scholarly journals REVISITING POLITICAL THEORY: BEYOND EXCESSIVE EMPIRICISM AND EXTREME NORMATIVISM

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 47-55
Author(s):  
Kunal Debnath ◽  
Souvik Chatterjee
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Normative Framework ◽  
The Moment

In this paper we attempt to find an answer to the question – how can we revisit political theory? This question may seem apparently simple, but the moment one start exploring, the incongruities and complexities of politics make the undertaking question highly toilsome. It is impossible to completely reject the normative framework in political analyses as far as it deals with the human society. On the other side, the age of post-truth politics also creates a difficulty to find out the objective facts and truth. So rather than arguing which method of politics is more efficient to deal with the uncertainties of human political life today, we attempt to visualize politics from a new understanding i.e., politics as absence of general agreement beyond excessive empiricism and extreme normativism. It is the antagonistic nature of human beings what keep ‘the political’ alive, and constitute the factual practices known as ‘politics’.

The avant-garde’s visual arts in the context of Santayana’s idea of vital liberty

Human Affairs ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Skowroński
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Universe

AbstractIn the present paper, the author looks at the political dimension of some trends in the visual arts within twentieth-century avant-garde groups (cubism, expressionism, fauvism, Dada, abstractionism, surrealism) through George Santayana’s idea of vital liberty. Santayana accused the avant-gardists of social and political escapism, and of becoming unintentionally involved in secondary issues. In his view, the emphasis they placed on the medium (or diverse media) and on treating it as an aim in itself, not, as it should be, as a transmitter through which a stimulating relationship with the environment can be had, was accompanied by a focus on fragments of life and on parts of existence, and, on the other hand, by a de facto rejection of ontology and cosmology as being crucial to understanding life and the place of human beings in the universe. The avant-gardists became involved in political life by responding excessively to the events of the time, instead of to the everlasting problems that are the human lot.

scholarly journals Aristotelianism and African Political Predicament: New Implications and Imperatives

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 148
Author(s):  
Elijah Okon John ◽  
Joseph Ajuluchukwu Uka
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Political Theories

<p><em>Aristotle’s socio-political theory emphasizes the belief that human beings are naturally political. Aristotelian ideals that the political life of a free citizen is a sovereign state which provides for the well-being of the citizenry is the highest form of life. Thus, his idea of free citizenship immediately introduces the concept of limitations between citizens—the free and the not free, the masters and the slave. The consequence of his political theory is the introduction of inequality among the members of the society but the question is: was Aristotle right in justifying social inequality? The answer to it embodies the major issues of this work. How we can evaluate Aristotle’s positive and negative socio-political theories is one of the concerns of this paper. Effort will be made to critically explicate the good aspects of his theory as well as drawing a synthesis from the critique of the condemnable aspects of Aristotle’s political philosophy in fashioning out a formidable route for African political leaders.</em><em></em></p>

The Juristic Theories of Krabbe

1926 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-523 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. W. Willoughby
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Public Law ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Private Interests ◽  
Objective Fact ◽  
The University

The doctrines of H. Krabbe, professor of public law in the University of Leyden, are to be found in his Die Lehre der Rechtessouveränität, published in 1906, and his Die moderne Staatsidee, the second edition of which appeared in 1919.The political theory of Krabbe resembles that of Duguit in that it denies law-making power to the state, and recognizes law (as defined by himself) as the ruling power in human society, as sovereign, and, therefore, as above the state. However, as will presently be seen, Krabbe places the state upon a much higher plane than does Duguit. To Duguit, political rulership is nothing more than the bald fact that, in a given community certain persons, for some reason or other, possess and exercise, actual power of control over the actions of the other persons of a group. It is, as it were, an objective fact which cannot, and need not be, ethically justified. To Krabbe, upon the other hand, the state is, in essence, a community of persons unified by the general agreement of its members as to the valuation of public and private interests, and possessing organized instrumentalities for clarifying and formulating these common convictions, and, when necessary, enforcing them. To Krabbe, the state thus plays a necessary part in the declaration and enforcement of law, if not in investing it with essential validity as such.We find, however, in Krabbe, and also in his translators, as will be later pointed out, that same mistaken idea which is to be discovered in Duguit, that an inquiry into the idealistic or utilitarian validity of law, as determined by its substantive provisions and the purposes sought to be achieved by its enforcement, has a relevancy to, and that its conclusions can affect, the validity and usefulness of the purely formalistic concepts which the positive or analytical jurist employs.

scholarly journals The Military Coups in Shadow of Democratization (A Comparative Study of Turkey and Mauritania)

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
EkramBadr El-din ◽  
Mohamed Dit Dah Ould Cheikh
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Democratic Transition ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Military Establishment ◽  
Descriptive Approach ◽  
The Military

