scholarly journals What Are We Doing When We Are Doing Democratic Theory?

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 12-26
Author(s):  
Dannica Fleuß ◽  
Gary S. Schaal
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Feedback Loops ◽  
Scholarly Activity ◽  
Dynamic Approach ◽  
The Core ◽  
The One ◽  
Induced Changes ◽  
Core Features

The article analyzes the (often implicit) understanding of democratic theory that is presupposed by scholars who engage in this practice and provides an answer to the question: “What are we doing when we are doing democratic theory?” We flesh out the core features of this scholarly activity by relating it to and differentiating it from assessments made from the perspective of political philosophy and political science. We argue that democratic theory aims at proposing institutional devices that are (a) problem-solving approaches and (b) embodiments of normative principles. This two-faced structure requires democratic theorists to engage in feedback loops with political philosophy on the one hand and empirical political science on the other. This implies that democratic theorists must adopt a dynamic approach: democratic theories must “fit” societal circumstances. In consequence, they must be adapted in case of fundamental societal transformations. We exemplify this dynamic character by referring to digitalization-induced changes in democratic societies and their implications for democratic theorists’ practice.

The Concept of Manipulation: Its Relation to Democracy and Power

1981 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Ware
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Public Agencies ◽  
Central Importance ◽  
Control Family

The aim of this paper is to explicate the concept of manipulation, to show why it is of central importance in democratic theory, and to explain its relation to power. At first glance this might seem an unusual objective, since it remains one of the least studied of the concepts that are usually recognized as members of the power or control ‘family’. Yet allegations of the existence of manipulative practices, and demands for intervention by public agencies to prevent them, are commonplace in political life. Political science and political philosophy have contributed little to the understanding of how, for example, the following four claims about manipulation are to be evaluated.

Political Theory and the Study of Politics: A Report of a Conference

1956 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 475-487 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry Eckstein
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sharp Distinction ◽  
Basic Issue ◽  
Political Inquiry ◽  
The One

The issues which arose during the discussions of the conference fall fairly conveniently into three compartments.First, we obviously had to settle, with reasonable clarity, what we were talking about: what “political philosophy” is, what “political science” is, and whether they are really distinguishable. The basic issue of the conference was to determine the relevance of the one to the study of the other, and if we had decided that they were really the same thing, there would simply have been no problems for us to discuss. On the whole, we felt that a valid, if not necessarily sharp, distinction was to be made between the “philosophical” and the “scientific” approaches to the study of politics and that we were not discussing absurd or tautological issues. We agreed, however, that all types of political inquiry involve the construction of theory, implicit or explicit, and that the title “political theory” has been unjustifiably appropriated by the historians of political thought.

scholarly journals On the Syllogistic of G. Boole

Discourse ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-15
Author(s):  
Yu. Yu. Chernoskutov
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Analysis ◽  
Original Work ◽  
The Other ◽  
History Of Logic ◽  
Symbolic Algebra ◽  
The Core ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Core Features

Introduction. This article focuses on the investigation of Boole’s theory of categorical syllogism, exposed in his book “The Mathematical analysis of Logic”. That part of Boolean legacy has been neglected in the prevailed investigations on the history of logic; the latter provides the novelty of the work presented.Methodology and sources. The formal reconstruction of the methods of algebraic presentation of categorical syllogism, as it is exposed in the original work of Boole, is conducted. The character of Boolean methods is investigated in the interconnections with the principles of symbolic algebra on the one hand, and with the principles of signification, taken from R. Whately, on the other hand. The approaches to signification, grounding the syllogistic theories of Boole and Brentano, are analyzed in comparison, wherefrom we explain the reasons why the results of those theories are different so much.Results and discussion. It is demonstrated here that Boole has borrowed the principles of signification from the Whately’s book “The Elements of Logic”. The interpreting the content of the terms as classes, being combined with methods of symbolic algebra, has determined the core features of Boolean syllogism theory and its unexpected results. In contrast to Whately, Boole conduct the approach to ultimate ends, overcoming the restrictions imposed by Aristotelean doctrine. In particular, he neglects the distinction of subject and predicate among the terms of proposition, the order of premises, and provide the possibility to draw conclusions with negative terms. At the same time Boole missed that the forms of inference, parallel to Bramantip and Fresison, are legitimate forms in his system. In spite of the apparent affinities between the Boolean and Brentanian theories of judgment, the syllogistics of Boole appeared to be more flexible. The drawing of particular conclusion from universal premises is allowable in Boolean theory, but not in Brentanian one; besides, in his theory is allowable the drawing of conclusion from two negative premises, which is prohibited in Aristotelian syllogistic.Conclusion. Boole consistently interpreted signification of terms as classes; being combine with methods symbolic algebra it led to very flexible syllogism theory with rich results.

