In defence of wildness

IMMORTALITY AND THE POLITICAL LIFE OF MAN IN ALBERTUS MAGNUS THE LONG YEARS from the death of Augustine to the ediscovery of Aristotle in the West witnessed the deelopment of Roman Law, the Gelasian theory of temporal and spiritual power, the theory of medieval monarchy ws found in people like John of Salisbury, and the establishment of the feudal structure itself. Likewise, the establishment and growth of the religious orders created a new type of organization which was to provide many ideas for civil political practice. From the standpoint of political theory, these years are not of major significance when compared to the Greek, Augu,stinian, or the great scholastic theories. Nevertheless , the development of the feudal pattern with its ever growing confusion between the realm of the spiritual and the realm of the temporal emphasized a problem of great significance for political theory.1 Plotinus and Augustine, the last truly great pagan philosopher and the first universal Western Doctor of the Church, both had, to a greater or lesser degree, emphasized the contemplative order and its primacy. But there proved to be a danger in overemphasizing the importance of the next life for man. This world, wherein man was to work out his salvation, which to be sure was not political in its essence, could very easily be ignored or simply rejected. All of society's energy could be placed in attaining the next life. Since the solution of Plotinus became practically irrelevant in Western society as a real 1 See Heinrich A. Rommen, The State and Catholic Thought (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1945), pp. 521-36; Charles Howard Mcllwain, Growth of Political Thought in the West (New York: Macmillan, 1932); R. W. and A. J. Carlyle, A History of Medieval Political Thought in the West (Edinburgh : Blackwood, 1928), 6 vols. 535 JAMES V. SCHALL, S.J. movement, the terms of the emphasis became exclusively Christian. The danger of the Christian over-emphasis on the next life, as someone like Hannah Arendt would suggest, was that politics would be undermined. The danger of the Christian message was that it co~ld make the political life of man on earth irrelevant.2 The only thing that mattered was, in an extreme view, the next life. Hannah Arendt's contention raises one of the most significant and perplexing questions in political theory, namely, the relationship between personal immortality and the public life. Arendt suggested that the contemplative life, especially in its Christian context, cut off the very life-blood of the political order as the Greeks saw it, that is, the hope of an earthly "immortality " and the record of heroic deeds and words. For the Christian, such things were merely vanity because his kingdom was not of this world.3 But does the Christian belief in immortality in its own terms, both as resurrection and as an explanation of personal continuity until this restored condition, necessarily render the deeds of this world transitory? Or is it what ultimately renders them possible in their own right? Certainly , one can point to trends in Christian history which would seem to suggest the former alternative. Yet, another interpretation of the importance of the contemplative life or immortality can be held. Indeed, it was the contention of Aristotle that politics needed speculative rectitude before it could exercise its own proper function. This was so because political life might easily become a search for immortality in this life if politics did not recognize the limits of this life and the nature of the contemplative order. 2 Hannah Arendt, The Hurnan Condition (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday Anchor, 1959), pp. 20-21, 50. a Ibid., pp. 286-90. In this connection, I found the discussion of Fr. Benedict T. Viviano, 0. P., on "The Kingdom of God in Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas," (The Thornist, October, 1980), pp. 502-22, to have missed the central significance of Albert's (and Thomas's) work in political theory. Viviano's study, for all its caution, still seemed to imply that the Kingdom of God was to have a political embodiment on earth and that neither Albert nor Thomas could see this because of their own...

Fred Dallmayr, author of numerous excellent works in political theory and political philosophy, here, in this book, In Search of the Good Life: A Pedagogy for Troubled Times, offers us a 'pedagogy', a teaching for troubled times. Dallmayr should have little difficulty getting us to agree that these are troubled times, although the diagnosis given in the book of the so-called 'times' bears some investigation. And what of the teachings ? First things first. What does the book mean by troubled times? Only after the diagnosis can we evaluate the teaching.