The current study tries to examine the military coups that have occurred in Turkey and Mauritania. These coups differ from the other coups that occurred in the surrounding countries in the phase of democratization as these coups served as a hindrance to the process of democratization in Turkey and Mauritania. The problem of the study revolves around the analysis of the coups that happened in Turkey and Mauritania in the phase of democratic transition. The research is designed to answer the following question: what are the reasons that prompted the military establishment to intervene in political life in the shadow of the process of democratization in Turkey and Mauritania? The study aims at understanding reasons that pushed the military establishment to intervene in the political life. To discuss this phenomenon and achieve the required results, the analytical descriptive approach is adopted for concluding key results that may contribute to understand reasons that pushed the military establishment to intervene in the political life in Turkey and Mauritania in the aftermath democratization occurred in the two countries. The study concluded that the military establishment in both countries engaged in the political action and became ready to militarily intervene in the case of harming its interests and acquisitions. 

scholarly journals Historia rozwoju Republiki Rzymskiej według Polibiusza

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-93
Author(s):  
Anna Ceglarska ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Roman Republic ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
The State ◽  
Mixed System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Mutual Relation ◽  
Perfect System ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Moment

History of the rise of the Roman Republic as described by Polybius The aim of this article is to refer Polybius’s political theory, included in Book VI of The Histories, to the history of the rise of the Roman Republic. This theme must have been particularly significant for Polybius. For him, Rome was the most perfect example of a mixed government system, and the aim of describing its history was to show the development of this perfect system. The article presents the mutual relation of theory and history, starting with the period of kingship, up to the emergence of the democratic element, i.e. the moment when Rome acquired the mixed system of government. Both the political and social contexts of the changes are outlined. The analysis suggests that Polybius related his political theory to the history of the state he admired, thus providing the theory with actual foundations. Reconstructing his analysis makes it possible to see the history of Rome in a different light, and to ponder the system itself and its decline, even though the main objective of both Polybius and this article is to present its development.

WHAT “REALISTIC UTOPIAS” ARE — AND AREN’T

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 235-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Galston
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Just Society

Abstract:Political theory is not a purely theoretical enterprise; it is intended to be practical and action-guiding. To perform this role, the requirements of political theory must be possible, and the standard of possibility it employs must be appropriate to the political domain. Because human beings vary in their capacity for morality and justice, a reasonably just society, as Rawls understands it, must not be expected. Despite his concerns to the contrary, the possibility of a just polity is not needed to ward off resignation and cynicism. There is a principled path between a politics of complacency that thwarts feasible progress and a politics of utopian aspiration that ends by inflicting harm in the name of doing good.

Sweden is Increasingly Loosing its Peculiarity (On Elections of 2010)

2011 ◽  
pp. 46-56
Author(s):  
I. Grishin
Keyword(s):  
Social Development ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Development Model ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Development Model ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Political Force ◽  
Left And Right

The article analyses results of Swedish parliamentary elections in September 2010. The author regards them as another manifestation of the fact that Sweden is losing peculiarity of its social development model. This is a result of the end of an era of two-block party structure of the Riksdag (left and right centers) and of the domination of Social Democrats in the political life of the country. The new third political force – the party of Swedish Democrats which strongly opposes the other culture immigration – is detail regarded.

Humans, Jews, and the Other Others

Other Others ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Sergey Dolgopolski
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Paradigm Shifts ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Political Ontology ◽  
Dynamic Key

The “Introduction” formulates the question of the political, and in particular of the emergence and erasure of the political from the horizon of currently predominant political thought in political theology and political ontology. The “Introduction” further attunes the readers to the dynamic key of “effacement” as both emergence and erasure, thereby defining the main register in which the book is proceeding -- as distinct from the keys of chronological periodisation, linear history, paradigm shifts, or other stabilizing approaches. The “Introduction” further draws a distinction between politics and the political, and advances the question of the political in relation to the Talmud as both a text and a discipline of thinking able to shed a new, contrasting, light on the paradox driven modern political notions of a singularizing and even singling out notion of a “Jew,” and a universalizing notion of the “human being.” The “Introduction” concludes by gesturing towards a much closer connection between the question of the political in the Talmud, the notions of the Jews and of the human beings in modernity, and the question of earth and territory as a part of political equation these concepts spell out.

Shared Life and Politics

2020 ◽  
pp. 86-128
Author(s):  
Sara Brill
Keyword(s):  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Comprehensive Understanding

This chapter tracks the role of shared life in Aristotle’s account of the political bond, including its formation, maintenance, and the factors that bring about its dissolution. Here suzēn forms a spectrum, from the familial bond of those who cannot live without one another to the reciprocal affection of chosen friends, and includes both the impulse to live together that exists by merit of the kind of animal the human is (a political animal) and the exercise of the capacity for choice when it is directed to other human beings. Its inclusion of both human impulse and choice indicates that a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of shared life requires one to locate human political life within the context of Aristotle’s broader study of political animality.

Political Theory and Political Economy

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen L. Elkin
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Distribution Of Wealth ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The Core ◽  
Democratic Societies

This article describes the connection between political theory and political economy. It argues that political theorists need to take account of political economy in theorizing about the contemporary world because capitalism is the most powerful force at work in shaping the modern sociopolitical world. It also explains that economic questions concerning economic growth, the distribution of wealth and income, and role of markets are at the core of the political life in democratic societies.

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