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Machiavelli and the Duck/Rabbit Problem of Political Perception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Kenneth Minogue
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Extract

Why Do People Disagree About Politics? Like All Naive questions, this one rapidly launches us into fundamentals. Without disagreement, there would be no politics.

Some of the answers are obvious, and all the common ones line up with popular political projects. If disagreement were attributed to error, for example, to know the truth would transform our condition. Let us review the commonest answers in turn and look at the sources of political disagreement.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , April 1996 , pp. 216 - 226
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1996

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References

1 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe, Oxford, Blackwell, 1974, Part II, xi, esp. 194e.

2 P. I., 206e.

3 P.I., 201e.

4 P.I., 200e.

5 P.I., 197e.

6 P.I., 200e. The ‘it’ here is the triangle.

7 Discorsi, I, xi.

8 The Discourses of Niccolo Machiavelli, edited and translated by Leslie J. Walker, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975, Vol. I, pp. 249 (Book I, ch. 14).

9 The Discourses of Niccolo Machiavelli, Vol. I, pp. 250, 251 (Book I, ch. 15).

10 Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark, Metaphors We Live By, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1980, Ch. 6.Google Scholar

11 P.I, Part I, 602; 157e.

12 P.I., 197e.

13 As Aristotle remarks discussing signs: ‘Most of the things about which we make decisions, and into which therefore we inquire, present us with alternative possibilities.’ Rhetorica, in The Works of Aristotle, ed. W.D. Ross, trans. W. Rhys Roberts, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1946, 1357a.

14 P.I., 213e.

15 Margaret Thatcher, The Path to Power, London, HarperCollins, 1995, p. 263.

16 For an account of the philosophical issues involved in this idea, see Davidson, Donald, ‘Causal Relations’ in Essays on Actions and Events, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982.Google Scholar

17 William Rees‐Mogg, ‘Virtual unreality’, The Times, 5 June, 1995.

18 Gallie, W. B., ‘Essentially Contested Concepts’ in Philosophy and the Historical Understanding, London, Chatto & Windus, 1964.Google Scholar