István Hont and political theory
| DOI | 10.1177/1474885118782385 |
| Published date | 01 October 2018 |
| Date | 01 October 2018 |
| Author | Paul Sagar |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
EJPT
Article
Istva
´n Hont and political
theory
Paul Sagar
King’s College London, UK
Abstract
This article explores the relevance of the work of Cambridge historian of political
thought Istva
´n Hont to contemporary political theory. Specifically, it suggests that
Hont’s work can be of great help to the recent realist revival in political theory, in par-
ticular via its lending support to the account favoured by Bernard Williams, which
has been a major source for recent realist work. The article seeks to make explicit
the main political theoretic implications of Hont’s historically-focused work, which in
their original formulations are not always easy to discern, as well as itself being a
positive contribution to realist theorizing, moving beyond a merely negative critique
of dominant moralist positions.
Keywords
Bernard Williams, history of political thought, Istva
´n Hont, political theory, realism
Introduction
In the last decade there has been a growing call for normative political theorists to
adopt a more ‘realistic’ approach to their subject.
1
Realists are by no means all of
one mind, but they have tended to follow Bernard Williams (2005: 3) in calling for
‘an approach which gives greater autonomy to distinctively political thought’. Yet
thus far realism has been a predominantly negative movement: rejecting an ‘ethics
first’, or ‘political moralist’ approach (Geuss, 2008: 9; Williams, 2005: 1–3), asso-
ciated in particular with John Rawls, and taken to be the dominant style in Anglo-
analytic political theory since the enormous impact of A Theory of Justice (Rawls,
1971). This has, however, recently begun to change, with studies by Matt Sleat
(2013), Rob Jubb (2015), Edward Hall (2017) and myself (Sagar, 2018) articulating
positive interventions that aim to analyze political phenomena – such as the idea
of legitimacy, the place of equality in a modern capitalist society and the concept of
liberty – in expressly normative terms, whilst still preserving a focus on what is
distinctively political thought.
European Journal of Political Theory
2018, Vol. 17(4) 476–500
!The Author(s) 2018
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/1474885118782385
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Corresponding author:
Paul Sagar, Department of Political Economy, King’s College London, 30 Aldwych, London, WC2B 4BG.
Email: paul.sagar@kcl.ac.uk
This move towards a positive realist programme is to be welcomed. But it has
only just begun, and the definite shape of any constructive realist alternative
remains obscure. It has been suggested by scholars sympathetic to realism, how-
ever, that a constructive way forward will be to turn to history, and particularly the
history of political thought, for materials germane to making progress (Bourke,
2009; Geuss, 2001; Runciman, 2017; Sagar, 2016a; Waldron, 2013, 2016; Williams,
2005: 90–96; Williams, 2014).
2
Unfortunately this has so far remained a largely
general suggestion, not substantiated beyond piecemeal, albeit often insightful,
interventions. Nonetheless, the suggestion that the history of political thought
may be of especial value to realism is very much worth taking seriously. This article
attempts to show one particular way in which this may be true: by turning to
the body of work left to us by Istva
´n Hont, and highlighting the resources that
it provides for the development of a positive, historically-informed, realist political
theory.
Hont was primarily a historian of political thought, who published only a few
detailed studies, and no freestanding monograph, before his early death in 2013.
His relative obscurity, at least to scholars outside the history of political thought,
perhaps explains the lack of interest he has garnered amongst political theorists.
Nonetheless, he was a historian who explicitly claimed that his interventions were
made ‘with eyes firmly fixed on the challenges of today’, claiming that reading the
best thinkers of (especially) the 18th century could help ‘unmask theoretical and
practical impasses and eliminate repetitive patterns of controversy’, precisely
because the ‘commercial future that many eighteenth-century observers imagined
as plausible has become our historical present’ (Hont, 2005a: 5, 156). Yet Hont
tended to leave the implications for contemporary political analysis to be inferred
from his detailed historical studies, rather than stating them up front. And indeed,
drawing such inferences from Hont’s work is made difficult by the high levels of
compression that characterize his writings, alongside a dense blend of historical
and philosophical reconstruction of past thinkers’ ideas, often integrated directly
with specific interpretations not only of particular arguments, but of wider histor-
ical and conceptual issues. The result, as one reviewer has put it, is that the:
difficulty faced by the reader is that Hont is never explicit about what his political
philosophy is, nor about how he thinks modern political theory might be moved
forward by a better understanding of political theory written three hundred years
ago. (Harris, 2016: 160–161)
This article tries to make explicit some of the political theoretic upshots of Hont’s
analyses. It does not, however, attempt any statement of ‘Hont’s political theory’.
Whatever that was, it is now lost to us. Nonetheless, I suggest that there are strong
affinities between the vision of politics that emerges from Hont’s historical writings,
and the political philosophy Bernard Williams developed towards the end of his
life. As far as I am aware, however, this was not deliberate. Although Hont
and Williams were colleagues at King’s College, Cambridge, I know of no evi-
dence indicating their having any significant working relationship. Furthermore,
Sagar 477
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