Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T07:58:43.641Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Aristotle and the Recovery of Political Judgment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Richard S. Ruderman
Richard S. Ruderman*
Affiliation:
University of North Texas
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Renewed interest in the concept of political judgment—a mode of reasoning that steers a middle way between abstract, technical reasoning and willful self-assertion—frequently takes the form of a return, qualified in various ways, to Aristotle's concept of phronesis or prudence. I examine this renaissance of interest in Aristotelian prudence through a study of the works of several leading democratic theorists and Aristotle scholars and conclude that they stop short of some of the very elements of Aristotle's thought that can assist us in promoting prudence. In particular, I try to show that these contemporary advocates of political judgment undermine the case for political science (Aristotle's primary concern) and thereby risk losing the independent judgment that Aristotelian political science supports. They fail to give sufficient weight to Aristotle's claim that phronesis, while distinguishable from scientific reason or philosophy, functions best even as a practical science when it accepts certain of philosophy's guiding insights.

Type
Forum
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 91 , Issue 2 , June 1997 , pp. 409 - 420
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aristotle, . 1975. Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. Apostle, Hippocrates. Grinnell, IA: Peripatetic Press.Google Scholar
Aristotle, . 1984. The Politics. Trans. Lord, Carnes. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Larry, Arnhart. 1981. Aristotle on Political Reasoning. De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Larry, Arnhart. 1995. “The New Darwinian Naturalism in Political Science.” American Political Science Review 89(06):389–400.Google Scholar
Barber, Benjamin 1984. Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Barber, Benjamin 1986. “The Compromised Republic: Public Purposelessness in America.” In The Moral Foundations of the American Republic, ed. Horwitz, Robert H.. 3d ed. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.Google Scholar
Barber, Benjamin 1988. The Conquest of Politics: Liberal Philosophy in Democratic Times. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Barber, Benjamin 1989. “Liberal Democracy and the Costs of Consent.” In Liberalism and the Moral Life, ed. Rosenblum, Nancy L.. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Barber, Benjamin 1992. An Aristocracy of Everyone. New York: Ballantine Books.Google Scholar
Bartlett, Robert 1994a. “The Realism of Classical Political Science.” American Journal of Political Science 38(05):381–402.Google Scholar
Bartlett, Robert 1994b. “Aristotle's Science of the Best Regime.” American Political Science Review 88(03):143–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beiner, Ronald. 1983. Political Judgment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Beiner, Ronald. 1989. “Do We Need a Philosophical Ethics? Theory, Prudence, and the Primacy of Ethos.” The Philosophical Forum 20(Spring):230–43.Google Scholar
Beiner, Ronald. 1990. “The Liberal Regime.” Chicago-Kent Law Review 66(1):73–92.Google Scholar
Beiner, Ronald. 1992. What's the Matter With Liberalism? Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Beiner, Ronald. 1994. “Review of Peter J. Steinberger's The Concept of Political Judgment.” Political Theory 22(11):688–93.Google Scholar
Berlin, Isaiah. 1996. “On Political Judgment.” The New York Review of Books 43(October 3):26–30.Google Scholar
Bickford, Susan. 1996. “Beyond Friendship: Aristotle on Conflict, Deliberation, and Attention.” Journal of Politics 58(05):398–421.Google Scholar
Fichte, Johann Gottlieb. 1814. Politische Fragmente aus den Jahren 1807 und 1813.Google Scholar
Glendon, Mary Ann. 1991. Rights Talk. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Thomas, Hobbes. [1651] 1968. Leviathan, ed. Macpherson, C.B.. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Masters, Roger 1989. The Nature of Politics. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Newell, W.R. 1991. “Superlative Virtue: The Problem of Monarchy in Aristotle's Politics.” In Essays on the Foundations of Aristotelian Political Science, ed. Lord, Carnes and O'Conner, David K.. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Nichols, Mary 1987. “Aristotle's Defense of Rhetoric.” Journal of Politics 49(08): 657–77.Google Scholar
Nichols, Mary 1992. Citizens and Statesmen: A Study of Aristotle's Politics. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Martha, Nussbaum. 1994. The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Michael, Oakeshott. 1975. On Human Conduct. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Michael, Oakeshott. 1985. Experience and Its Modes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Plutarch, , n.d. The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans. New York: Modern Library.Google Scholar
Pocock, J. G. A. 1975. The Machiavellian Moment. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1993. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Salkever, Stephen 1990. Finding the Mean: Theory and Practice in Aristotelian Political Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Salkever, Stephen 1991. “Aristotle's Social Science.” In Essays on the Foundations of Aristotelian Political Science, ed. Lord, Carnes and O'Conner, David K.. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Steinberger, Peter 1993. The Concept of Political Judgment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Strauss, Leo. 1959. What Is Political Philosophy? New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Sullivan, William 1986. Reconstructing Public Philosophy. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Swanson, Judith 1992. The Public and the Private in Aristotle's Political Philosophy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Tessitore, Aristide. 1996. Reading Aristotle's Ethics: Virtue, Rhetoric, and Political Philosophy. Albany: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. 1969. Democracy in America, Trans. Lawrence, George, ed. Mayer, J. P.. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Tulis, Jeffrey. 1988. “The Two Constitutional Presidencies.” In The Presidency and the Political System, ed. Nelson, Michael A.. Washington: CQ Press.Google Scholar
Walzer, Michael. 1981. “Democracy and Philosophy.” Political Theory 9(08):379–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walzer, Michael. 1987. Interpretation and Social Criticism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wiggins, David. 1980. “Deliberation and Practical Reason.” In Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, ed. Rorty, Amelie Oksenberg. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Wolin, Sheldon. 1989. The Presence of the Past. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Yack, Bernard. 1993. The Problems of a Political Animal. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.