Politics, political theory and its history

doi:10.1017/CBO9781139003698.006

5 - Politics, political theory and its history

from Part II - The challenge of realism

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012

Iain Hampsher-Monk

Edited by

Jonathan Floyd and

Marc Stears

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Iain Hampsher-Monk: Affiliation:
University of Exeter
Jonathan Floyd: Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Marc Stears: Affiliation:
University of Oxford

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Summary

This chapter seeks to reflect on the differences and relationships between political philosophy, the history of political thought, and the conduct of politics itself. It seeks to sketch out political discourse as a kind of force field constituted by three nodes, identified by three idealised intellectual practices: History, Philosophy and Rhetoric. The kinds of intellectual enterprises that we conduct in the field of politics are characterised by blends of these, inasmuch as perhaps no one ever entirely succeeds in emancipation from the other of these categories. Yet each enterprise has its own distinctive properties, an understanding of which is important to understand their proper and effective conduct.

If we take the study, or writing, of the history of political thought (hereafter HPT) to be a historical exercise, and theorising about politics (hereafter PP) to be a philosophical one, then the relationship between the two becomes an instance or exemplification of the distinction between history and philosophy.

Type: Chapter
Information: Political Philosophy versus History?
Contextualism and Real Politics in Contemporary Political Thought
, pp. 105 - 127

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139003698.006 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2011

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5 - Politics, political theory and its history

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