The Topian Tradition

On Borders ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 123-142
Author(s):  
Paulina Ochoa Espejo
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Local Economy ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Territorial Rights

Are there existing resources in the history of political thought to refocus current political relations to the environment? This chapter argues that parallel to the utopian idea of territorial rights, there is a Topian tradition that deals with the topographical and climatic conditions that make different forms of political organization possible. This tradition aims to discover the social qualities needed to sustain different types of governments, and how climate, topography, and local economy influence these traits. The tradition is characterized by its localism, context-sensitivity of principles, and realism. The chapter examines the arguments of four notable Topian thinkers: Montesquieu, Machiavelli, Rousseau, and Kant. Topian thinking can offer alternative ways of looking at problems of borders and border management that have become impasses in debates about territorial rights.

Conclusion—Rousseau’s paradox

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Social Democrat ◽  
The Social ◽  
Adequate Understanding ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter binds the book together, recapitulating its general argument, and offering pointers as to how the study relates to some contemporary questions of political theory. It suggests that a classification that distinguishes between Weber the ‘liberal’, Schmitt the ‘conservative’ and Neumann the ‘social democrat’, cannot provide an adequate understanding of this episode in the history of political thought. Nor indeed can it do so for other periods. In this book, one part of the development of their ideas has focused on the relationship between state and politics. By learning from their examples, people continue their own search for an acceptable balance between the freedom of the individual and the claims of the political community.

The Opinion of Mankind

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Sagar
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
David Hume ◽  
State Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of

What is the modern state? Conspicuously undertheorized in recent political theory, this question persistently animated the best minds of the Enlightenment. Recovering David Hume and Adam Smith's underappreciated contributions to the history of political thought, this book considers how, following Thomas Hobbes's epochal intervention in the mid-seventeenth century, subsequent thinkers grappled with explaining how the state came into being, what it fundamentally might be, and how it could claim rightful authority over those subject to its power. Hobbes has cast a long shadow over Western political thought, particularly regarding the theory of the state. This book shows how Hume and Smith, the two leading lights of the Scottish Enlightenment, forged an alternative way of thinking about the organization of modern politics. They did this in part by going back to the foundations: rejecting Hobbes's vision of human nature and his arguments about our capacity to form stable societies over time. In turn, this was harnessed to a deep reconceptualization of how to think philosophically about politics in a secular world. The result was an emphasis on the “opinion of mankind,” the necessary psychological basis of all political organization. Demonstrating how Hume and Smith broke away from Hobbesian state theory, the book suggests ways in which these thinkers might shape how we think about politics today, and in turn how we might construct better political theory.

3. Traditional Theories in Global Politics

2021 ◽  
pp. 49-75
Author(s):  
Stephanie Lawson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
International Society ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Moral Realism ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Social Character ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
The Social ◽  
Chinese School ◽  
History Of

This chapter examines traditional theories in global politics. Although much of the explicit theorizing about international politics did not begin until the twentieth century, both liberalism and realism have drawn on long-standing ideas in the history of political thought to address basic problems of international order. So too has the English School which, while encompassing aspects of both liberalism and realism, has focused much more attention on the social character of international or global relations, elaborating in particular the notion of international society and its normative underpinnings. While most theorizing has been carried out largely, but not exclusively, on the basis of Western philosophical ideas, a new Chinese school of moral realism draws from ancient Chinese thought. Ultimately, both liberalism and realism have been modified over the years with competing strands developing within them, so neither can be taken as a single body of theory.

scholarly journals Kilka uwag o kryzysie i potrzebie filozofii polityki

2013 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 151-177
Author(s):  
Michał R. Węsierski
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Cultural Background ◽  
Objective Knowledge ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Critical Studies ◽  
Unique Position ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Engineer

A philosopher of politics should not be a social engineer, even if he were to dabble in piecemeal engineering, in Popper’s sense; he should rather be a social surveyor, responsible for measuring a plot of land for development, for which politicians should in turn be responsible. That measured land is ordered by a system of philosophical notions and critical studies, together with comments on the history of political thought. One of the outcomes of a philosopher’s work should be an ordered thought, i.e. objective knowledge that includes genesis and evolution of philosophical notions, relationships between ideas, and presentation of the cultural background, from which those ideas originated. In this reconstruction work a philosopher of politics needs to move in between the allowed boundaries of the text under analysis. A philosopher does what others cannot do due to the separation of exact sciences from philosophy. Therefore, a philosopher is not beyond scientific inquiries; he can use them as confidently as representatives of those sciences. It can be argued that a philosopher has a unique position in the social life of every group.

Medieval urban history and the history of political thought

Urban History ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 14-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Urban History ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Cloud Of Unknowing ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Urban Institutions

One of the problems of urban history is the fearsome range of expertise that the urban historian is supposed to appreciate, if not master. Belaboured, rightly, by archaeologists, geographers, and architectural historians, we have begun to open our eyes to the evidence of the physical environment of medieval towns, but that is not the half of it. In order to understand urban institutions one needs to be a religious historian, an economic historian, a legal historian; and if one were ever to make sense of everything that is included in the ‘social history’ of towns, then social anthropology, historical demography, and sociology are only three of the battery of foglamps that would be needed to penetrate our cloud of unknowing. The subject which I now wish to add to the list of those we are supposed to cover does not even have the attraction of sounding new and modish and exciting. The history of political thought has, after all, formed a part of undergraduate history courses in this country ever since they began, and it is traditionally one of the least popular and least satisfactory parts of them, especially for the sort of students who may go on to be interested in urban history: those who relish the exact, the local detail, the reality of topography, the ability to connect the documents of the past with visible phenomena in the present.

scholarly journals L’Indonésie : Interactions et conflits idéologiques avant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale

2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-61
Author(s):  
Modj-ta-ba Sadria
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
Nationalist Movement ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Islamic Movements ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Islamic Parties

Since the dawn of the 20th century, three ideologies have been constantly interacting in the Indonesian society, namely Islam, Marxism, and nationalism. Each has played a striking role in the evolution of the movement for independence - which led to independence in 1945. And today each of them wonders to what extent it has been responsible for the coup d'État by General Suharto in 1965. Since in the current situation, the relations which exist between these three trends of thought, in many respects, are reminiscent of those which prevailed during the interwar years, a study of that period may shed new light on an important moment of the history of political thought in Indonesia. The question of relations between Islamic, nationalist, and Marxist thought is a prevalent issue in a country where a population of Muslim creed is held in subordination, and where there exist s an important leftist intellectual movement, with or without a significant working class. Through the history of the anti-Dutch nationalist movements, through the rise of various Islamic movements (Pan-Islamism, the moderen, the "laity") and that of the Islamic parties linked to them (Sarekat Dagang Islam, Sarekat Islam), through the expansion of the social-democratic, socialist and communist parties (ISDU - Indian Social Democratic Union ; PKI - Perserikaten Kommunist de India ; Sarekat Rakjat - People's Association), and finally, through Sukarno's efforts to conciliate all these movements with a view to independence, an attempt is made to show that, in the evolution of the nationalist movement in Indonesia, there are two inherent elements, namely the socialist ideology and Islam. In the light of the case of Indonesia, it is therefore tempting to consider religion and politics as being symbiotic ideologies.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document