This thesis offers a positive reinterpretation of the relevance of Isaiah Berlin’s political thought. It re-examines his work hermeneutically with the double aim of claiming its intrinsic relevance as a work of political theory beyond what most critics have acknowledged, first; and second, with the intention of using it to draw conclusions that will address some of the most pressing discussions found in contemporary liberal political theory, such as the conflicting link between value pluralism and liberalism, or the recent confrontation between political moralism and political realism. This is achieved by reading Berlin hermeneutically, and thus transcending the categorical differentiation between historical and philosophical methods in his work. The argument is presented in three sections. The first one is a biographical introduction that acts as a methodological statement. In it, the dilemma on the nature of values that sits at the heart of Berlin’s work is defined by reference to his biographical context. The second section of the thesis is formed by three chapters that look at the central philosophical aspects of Berlin’s political thought: value pluralism and a neo-Kantian normative ethical theory that emerges in relation to it. By claiming a relationship between Berlin and Kant, and by presenting value pluralism as a meta-ethical theory, the thesis offers an alternative reading of Berlin’s work that deviates substantively from most existing scholarship. The third section of the thesis compares Berlin’s political interpretation of value pluralism with that of Bernard Williams and John Rawls, in order to claim that liberal theory demands a hermeneutic method in its justification. This will show the enduring relevance of Berlin’s contribution to political theory as one that expands beyond his own historical moment, against what many commentators have argued. It also raises a strong claim on the crucial implications of method in political theory, calling for a more hermeneutic approach.

This ambitious and lively book argues for a rehabilitation of the concept of 'human needs' as central to politics and political theory. Contemporary political philosophy has focused on issues of justice and welfare to the exclusion of the important issues of political participation, democratic sovereignty, and the satisfaction of human needs, and this has had a deleterious effect on political practice. Lawrence Hamilton develops a compelling positive conception of human needs: the evaluation of needs must be located within a more general analysis of institutions, but can in turn help to justify forms of coercive authority that are directed toward the transformation of political and social institutions and practices. His argument is animated throughout by provocative and original discussions of topics such as autonomy, recognition, rights, civil society, liberalism and democracy, and will interest a wide range of readers in political and social philosophy, political theory, law, development and policy.

In recent decades, the concept of “the people” has received sustained theoretical attention. Unfortunately, political theorists have said very little about its explicit or implicit use in thinking about the expansion of the American polity along racial lines. The purpose of this article in taking up this issue is twofold: first, to provide a substantive account of the meaning of “the people”—what I call its descriptive and aspirational dimensions—and second, to use that description as a framework for understanding the rhetorical character of W.E.B. Du Bois's classic work,The Souls of Black Folk, and its relationship to what one might call the cognitive–affective dimension of judgment. In doing so, I argue that as a work of political theory,Soulsdraws a connection between rhetoric, on the one hand, and emotional states such as sympathy and shame, on the other, to enlarge America's political and ethical imagination regarding the status of African-Americans.

The scholarly debate over the causes of currency crises has reached an impasse with policy failure and market power approaches engaged in a deadlocked “tug-of-war.” In an effort to break this deadlock, this article builds and applies a social theory of currency crises drawing on work in political theory and the sociology of embedded business networks. It argues that changes in trust relations between state and market actors influence exchange relations by mediating how these actors assess risks. This approach differs from existing accounts in two fundamental ways. First, it takes an international political economy view to what has traditionally been seen as a domestic political economy issue. Second, it argues that currency relations are mediated by socially-constituted relations of trust, relations generally deemed epiphenomenal in mainstream theory. This “authority network” approach is then applied to the interwar gold standard crisis. The case study illustrates how variations in trust relations among networked actors produce distinct logics of economic exchange, influence state and market actor behavior and thereby produce episodes of currency stability, volatility and crisis that rationalist approaches struggle to explain.

ABSTRACTAccording to the Identity Thesis, sharing an identity tends to promote social cohesion. The article focuses on two aspects of social cohesion, namely trust and solidarity. It distinguishes between different versions of the Identity Thesis that differ regarding the causal efficacy attributed to specific values and the sharing of values, and with respect to the value sets that may be fed into the thesis (relying on work in political theory on nationalism, liberalism and multiculturalism). Having established the existence of different versions of the thesis, four different accounts of why shared identities could be expected to promote social cohesion are considered and assessed.

