeavors by Western Marxists & dissident Marxists in & from Eastern Europe to come to terms with actually existing socialist societies & their basic political tenets. 63 References. Modified HA

In this issue of Res Publica, a status given to developments in the subdisciplines of political philosophy and political theory, in which many academics study politics in an empirical way. In this symposium, we talk about how empirical political scientists compare normative issues. Adapted from the source document.

The approaches of Jurgen Habermas & Jean-Francois Lyotard are compared with respect to issues in ethics & the philosophy of law. Though both consider language to be both the pivot of & the means to sociopolitical action & events, they differ in their diagnoses about the pathology of politics & society. Their opinions about language, law, morality, & the role of philosophy, politics, & science are compared, & sketched against the background of their general philosophy. While Habermas is a strong defender of the Enlightenment project & maintains that it is possible to apply philosophical ideas in the interest of democratization & the nonviolent settlement of conflicts, Lyotard's postmodern philosophy is more skeptical, asserting that no metadiscourse can exist in the social world that would allow real mediation & conflict settlement. The paradoxes in Lyotard's "language-ontology" philosophy, of which he is well aware, are explored. 6 References. Modified HA

The state of Dutch political thought in the seventeenth century is reviewed. Three main approaches are discussed: (1) The critical approach is represented by P. de la Court, who, influenced by Hobbes, defended a more democratic type of government. (2) The historical-philological movement, represented by J. Lipsius, Boxhornius, & Burgersdijk, was based on Aristotelian metaphysical concepts to develop a more systematic base for historical research. This movement influenced the development of the typical research style of the political sciences in Germany. (3) B. de Spinoza's passion-reason theory led to an analytical political science, exemplifying the typical method of integrating theory & empirical (historical) information. Modified HA.

The doctrine of benevolent empire posits that unilateral security governance has become a necessary & legitimate form of global governance. After first assessing if imperial governance can even be considered an instance of global governance, its claim of legitimacy is scrutinized. It is argued, with reference to the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, that its strategy of legitimation is eventually doomed to fail because benevolent empire appears to downplay both the importance of education in forging legitimacy & the context-specific nature of legitimacy. References. Adapted from the source document.

This article is an intervention into a recent OZP debate on the future of political science as a discipline. Its main goal is to mediate between the respective positions of Ulrich Brand's and Helmut Kramer's conception of a critical project and Thomas Konig's presentation of organisational preliminaries of an academic project of political science. To this end, I firstly reformulate the essentials of a project of critique, referring on a thick notion of critique. Consequently, the relationship of the disciplinary and critical side of political science is rearranged on the basis of an appropriation of certain deliberations on discipline formation and philosophy of science, which centrally draw on the philosophy of Critical Realism. Adapted from the source document.

The consistency between Karl Popper's political theory & his philosophy is analyzed based on a comparison of his anti-utopianism in The Open Society and Its Enemies. Vol. I, Plato (London, 1986) & The Poverty of Historicism (London, 1960). The dependence of his model of the open society on his special understanding of deontological liberalism is discussed, with special attention to his weak rebuttal to the counterarguments of utopianists. M. Meeks

An investigation of the relations between sociol & pol'al sci (politology), based upon an examination of the existing literature. Pol'al sci remains an ill-defined area of the soc sci's. H. Heller is quoted to the effect that it lacks a clearly defined set of problems or a definitely prescribed methodology. Another difficulty is furnished by the lack of a definite boundary line between 'pol'al sci' & 'pol'al sociol.' The latter may be defined as the sociol of pol'al phenomena. Its concept has been defined in several ways, eg, as the empirical branch of the philosophy of the state (G. Salomon-Delatour); as a synonym of pol'al sci (M. Duverger); as the study of the power of the state (M. G. Lange); as the study of pol'al instit's (S. M. Lipset, R. Bendix). But pol'al phenomena, which pol'al sociol studies, cannot be confined to the state. This is demonstrated by an agreement reached in the early 1960's by the Belgian electricity companies, labor unions & consumers' org's which settled a pol'al matter & by-passed the state. In addition to purely pol'al aspects, pol'al sociol also studies certain psychol'al aspects of behavior which affect pol. It is concluded that pol'al sociol contributes to pol'al sci certain 'pieces of the mosaic of knowledge'; these pieces will be all the more valuable because they come from an area in which intuition has played so far a more important part than rational study. I. Langnas.