Political philosophy versus history?
Subtitle: contextualism and real politics in contemporary political thought
By: edited by Jonathan Floyd and Marc Stears
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Cambridge; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 228
ISBN-13: 9780521197151
Subjects: Philosophy; Political science
Description: "Is the way in which political philosophy is conducted today too ahistorical? Does such ahistoricism render political philosophy too abstract? Is political philosophy thus incapable of dealing with the realities of political life? This volume brings together some of the world's leading political philosophers to address these crucial questions. The contributors focus especially on political philosophy's pretensions to universality and on its strained relationship with the world of real politics. Some chapters argue that political philosophers should not be cowed by the accusations levied against them from outside of their own field. Others insist that these accusations require a dramatic reshaping of normative political thought. The volume will spark controversy across political philosophy and beyond"--

"In this volume we carve out a new approach to the identity of political philosophy by exploring a problem that is central to such disciplinary soul-searching: the problem of political philosophy's relationship with history. We do this in part because, according to whether they describe their approach to political philosophy as analytic, continental, Rawlsian, post-Rawlsian, pluralist, realist, post-structural, or indeed, outright historical, political philosophers of different stripes tend, amongst other things, to hold very different positions on this relationship, and that is a very curious pattern. We also do it because, as evinced by the following chapters, reflecting upon the significance of history for political philosophy soon leads to a host of new insights about the nature of our subject"--
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: Introduction Jonathan Floyd and Marc Stears; 1. Rescuing political theory from the tyranny of history Paul Kelly; 2. From contextualism, to mentalism, to behaviourism Jonathan Floyd; 3. Contingency and judgement in history of political philosophy Bruce Haddock; 4. Political philosophy and the dead hand of its history Gordon Graham; 5. Politics, political theory, and its history Iain Hampsher-Monk; 6. Constraint, freedom, and exemplar Melissa Lane; 7. History and reality Andrew Sabl; 8. The new realism Bonnie Honig and Marc Stears; Afterword Jonathan Floyd.