Hans Kelsen’s fundamental contributions to legal philosophy are accompanied by seminal work in political theory and on problems of constitutional law and public international law. There are also forays into anthropological speculation, important studies of classical philosophers, most notably Plato, and much more of interest along the way. It is in legal philosophy, however, that Kelsen made his mark. As early as 1934, the erudite Roscoe Pound wrote that Kelsen was ‘unquestionably the leading jurist of the time’ (Pound 1933–4: 532), and to this day many in jurisprudential circles endorse Pound’s assessment. Three phases of development in Kelsen’s theory can be distinguished: an early phase, ‘critical constructivism’ (1911–21); then the long, ‘classical’ or ‘Neo-Kantian’ phase (1921–60), including in the 1920s the formation, around Kelsen, of the Vienna School of Legal Theory; and, finally, the late, ‘sceptical’ phase (1960–73). The early phase is seen most clearly in Kelsen’s first major treatise, Hauptprobleme der Staatsrechtslehre (Kelsen 1911). One of Kelsen’s central aims in the early phase – but not just there – is to establish legal science as a ‘normative’ discipline, by which he understands a discipline that is addressed to normative material and whose statements are formulated in normative language. Toward this end, he attempts to ‘construct’ the fundamental concepts of the law, for, as he argues, to understand these concepts correctly is to understand them as peculiarly normative – and not, then, as amenable to expression in factual terms.

The editor ofPolitical Theory asked us to respond to the question, ‘What is political theory?’This question is as old as political theory or political philosophy. The activity of studying politics, whether it is called science, theory, or philosophy, always brings itself into question. The question does not ask for a single answer, for there are countlessways of studying politics and no universal criteria for adjudicating among them. Rather, the question asks, ‘What comparative difference does it make to study politics this way rather than that?’Political theory or philosophy not only spans three millennia of studying politics in innumerable ways but also threemillennia of dialogues among practitioners over various approaches, their relative merits, and the contestable criteria for their comparison. Because there is no definitive answer, there is no end to this dialogue. Rather, it is the kind of open-ended dialogue that brings insight through the activity of reciprocal elucidation itself. Dialogue partners gain insight into what ruling, being ruled, and contesting rule is through the exchange of questions and answers over different ways of studying politics and different criteria for their assessment in relation to how they throw light on different aspects of the complex worlds of politics—and what counts as the ‘different aspects of the complexworlds of politics’is also questioned in the course of the dialogue. With this horizon of the question inmind, Iwish to respond by introducing one amongmanyways of studying politics and to initiate its reciprocal eluci-

Freedom concept in the perspective of (Arendt)’s political philosophy and theory has a place and a special important, that in the way of (Arendt)’s thinking in political appearance’s Greece and Romanian ancient, criticism in the ancient philosophy about view, cristian philosophy, westerns philosophy custom, political theory and moderns phenomenon concerning freedom concept formalized. (Arendt)’s freedom passes the philosophical picture to freedom, all beliefs metaphisics about this concept are neglected, philosophical freedom as will freedom is pictured far from inner feeling in the political really world. In the opposite, (Arendt) sees action and speech as political freedom activity in the way individuals meeting in the public sphere is produced in the opposite problem and general issues. In this way, revolution as an arena, or public sphere in the doing politica freedom has crucial importance in the Arendt’s perspective, and in here political theory especially about American and French revolution has stood; in this way, the aim of this research is to answer and deal research main problem in the way of this question: what is the act of the revolution as arena in doing political freedom in Arendt political theory? We can to the conclution that revolution is like an arena in Arendt’s perspective, so new beginning foundation and public sphere of doing political freedom, which in it relation, discussion, and exchanging different opinion among equal individuals should provide, and participation of political citizenship afford in it.

