With all due respect to Larry -- and I cannot speak about the state of pholitical theory within philosophy today -- this article didn't really do justice to current conversations among political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists who are also concerned with (i.e. read and talk to) political philosophy.
I wrote a new introduction, and set up a basic organization of three parts: the state (perhaps room for some general discussions of Hobbes versus Rousseau, as well as of typologies of states); government (I know that there is some distinction within poli-sci about liberalism, realism, etc,; i.e. debates on the principles that should determine policy -- I hope others can fill this in); and a section for politics outside of states, which I will work on later, Slrubenstein
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This entry is still very underdeveloped. I've tried to add a bit more on contempoary political philosophy & to add a bit of organization. The text skipped directly from Plato and Aristotle to the Englightenment, ignoring centuries of work during the medieval period and the highly influential contributions of Augustine and Aquinas. Help! User:Lsolum
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The most recent set of revisions create problems for the entry. There is a basic confusion between "political philosophy" and "political theory." For example, the discussion of the cuban missle crisis would be appropriate in political science, but it not the kind of issue that political philosophers discuss. I would welcome discussion before I edit again. Thank you. User:Lsolum _______________________________________
This is my second call for comments on the most recent set of revisions. Those revisions focused the entry on the history of politics, which is a distinct subject from political philosophy. I propose to delete that discussion and refocus the entry on political philosophy. User:Lsolum
- No, politics is not a distinct subject from political philosophy, as you say. Nor is political philosophy solely a subject that political philosophers discuss - that is exactly the kind of purpose for which the textbook project was created. You cannot in general separate political ideas from the times in which they occur. EofT
- However, I agree that the argument say for 1962 being a signal year is not well placed here and over-written. What could be done is to rewrite that set of assertions to draw some distinctions between politics, political theory, political science and political philosophy, maybe using that year as an example. But it's foolish to simply state, as the article did originally it seems, that Rawls' views simply popped up again after hundreds of years of no comment, and were seemingly prompted by nothing but Rawls' genius. It is not right to say that political philosophy changes because of political events, but, it is proper to say that bursts of attention to it are prompted by such events. So the historical structure must be maintained, I think, but historical events should not be stated as causes for philosophical investigations or conclusions.EofT
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The idea of distinguishing between political theory, political science, and political philosophy is a good one.
- And, all of those, from politics itself, which in the view of say Bernard Crick is a bottom-up process of resolution of disputes in ethics, but complicated by the human tendency to introduce impatience and violence. I would say any decent political philosophy must be able to distinct the three things you note, and politics and ethics and morality as well. EofT
I disagree with the suggestion that political philosophy is not distinct from politics. The term "political philosophy" has a well accepted meaning both inside and outside of academia. Thank you for the comment.
- Who pays the political philosophers, inside and outside academia? I submit it is a process of politics itself that determines who qualifies as one and who is a "mere" political scientist, theorist, or gadfly. For instance, despite your qualifications, I believe I can crush this position that political philosophy is distinct from politics, in an open debate with you. Even if only accredited political philosophers attend. Now, this might be mere public speaking ability, or, knowing the politics of the group. But I think you must admit that if one masters a political process, one can thus also advance an agenda of political philosophy - closing the loop of practcie and theory. I would be more pleased however to see this reality reflected in the article, and for you to take a stab at making the article more acceptable to your academic colleagues. EofT
I think a better discussion of Plato and Aristotle's works and influence would imrpove the article: currently it mentions them and makes it clear they were influential, but has no discussion of their ideas or what they brought to political philosophy. --Sam 12:53, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)