Suchergebnisse

Kenneth Waltz is a structural theorist. While scholars often comment on Waltz's conception of structure, they rarely address the philosophical assumptions behind it — assumptions that go back to Kant and finally to Aristotle. Appropriately situated, Waltz's conception of structure points to a strong version of constructivist social theory. To make my case, I trace Waltz's view of political structure in his early work, recapitulate his views on science, models and theory, address the question of his (or any) theory's relation to `reality', illustrate his difficulty with structural theory and institutional reality, and consider the vexed question of any theory's fit to a world already talked into existence. I show how close Waltz is to a philosophical position that solves his problem with theory's relation to reality and specifies the conditions under which any social theory can make sense or use of the term structure.

Christopher Alexander explored the world of built structures. He longed for buildings and spaces that touched and triggered our own psychological and spiritual structure. From his examples of spaces we experience as alive he distilled his Fifteen Properties: aspects and qualities in buildings that quicken us. As architects, we want to learn how we can create structures that embody the Fifteen Properties. Can we do so through consciously attempting to design them? In my experience of designing, we need more than a conscious attempt. We need an awareness of the goal of our designing. And Alexander himself gives us a glimpse of that goal in The Linz Café: Our goal is nothing short of designing as an offering to God. What might an offering to God mean? What might it mean as an attitude free from ideology or embalmed belief? The discoveries C. G. Jung made can help us get in touch with such a goal. Our goal is our own divine centre. Our challenge as architects is to open ourselves to the images and structures that appear on our paper or screens as we design. What is their source? Can we see ourselves in them? Can we meet our divine centre in them?

In the last four decades, the American middle class has been hollowed out, and fears are growing that economic inequality is leading to political inequality. These trends raise a troubling question: Can our constitutional system survive the collapse of the middle class? This question might seem tangential-if not unrelated-to contemporary constitutional theory. But for most of the history ofpolitical thought, one of the central problems of constitutional design was the relationship between the distribution of wealth in society and the structure of government. Two traditions emerged from thinking about this relationship. The first tradition assumed that society would be divided into rich and poor, and it designed class-warfare constitutions that incorporated economic classes directly into the structure of government. The second tradition was based on the assumption that society was relatively equal economically; as a result, it was not necessary to incorporate economic class into these middle-class constitutions. This Essay identifies these two traditions and traces their intellectual history from Aristotle through the eighteenth century. It then shows that the intellectual tradition of the middle-class constitution was alive and flourishing during the time of the American founding-suggesting that the collapse of the American middle class today has consequences of constitutional significance.