Figural Judaism and Political Thought in the Marquis d'Argens's Lettres juives

2019 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-380
Author(s):  
Catherine R. Power
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Philosophical Inquiry ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian Thought ◽  
Secular Politics

AbstractDespite its immense popularity at the time of publication in the 1730s, the marquis d'Argens's (Jean-Baptiste de Boyer) Lettres juives is largely overlooked by contemporary political theorists and the history of political thought. The Lettres’ contribution is noteworthy in its multilayered literary presentation incorporating many of the polemics and paradoxes of Enlightenment ideas. It is also significant as an early example of one way that post-Christian thought made use of imagined Jews and Judaism to articulate, debate, and popularize philosophical and political ideas. In this paper, I submit that d'Argens appropriated Christian figural Judaism in the service of secular philosophical inquiry. D'Argens's imagined “Jew in speech” proved to be a fertile ground upon which to conceptualize and debate post-Christian ideas about human nature and secular politics that subsequent diverse thinkers would make use of in the centuries that followed.

: Contextual and Non-Contextual Histories of Political Thought

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. J. Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Institutional History ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Intellectual ◽  
Post War

This chapter focuses on how the history of political ideas has been approached in the context of British political science. This has the consequence that the discussion ranges over commentators who are explicitly not historians. It claims that the current British approaches to the study of past political thought have domestic origins in the development of the study of politics in British Universities, especially Oxford, Cambridge, and LSE. The first section accounts for different approaches to the study of political ideas in British political science by examining conceptions of the history of political thought. It shows how institutional history is connected to the development of a genre, and how this history has not been dependent on the direct import of Continental or American intellectual fashions or personalities. The second section delineates the three main British approaches to the study of the history of political ideas in the post-war period.

Theory in Practice: Quentin Skinner's Hobbes, Reconsidered

2000 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 531-562 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Goodhart
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Proper Method ◽  
History Of ◽  
Specification And Implementation

Quentin Skinner's method for studying the history of political thought has been widely and heatedly debated for decades. This article takes a new tack, offering a critique of Skinner's approach on the grounds he has himself established: consideration of his historical work as exemplifying the theory in practice. Three central assumptions of Skinner's method are briefly reviewed; each is then evaluated in the context of his writings on Hobbes. The analysis reveals problems and ambiguities in the specification and implementation of the method and in its underlying philosophy. The essay concludes by examining the broader practical and philosophical implications of adopting this approach to the study of political ideas: the method operationalizes a set of philosophical commitments that transforms ideological choices into questions of proper method.

Introduction: when ideas travel: political theory, colonialism, and the history of ideas

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Burke A. Hendrix ◽  
Deborah Baumgold
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
The Political ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
History Of

Ideas travel. The history of political thought as it has generally been studied is deeply interested in these forms of travel and in the transformations that occur along the way. Ideas of a social contract first crystallize in the England of Hobbes and Locke, and then travel in branching ways to Jefferson’s North America, Robespierre’s France, Kant’s Prussia, and elsewhere. In their travels, these ideas hybridize with others, are repurposed in new social contexts, and often take on political meanings deeply divergent from what their originators intended. Students of the history of political thought are acutely aware of these complexities in the development of European political ideas during the early modern and modern eras, given the centrality of such ideas for shaping the political worlds in which we now live....

Włoscy utopiści epoki nowożytnej (Machiavelli, Botero, Campanella) w polskich badaniach naukowych XX i przełomu XX i XXI wieku

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (247) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Bielański
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Negative Influence ◽  
Niccolo Machiavelli ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Niccolò Machiavelli ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of ◽  
Utopian Thought ◽  
Modern Era

The author of the article analyzes the place and importance of the works of Italian utopiansfrom the modern era (such as Niccolò Machiavelli, Tommaso Campanella and Giovanni Botero)in Polish research from the range of the history of political thought from the 20th and the turnof 20th and 21st centuries. The first works dedicated to the aforementioned political thinkersfrom the 16th and 17th centuries by Bolesław Limanowski and Aleksander Świętochowski andthe publications from the interwar period were the starting point of the research. They werepresented much broader – also because of the appearance of the translations of the utopiansfrom the modern era in the 1940s and 1950s. Much interest – before 1956 – was attracted tothe concepts by Campanella, included in his famous work, City of the Sun. In the later times theimportant place in the Polish research on the history of Italian political thought was taken bythe content and expression of Niccolò Machiavelli, especially those fragments of The Prince,which show signs of utopian thought. Much interest was also brought to the works of GiovanniBotero, the author who was the first to use the term “reason of state” and who also proposedthe utopia of “universal monarchy”. The final part is dedicated to the reflections on theItalian utopians of the modern era (but also influencing the modern utopias and dystopias –for example Orwell) by such Polish researchers as e.g. Jerzy Szacki, Janusz Tazbir, LeszekKołakowski, Bohdan Szlachta, Marcin Król, Monika Brzóstowicz-Klajn or Andrzej Dróżdż. Inthe context of the reflections on the possible negative influence of the work of utopians, it isworth to remind the significant observation by J. Baszkiewicz, who thought that “politicalreflection is not always conducted innocently. Political ideas can bring socially beneficialeffects, but they also can become a cause for destructive actions and severe havoc”.Key words: Italian utopians of the Renaissance, history of political thought, state of scientificresearch

Fortescue and the Political Theory of dominium

1985 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 777-797 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. H. Burns
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Fundamental Concept ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Society ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
History Of