The History of Political Thought: A Very Short Introduction

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Whatmore
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cambridge School

‘A History of Political Thought: A Very Short Introduction’ explores the core concerns and questions in the history of political thought, considering the field as a branch of political philosophy and political science. The approaches of core theorists, such as Reinhart Koselleck, Leo Strauss, Michel Foucault, and the so-called Cambridge School of Quentin Skinner and John Pocock are important to this topic. There is ongoing relevance for current politics which can be seen by assessing the current relationship between political history, theory, and action. There are some areas of political thinking that tend to draw on history because of the comparisons and contrasts that the past can offer to contemporary dilemmas.

scholarly journals Dwa oblicza stanu wyjątkowego w filozofii Giorgia Agambena

Politeja ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2(59)) ◽  
pp. 233-253
Author(s):  
Piotr Sawczyński
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
Sovereign Power ◽  
Dual Nature ◽  
Legal Violence ◽  
The Core ◽  
The One

Two Faces of the State of Exception in Giorgio Agamben’s Political Philosophy The aim of the article is to analyze Giorgio Agamben’s theory of the state of exception. His controversial argument is that contemporary law functions according to the logic of exception, which is its inner matrix. In Agamben’s view, the state of exception is highly ambivalent: on the one hand, it is responsible for turning law into the domain of sovereign power; on the other, it has a potential of deactivating legal violence and thinking of law beyond power relations. To explicate the dual nature of this political and legal phenomenon, I scrutinize the mechanism of inclusive exclusion, considered by Agamben as the core of the state of exception. I further critically examine Agamben’s theory against the background of the messianic turn in today’s humanities and hypothesize that he predominantly reads the state of exception as a messianic concept which promises structural transformation of law. To show what this transformation might look like, I refer to the tradition of Jewish messianism which is a primary source of inspiration for Agamben’s critical theory.

scholarly journals What is “Restrained” by the katechon? The Finitude of the State in Conservative and Socialist Thought

2021 ◽  
Vol V (2) ◽  
pp. 13-33
Author(s):  
Ilya Budraitskis
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Core ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The One ◽  
End Times ◽  
Marxist Concept ◽  
Imperial State

The concept of katechon (“that which withholds”), essential to both the theological tradition and modern political philosophy, originates in Second Thessalonians by Paul the Apostle. This withholding force which resists the coming of the end times has often been identified with the Roman Empire (and later with the Christian imperial state), the latter seen as a protected space that enabled the spread of the Good Tidings. This mission of containment, on the one hand, endowed the state with a sacred character, but on the other, it marked the state's finitude and imperfection. By withholding time, the katechon does not remove but preserves contradictions and heterogeneity, accepting its incompleteness as the burden of its own mission. In its secularized form, the restraining state conceives of society as an antagonistic space of struggle and conflict, and the function of political power is linked to the establishment of a temporal equilibrium with historically contingent and relative forms. In conservative thought, the katechon state guards society from unifying equality and rationalization, and individuals from the illusion of perfection and moral harmony. The understanding of the state as a force that rises above the disparate elements of society and preserves it against its inherent chaos was also at the core of the Marxist concept of the state. This article, based on a wide range of authors (T. Hobbes, K. Marx, K. Schmitt, K. Leontiev, D. Agamben) will consider conservative and leftist interpretations of the state, which accept and develop the idea of katechon and its interpretations not directly connected with the concept of state power.