The purpose of this article is to examine the assumption, encountered in some recent discussions of eighteenth-century English literary history and political and religious thought, that a belief in “natural law” is central to Samuel Johnson's political, social, and general moral thinking. In particular, one meets the assumption in the numerous recent attempts to demonstrate, first, that Edmund Burke's political thinking is based on this concept, and, second, that Johnson's political thinking was fundamentally that of Burke. The first of these propositions may be left for specialists in Burke to deal with; some of them have already dealt with it fairly unsympathetically. The second seems so paradoxical, in view of the amount of abuse Johnson and Burke are recorded to have hurled at each other's political attitudes — they appear never to have said a good word for each other's politics in their lives — that a formal answer to it hardly seems necessary. But quite apart from the nexus with Burke, the assumption raises some interesting and important questions, and deserves to be investigated.The most obvious reason for skepticism about the importance of the concept of “natural law” in Johnson's political thought is the simple one that in the fairly voluminous political writings of Johnson, extending over a large part of his life, the expressions “natural law,” “the laws of nature,” and the like almost never appear; and this is striking in an age when few writers managed to compose a pamphlet on political theory, or even on a question of practical politics, without dragging them in in some form.

A History of Political Theories, Recent Times: Essays on Contemporary Developments in Political Theory. Contributed by Students of the late William Archibald Dunning, Ph.D., Litt.D., LL.D., Lieber Professor of History and Political Philosophy in Columbia University. Edited by Charles Edward Merriam, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Political Science in the University of Chicago, and Harry Elmer Barnes, Ph.D., Professor of Historical Sociology in Smith College. (New York: Macmillan Company. 1924. Pp. xii, 597. $2.25) A History of Political Theories, Recent Times: Essays on Contemporary Developments in Political Theory. Contributed by Students of the late Dunning William Archibald, Ph.D., Litt.D., LL.D., Lieber Professor of History and Political Philosophy in Columbia University. Edited by Merriam Charles Edward, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Political Science in the University of Chicago, and Barnes Harry Elmer, Ph.D., Professor of Historical Sociology in Smith College. (New York: Macmillan Company. 1924. Pp. xii, 597. $2.25.) Raymond G. Gettell Raymond G. Gettell Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 30, Issue 3, April 1925, Pages 574–576, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/30.3.574 Published: 01 April 1925

The problem ofjustifying democracy arises when a society sees the need for cooperative, collective action. Collective action may be needed to solve coordination problems, public goods problems, Prisoner's Dilemmas, and other structural problems of human interaction or perhaps to realize common ideals of justice in concrete political institutions. Once the need for collective action is established, one must ask how the goals of a cooperative endeavor are to be secured. Cooperation requires that individuals, at least over a specified range of activity, pursue a joint strategy. To assure voluntary compliance in a joint venture, cooperation must be to each person's advantage. However, each person may have an incentive to induce others to cooperate and to defect from the joint strategy in the hope of enjoying the fruits of cooperation without incurring the opportunity costs of compliance. This is the essence of the Prisoner's Dilemma, and considerations of this sort suggest that if collective action is to succeed, policies or strategies formed collectively must be coercively enforceable. Coercion, however, requires justification. Because solving the problem of rational noncompliance requires that collective decisions be coercively enforceable, the rules by which collective decisions are reached require justification. Douglas Rae neatly puts the problem of justification that emerges when political solutions are coercively enforceable as follows: "Once a political community has decided which of its members are to participate directly in the making of collective policy, an important question remains: 'How many of them must agree before a policy is imposed on the community?"" This is essentially the question to which the principle of democratic rule provides an answer: by what process are collective decisions to be made? Answering Rae's question requires a normative framework. We could say that a procedure for making collective decisions is justified if and

A central distinction for Jonathan Floyd is that between the traditional method of pursuing political theory conducted by mainstream theorists, which he calls ‘mentalism’, and his suggested method, so-called ‘normative behaviourism’. While the former relies on patterns of thought (e.g. intuitions, value commitments, principles or considered judgements) to justify normative theories, the latter instead relies on patterns of behaviour. Floyd argues that normative behaviourism offers an alternative methodology to mainstream mentalism, a new – and better – way of doing political philosophy. Our aim in this article is to reject this claim: normative behaviourism does not offer an alternative methodology in political theory. First, we show that normative behaviourism, contrary to Floyd’s claim, is as dependent on value premises as mainstream, ‘mentalist’ political theory. Second, we illustrate the structural similarities between normative behaviourism and mainstream political theory from a methodological standpoint by comparing the former with an influential normative theory, namely, utilitarianism.

Ethics and the Orator: The Ciceronian Tradition of Political Morality