After more than five hundred years the political ideas of Sir John Fortescue (c. 1394–c. 1476) retain the potency which has ensured that they have seldom suffered total neglect, even if much of the interest they have aroused has been ideological in character. It was perhaps only in the 1930s that Fortescue first received appropriate attention in the context of the history of political thought; and the varied consideration devoted to him by scholars over the past quarter of a century suggests that the process of appraisal is by no means complete. Despite much discussion of Fortescue's basic political categories, it will be argued here, important dimensions of his thought have been fore-shortened – notably in regard to origins, basis, and character of political society as such. Again, some of the perspectives in which the fundamental concept of dominium has been presented may be misleading if they are applied to Fortescue's use of that concept without full recognition of his specific political purposes.

scholarly journals State Failure and Successful Leadership in Medieval India

2021 ◽  
pp. 025764302110019
Author(s):  
Vasileios Syros
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
State Failure ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Successful Leadership ◽  
History Of ◽  
Medieval India

State failure has been an enduring topic in the history of political thought. This article will revisit modern debates on the characteristics of state failure and the factors conducive to successful leadership by focusing on political ideas that evolved in fourteenth-century India. I will discuss two works with the same title, i.e., Tārīkh-i Fīrūz Shāhī ( The History of Fīrūz Shāh) of the distinguished historians of the Delhi Sultanate period Ziyā’ al-Dīn Baranī (ca. 1285–1357) and Shams Sirāj ‘Afīf (d. 1399) about Sultans Muḥammad b. Tughluq and (his successor) Fīrūz Shāh as instantiations of state failure and good governance, respectively. The deployment of the concept of state failure has often been construed as an effort to impose a political straitjacket; the examination of authors like Baranī and ‘Afīf demonstrates the value of reflecting on lessons from history and exploring how societies in the past evolved their own patterns of thinking about effective or failed leadership.

At genplacere den moderne stat - Guvernementalitet og de politiske idéers historie

2018 ◽  
pp. 59-88
Author(s):  
Martin Saar
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Michel Foucault ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Other ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Conceptual History ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
History Of

Michel Foucault never wrote very comprehensively about his method in regards to his approach to the history of political ideas and the emergence of the modern state, something he most explicitly tried to do in the two lectures which he himself termed ’a history of governmentality’, Security, Territory, Population (1977-78) and The Birth of Biopolitics (1978-79). This article treats these reflections as a ’methodological promise’ and seeks to reconstruct a Foucauldianapproach to the history of political ideas from the role Foucault himself believed the ’history of governmentality’ should play. Foucault’s approach proves to be a distinct way of studying the history of political ideas as an alternative to, and in some ways superior to, both the more traditional ways of doing the history of political ideas as well as newer attempts such as intellectual history and conceptual history. In the special way it looks at the history of political thought, Foucault’s approach can go much further than the other alternatives.

scholarly journals POLITIKOS MOKSLO ATSIRADIMO FILOSOFINĖS PRIELAIDOS

Problemos ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 79 ◽  
pp. 115-128
Author(s):  
Mindaugas Stoškus
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Political Science

Straipsnyje analizuojamos pagrindinės politikos mokslo atsiradimo prielaidos. Įprasta manyti, jog politikos mokslo gimimą iš esmės lėmė pozityvizmo filosofija. Šiame straipsnyje bandoma parodyti, kad tam tikros politikos mokslo prielaidos buvo suformuotos gerokai anksčiau. Klasikinės politikos sampratos atmetimas ir naujos, modernios politikos sampratos formavimasis, pastebimas jau Renesanso pasaulėjautoje, N. Machiavelli’o ir Th. Hobbeso politinėse teorijose, leido iškelti žmogaus ir politikos „konstruojamumo“ idėjas. Teigiama, jog moderni politikos samprata buvo viena iš būtinų politikos mokslo sąlygų. XVII a. mokslo revoliucija paskatino mąstytojus į filosofiją perkelti gamtos mokslų metodus. Gamtos mokslų metodais pakelti filosofiją į naują mokslinį lygmenį buvo vienas didžiausių daugelio Apšvietos filosofų tikslų. Taigi, kai pozityvistai prakalbo apie būtinybę sukurti naujus pozityvius mokslus apie žmogų ir visuomenę, intelektualiems pokyčiams jau buvo visiškai pasirengta.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: Renesansas, Apšvieta, pozityvizmas, Millis, Comte’as.Philosophical Presuppositions of the Emergence of Political ScienceMindaugas Stoškus SummaryThe paper deals with the main presuppositions of the emergence of political science. The aim is to show that the rupture in the history of political philosophy in the Renaissance, the refusal of the classical political thought about human nature as zoon politikon and about purpose of state, and the birth of modern political ideas about politics as mechanics, was conditio sine qua non for the emergence of the new political science. Main philosophers who initiated this rupture were N. Machiavelli and Th. Hobbes. The 17th century scientific revolution and Enlightenment helped to bring the methods of natural sciences into philosophy. All those ideas were fused together in Positivism which played a pivotal role in the emergence of Political science.Keywords: Renaissance, Enlightenment, positivism, Mill, Comte.

Citizens to Lords: A Social History of Western Political Thought From Antiquity to the Middle Ages

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 304-318
Author(s):  
Geoff Kennedy
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Recent Survey ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Marxist Approach ◽  
History Of ◽  
Specific Contribution

AbstractThis article seeks to contextualise Ellen Meiksins Wood’s recent survey of classical and medieval political thought within the context of some of the prevailing approaches to the history of political thought. After an initial elaboration of Wood’s ‘political-Marxist’ approach to issues of historical development and contextualisation, I emphasise what is significant about Wood’s specific contribution to the study of Greek, Roman and medieval political ideas in particular, as well as to the history of political thought in general.

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