A Note on the Idea of the Moral Economy

1993 ◽  
Vol 87 (4) ◽  
pp. 949-954 ◽  
Author(s):  
William James Booth
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
Research Note ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Economic Approach ◽  
The Core ◽  
Moral Economic

In their research note Robert Bates and Amy Curry (1992) have drawn our attention to the importance for political science of the challenges posed by the moral economic approach. Using their essay as a springboard and recasting their understanding of the idea of the moral economy, I show that the full significance of this controversy would be better illuminated by moving the debate on to a different terrain, one that captures the fundamental sources of the antagonism between the moral economic and competing approaches. I begin by setting out the central difficulty in Bates and Curry's reading of the moral economy argument and relate that to how the controversy has been framed in the recent political science literature. I then offer a sketch of the core claims of the moral economic approach, drawing out the radicalness of their challenge, and offer an estimate of their weaknesses and value. I conclude with some observations about political philosophy and the idea of the moral economy.

The Salvage of Ideas: Schumpeter and the Core Problems Still Confronting Economics

2003 ◽  
pp. 15-26
Author(s):  
P. Wynarczyk
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
The Core ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

Two aspects of Schumpeter' legacy are analyzed in the article. On the one hand, he can be viewed as the custodian of the neoclassical harvest supplementing to its stock of inherited knowledge. On the other hand, the innovative character of his works is emphasized that allows to consider him a proponent of hetherodoxy. It is stressed that Schumpeter's revolutionary challenge can lead to radical changes in modern economics.

AFRICAN WOMEN AND FORBIDDEN GROUNDS: FEMALE SEXUALITY AND SELF-DETERMINATION IN AFRICAN LITERATURE

Imbizo ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-54
Author(s):  
Oyeh O. Otu
Keyword(s):  
Female Sexuality ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
African Literature ◽  
The Other ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
African Women ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Sexual Repression

This article examines how female conditioning and sexual repression affect the woman’s sense of self, womanhood, identity and her place in society. It argues that the woman’s body is at the core of the many sites of gender struggles/ politics. Accordingly, the woman’s body must be decolonised for her to attain true emancipation. On the one hand, this study identifies the grave consequences of sexual repression, how it robs women of their freedom to choose whom to love or marry, the freedom to seek legal redress against sexual abuse and terror, and how it hinders their quest for self-determination. On the other hand, it underscores the need to give women sexual freedom that must be respected and enforced by law for the overall good of society.

Making it abstract, making it contestable: Gender/sex as a politicized concept

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Mazzuca ◽  
Matteo Santarelli
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Biological Feature ◽  
Dynamic Approach ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Cultural Construct ◽  
Science Framework ◽  
The One

The concept of gender has been the battleground of scientific and political speculations for a long time. On the one hand, some accounts contended that gender is a biological feature, while on the other hand some scholars maintained that gender is a socio-cultural construct (e.g., Butler, 1990; Risman, 2004). Some of the questions that animated the debate on gender over history are: how many genders are there? Is gender rooted in our biological asset? Are gender and sex the same thing? All of these questions entwine one more crucial, and often overlooked interrogative. How is it possible for a concept to be the purview of so many disagreements and conceptual redefinitions? The question that this paper addresses is therefore not which specific account of gender is preferable. Rather, the main question we will address is how and why is even possible to disagree on how gender should be considered. To provide partial answers to these questions, we suggest that gender/sex (van Anders, 2015; Fausto-Sterling, 2019) is an illustrative example of politicized concepts. We show that no concepts are political in themselves; instead, some concepts are subjected to a process involving a progressive detachment from their supposed concrete referent (i.e., abstractness), a tension to generalizability (i.e., abstraction), a partial indeterminacy (i.e., vagueness), and the possibility of being contested (i.e., contestability). All of these features differentially contribute to what we call the politicization of a concept. In short, we will claim that in order to politicize a concept, a possible strategy is to evidence its more abstract facets, without denying its more embodied and perceptual components (Borghi et al., 2019). So, we will first outline how gender has been treated in psychological and philosophical discussions, to evidence its essentially contestable character thereby showing how it became a politicized concept. Then we will review some of the most influential accounts of political concepts, arguing that currently they need to be integrated with more sophisticated distinctions (e.g., Koselleck, 2004). The notions gained from the analyses of some of the most important accounts of political concepts in social sciences and philosophy will allow us to implement a more dynamic approach to political concepts. Specifically, when translated into the cognitive science framework, these reflections will help us clarifying some crucial aspects of the nature of politicized concepts. Bridging together social and cognitive sciences, we will show how politicized concepts are abstract concepts, or better abstract conceptualizations.

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