Whither Political Theory?
| Published date | 01 December 1977 |
| Date | 01 December 1977 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1977.tb00469.x |
| Author | L. A. Siedentop |
| Subject Matter | Review Articles |
REVIEW
ARTICLES
WHITHER POLITICAL THEORY?
L.
A.
SIEDENTOP
THE confidence and proselytizing zeal of English philosophy died
in
the late
1960s.
The model
of
linguistic analysis which had made it such a powerful intellectual force
in the Anglo-American world for several decades suddenly seemed
to
offer not
so
much
clarity and elimination of conceptual muddles as an endless foraging along the byways
of
usage. That model even began
to
seem a way of avoiding issues rather than, as had
first been hoped, a way of separating conceptual puzzles from empirical questions.
In losing their earlier vigour and sense of direction, English philosophers have often
become more respectful of philosophical developments abroad-showing not only a
nervous appreciation of recent American philosophy, but a new willingness to take
seriously European philosophical traditions such as phenomenology and existentialism.
It is not my purpose to explore the causes-doubtless economic and social as well as
intellectual-which have contributed to that result.
Nor
do
I
want, except in passing, to
emphasize the possible intellectual
loss
involved. Yet there certainly
is
a danger that
in rejecting the exclusive claims of the English model
of
linguistic analysis that the high
standards
of
argument associated with
it
will also be sacrificed.
It is with the future of political theory that
1
am concerned.
For
political theory
in
Britain and the United States, like many other areas
of
thought, was deeply influenced
by the model provided by linguistic analysis. Indeed, the term 'political theory', as
distinct from the older label 'political thought', may be said to imply the role which was
learnt largely with the help
of
English philosophy since the
1930s.
It
is a role which has
made political theory resolutely analytical and,
in
its approach to concepts, atomistic.
It
is a role which has made political theory unhistorical, unsociological and little given
to the examination of systems of ideas. Even the history of political thought has been
hived off
in
a way which suggested, at its worst, that history and close argument were
mutually exclusive. Only a few writers, such as
John
Planienatz, Isaiah Berlin, and
Sheldon Wolin, continued
to
write as
if
study of the history
of
political thought could
be joined
to
the pursuit
of
conceptual refinements.
By the
1950s
and
60s
many articles and books
on
political theory took as subjects
'power', 'justice', 'liberty', etc., rather than liberalism, socialism
or
conservatism.
Concepts were thus detached from ideologies and historical movements. They were for
the most part presented statically,
sub
specie arternitatis.
Books like Halevy's
The
Growth
of
Philosophical Radicalism
no longer provided a fashionable model for argu-
ment. Writers like Tocqueville and Henry Maine were less often treated
as
thinkers
in
the mainstream
of
political thought-for their arguments were too 'impure', had too
large an historical
or
empirical content.
It
was, on the whole,
only
those writers who
found inspiration
in
Marxism who sought
to
link
the analysis of concepts
with
changing
economic and social conditions. Macpherson's
The
Political Theory
oj'
Possrssive
Individualism
is a case
in
point.
Thus, the model
of
argument
which
dominated political theory did
not
encourage,
to
say the least, exploration
of
the links between political concepts
on
the one hand and
the changing structure
of
society
on
the other.
It
was observed, of course, that certain
key concepts were essentially contested ones, and points
of
difference were explored-
Political
Studies,
Vol.
XXV,
No.
4 (588-593).
To continue reading
Request your trial