Ideology and Tradition: An Epistemological View of Neoconservatism

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tibor Mándi
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Theoretical Point ◽  
American Political Thought ◽  
Political Performance ◽  
The Us ◽  
Michael Oakeshott

AbstractThe paper aims to give an account of the emergence of American neoconservatism, approaching its subject from a theoretical point of view. Its main thesis is that the defining difference between neoconservatism and older, more traditional kinds of conservatism can be found in their relation to political knowledge. While traditional conservatism completely rejects a rationalist-ideological approach to political knowledge, accepting only tradition as a guide to political action, neoconservatism holds that among the circumstances of modern politics, especially in the US, relying on abstract ideas and general principles in the form of an ideology is a prerequisite of effective political performance. Neoconservatives use the classical liberal tradition of American political thought to forge a modern ideology that can be employed in contemporary political battles. The first part of the paper gives an outline of the theoretical framework regarding the roles of tradition and ideology as rival forms of political knowledge, using the works of Michael Oakeshott and Friedrich Hayek as representatives of two related, but opposing positions. The second part sketches the basic character of neoconservatism through the writings of primarily Irving Kristol, focusing on his drawing a distinction between a tradition-minded British conservatism and a more ideological American neoconservatism. In this part, we briefly mention the influence of Leo Strauss on the development of neoconservative political thought in the US Finally, the paper proceeds to show the duality of idealism and realism (loosely corresponding to ideology and tradition) in American neoconservative foreign policy thought in the 1970s and 1980s through the writings of Jeane Kirkpatrick.

American Political Thought and the American Revolution

1952 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 321-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis Hartz
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
American Political Thought ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Democratic Revolution

“The great advantage of the American,” Tocqueville once wrote, “is that he has arrived at a state of democracy without having to endure a democratic revolution….” Fundamental as this insight is, we have not remembered Tocqueville for it, and the reason is rather difficult to explain. Perhaps it is because, fearing revolution in the present, we like to think of it in the past, and we are reluctant to concede that its romance has been missing from our lives. Perhaps it is because the plain evidence of the American revolution of 1776, especially the evidence of its social impact that our newer historians have collected, has made the comment of Tocqueville seem thoroughly enigmatic. But in the last analysis, of course, the question of its validity is a question of perspective. Tocqueville was writing with the great revolutions of Europe in mind, and from that point of view the outstanding thing about the American effort of 1776 was bound to be, not the freedom to which it led, but the established feudal structure it did not have to destroy. He was writing too, as no French liberal of the nineteenth century could fail to write, with the shattered hopes of the Enlightenment in mind. The American revolution had been one of the greatest of them all, a precedent constantly appealed to in 1793.

American Political Thought and the Study of Politics

1957 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert G. McCloskey
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Matthew Arnold ◽  
American Political Thought ◽  
Institutional Facts ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Theory Lead

The title of this essay poses not one vexing issue but two, and each of them sharply challenges the student of American political thought. The first might be called the common problem of political theory—the question of its relevance to the institutional facts of life. How, it is asked, can the analysis of political ideas help to illuminate our understanding of political action? Can theory lead us to a surer knowledge of why governments and electorates behave as they do? Can it help us to diagnose and prescribe? Or is the study of theory, on the contrary, justified simply on the ground that the words of Plato and Hobbes and Locke are part of what Matthew Arnold called culture: “the best that has been thought or known in the world”? This is, I take it, a problem universal among students of political thought, whether they choose America, Europe, or China as their realm; and it lends itself to no easy answers.

“ ’What’s Gone and What’s Past Help...’: Oakeshott and Strauss on Historical Explanation”

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-101
Author(s):  
Kenneth B. McIntyre
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Historical Understanding ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Historical Explanation ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Michael Oakeshott ◽  
Contemporary Practice

AbstractBecause of the public identification of both Michael Oakeshott and Leo Strauss as conservative political philosophers, there have been numerous comparisons of their political thought. Whatever similarities or differences that do exist between them, it is certainly true that they shared a keen interest in the history of political thought. However, they understood the character of history in widely divergent ways. In the following paper, I examine the way in which each writer understood the logic of historical explanation, and there are two primary reasons for wanting to do so. First, there have been few examinations of either writer’s arguments concerning historical understanding, despite the stature of both as historians of political theory. Second, the differences between Oakeshott and Strauss on history are central to two fundamentally opposed ways of understanding the past, each of which has manifested itself in the contemporary practice of the history of political thought. I will argue that Strauss’s approach to the past is primarily a practical one and yields a concern with a legendary or mythical past constructed primarily to address contemporary political problems, and that his specific methodological propositions are either irrelevant to a specifically historical understanding of the past or inadequately argued and unconvincing. Conversely, I will suggest that Oakeshott offers a coherent and compelling account of the logic of historical understanding, which involves both a defense of the autonomy of historical explanation and an elaboration of the character of historical contextualism.

Moral Order in the Western Tradition: Harry Jaffa's Grand Synthesis of Athens, Jerusalem, and Peoria

2009 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-206
Author(s):  
Robert P. Kraynak
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Moral Order ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Western Tradition ◽  
The West ◽  
American Political Thought ◽  
Natural Right

AbstractHarry V. Jaffa has inspired a generation of students in American political thought by defending the natural rights principles of the Declaration of Independence and of Abraham Lincoln. Jaffa is also a defender of Leo Strauss's idea of a “political science of natural right,” which Strauss drew primarily from classical Greek political philosophy. Jaffa's efforts to defend the several strands of the Western natural right tradition led him to develop a grand synthesis of “Athens, Jerusalem, and Peoria,” which I argue is a noble but untenable way of upholding the moral order of the West—and a departure from the intentions of Leo Strauss.

Antitrust and digital platforms in competition law: Apple Inc. v. Pepper case

2021 ◽  
pp. 52-59
Author(s):  
A. O. Maslov
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Competition Law ◽  
Product Market ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Theoretical Point ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
App Store ◽  
Geographic Boundaries ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Supreme Court

Digital platforms are getting more general because of growing the level of online commerce. As a result, courts and antimonopoly regulators around the entire world face with the issues of applying antitrust rules to digital platforms. And each time it raises a number of interesting questions from the practical and theoretical point of view. In antitrust cases it’s difficult to define the product and geographic boundaries of the market where digital platforms operate. In 2019 the US Supreme Court decide a case between a group of iPhone users and Apple Inc. iPhone users filed a lawsuit against Apple Inc. claiming that Apple had unlawfully monopolized market for the sale of apps by charging consumers higher than competitive prices. US Supreme Court’s judgment in Apple v Pepper is really crucial for competition law, indeed. During analyzing the case, the following questions arise. Whether the «App Store» is a digital platform or not? Whether the «App Store» is a product market or not? If the «App Store» is a product market, what way should we determine geographic boundaries of this market? However, US Supreme Court’s judgment in Apple v Pepper does not provide us with answers to these questions. Obviously, the court had good reasons for this. Let's analyze this judgment and try to find answers to the questions that the US Supreme Court left opened.

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