Is Political Theory a Contradiction in Aristotelian Terms?
3:57 PM Wednesday.
I suppose I should begin this first session in my political theory course with a prayer of thanks to the Creator, and a request for understanding, and then get right down to business.
What do today's political scientists mean by political theory? Here is an opening definition in four parts.
1. Political Theory is one of four main subfields in modern American Political Science departments. The other three are American Politics, International Relations, and Comparative Politics.
2. The term "Political Theory" largely replaced the earlier term "Political Philosophy" after WWII. The two terms have much in common conceptually and are often used interchangeably, although there is an important technical difference: "Political Theory" is generally understood to be more empirical than "Political Philosophy."
3. The book A History of Political Theory by Cornell University professor of political philosophy George Holland Sabine is considered the seminal text in this subfield. The original 1937 edition does not provide an explicit definition of political theory, but the 4th edition, revised and published in 1973 by Thomas Landon Thorson, does.
4. The 4th Edition of Sabine's A History of Political Theory defines the term this way: "Political theory is, quite simply, man's attempts to consciously understand and solve the problems of his group life and organization. Thus, political theory is an intellectual tradition and its history consists of the evolution of men's thoughts about political problems over time" (p. 3).
So much for the initial data. Now for some discussion questions.
A. What is the meaning of "polis" in classical Greek thought and subsequent Western political theory?
B. What about in Hellenistic thought - did the Hellenistic Greeks coin the term "cosmopolitan," and did they have in mind some conception of world citizenship beyond the city-state?
C. What about theoria - is this also a Greek term, and what did Aristotle mean by it?
D. Would Aristotle's definition of praxis include ethics on the one hand and politics on the other?
E. Was it Aquinas who further developed the concept of theosis above and beyond Aristotle's theoria, or was this development made before Aquinas by Byzantine mystics?
F. Did Byzantine mystics originate the idea of katharsis, theoria and theosis as a pathway, and does katharsis compare in some way to the praxis or politics and ethics of Aristotle?
G. Would Aristotle consider "political theory" somewhat of a contradiction in terms, insofar as he understood theoria to be above and distinct from politics?
H. Do modern political scientists understand the "theory" in "political theory" in a different way than Aristotle would define theoria?
I. Does this mean that for Aristotle, theory was purely descriptive and contemplative of "what is," while politics was purely normative and practically oriented toward "what should be"?
J. Does Aristotle's clear distinction between praxis and theoria relate to a distinction in his philosophy between pure unchanging being and the process of becoming?
K. Would Aristotle likely be more comfortable calling his empirical and practical analysis of constitutions "political philosophy," "political theory" or something else entirely?
L. What about a term like "political thought" for the subset of political science presently concerned with political "theory" - would Aristotle likely find this too imprecise?
M. Would Aristotle likely stick to the term "hypothesis" instead of the modern term "theory" to describe a proposed relationship between variables - how did Aristotle describe what we think of today as scientific theories and laws?
N. Did Aristotle distinguish between political opinions and political knowledge? If so, how does a citizen move from political opinion to political knowledge in Aristotle's system?
O. I am not sure I am understanding the distinction between "phronesis" (practical political knowledge) and "political episteme" (political science) in Aristotle's thought - what else might help me understand the nuance here?
P. What about a phrase like "political wisdom" - could this underscore the symbiosis and refer to both sides of the equation (the capacity of the actor and the system of political knowledge) simultaneously?
Taking all of this additional input into account, it does seem to me that "Political Theory" is a contradiction in Aristotelian terms. I am very tempted to go with "Political Wisdom," instead. But then again, Aristotle would probably see "American Politics" as a bit of a contradiction in terms, too. I don't want to start unnecessarily upsetting the whole field. Maybe I should stay with "Political Theory" and just accept that the phrase is a contradiction in Aristotelian terms. So is heliocentrism, after all. Gemini seems to agree that this would be a prudent way to proceed:
Let's see what happens if I conclude for now with the following working definition of political theory, which is entirely based on the work of Sabine and Thorson:
Political theory is the record of humanity's attempt to consciously understand and solve the problems of human organization over time.
Gemini approves:
Okay, I will leave it there.
End 3:48 PM Thursday.
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