Peter J Steinberger
Biographic Data
| ID | 1042348 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Peter J Steinberger |
| GIVEN NAMES | Peter J |
| FAMILY NAME | Steinberger |
| SIGNATURE | STEINBERGER P J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Reed College |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9497-5965 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 36 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 89 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 36 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1977 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
What is political theory today?
Rationalism in Politics
Arguing against emergent and even dominant tendencies of recent political thought that emphasize the so-called primacy of affect, Peter Steinberger challenges political theorists to take account of important themes in philosophy on the topic of human rationality. He engages with major proponents of post-Kantian thought, analytic and continental alike, to show how political judgment and political action, properly understood, are deeply and definit…
Eumenides and the Invention of Politics
Recent scholarship has shown that the Eumenides of Aeschylus, far from presenting a complete and coherent picture of the well-ordered polis, in fact offers something quite different, namely, a complex set of questions, concerns and conundrums regarding the very nature of political society. But I suggest that the literature has not yet provided a fully satisfying account of the ways in which those questions are underwritten by the specifically lit…
Political action and the philosophy of mind
The Politics of Objectivity: An Essay on the Foundations of Political Conflict
Modern political conflict characteristically reflects and represents deep-seated but also unacknowledged and un-analyzed disagreements about what it means to be 'objective'. In defending this proposition, Peter J. Steinberger seeks to reaffirm the idea of rationalism in politics by examining important problems of public life explicitly in the light of established philosophical doctrine. The Politics of Objectivity invokes, thereby, an age-old, th…
Rationalism in Politics
Much recent political thought has been devoted to the proposition that neither political endeavor properly understood nor theorizing about such endeavor is or could ever be a kind of rational activity. I examine three broad approaches that celebrate, respectively, rhetorical practices of political persuasion, agonistic conceptions of democracy, and, more generally, a kind of hard-headed critical realism rooted in the plain facts of political life…
Analysis and History of Political Thought
Criticisms of Quentin Skinner's approach to the study of the history of political thought have generally failed to directly address the philosophical presuppositions on which Skinner himself relies. Those presuppositions involve, primarily, theories of language associated most closely with Austin, Searle, and Grice. An investigation of the uses that Skinner makes of philosophical pragmatics raises serious doubts about a number of his central clai…
Hobbes, Rousseau and the Modern Conception of the State
Obvious and numberless differences between the principal political writings of Hobbes and Rousseau—differences of language and style, of descriptive focus and prescriptive detail, of cultural and historical context—should not blind us to certain profound agreements of doctrine. If Hobbes's great triumph is to have unearthed and delineated a conception of the state that is implicit in and underwritten by modern notions of individualism, I will arg…
The Heart of Judgment: Practical Wisdom, Neuroscience, and Narrative
The Heart of Judgment: Practical Wisdom, Neuroscience, and Narrative. By Leslie Paul Thiele. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 334p. $80.00. Paul Thiele asks the right question: How should we think about political judgment and, more generally, practical wisdom, understood as an intellectual faculty or virtue that is different from, or at least irreducible to, faculties of logical or scientific reasoning but that remains, nonetheless, a …
Civic Virtue
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Political Obligations and Derivative Duties
The idea of tacit consent has long been regarded as indispensable in accounting for the political obligations of all but a handful of citizens. If we have such obligations, they must be rooted not in the act of signing (however metaphorically) a social contract but in something quite different, namely, the fact that we have accepted and enjoyed the benefits that political society provides. Acceptance and enjoyment are thought to constitute a kind…
Hobbesian Resistance
The Impossibility of a "Political" Conception
Justice as fairness is understood to be freestanding in that it is to be presented apart from any specific comprehensive doctrine. It is, in other words, "political, not metaphysical." The idea of a such a political conception, however, raises a number of very serious problems with respect to justification and rationality. Ultimately, to ask if political philosophy should be done without metaphysics is to overlook the sense in which any political…
Public and Private
The problem of public and private is often thought to be a boundary problem. ‘Public’ and ‘private’ are said to denote separate areas of human endeavour – distinct ‘realms’, ‘spheres’, or ‘spaces’. The task of formulating clear boundaries, however, has proven to be enormously complex. It seems that every attempt at conceptualizing a purely private area of activity runs into a particular kind of difficulty, namely, many of the activities character…
Was Socrates Guilty as Charged?: Apology 24c-28a
Who is Cephalus
C EPHALUS, the wealthy old metic who welcomes Socrates and offers his hospitality to those who would engage in philosophical discussion, provides the very first definition of justice to be found in the Republic.' But while this definition, like all of the others, undergoes elenchic scrutiny, Cephalus himself does not answer any questions about justice. After a brief and pleasant conversation with Socrates about age and wealth, and precisely as th…
The Concept of Political Judgment
What is good political judgement? Is it a science subject to strict standards of logic and inference, or is it something more like an art, the product of intuition, feeling, or even chance? Peter J. Steinberger shows how the seemingly contradictory claims of inference and intuition are reconciled in the concept of political judgement. Resting his argument on the larger notion of judgement itself, Steinberger develops an original model of how poli…
Maure L. Goldschmidt
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Logic and Politics: Hegel's Philosophy of Right
Books in Review
Plato's Paradox? Guardians and Philosopher-Kings
For centuries scholars have engaged in interpreting the meaning of Plato's Republic . In this exchange, Peter Steinberger and Christopher Duncan debate the role of guardians and philosopher-kings in the ancient city. This controversy is ignited by Steinberger's essay on Platonic rulers in the December 1989 issue of this Review
Hannah Arendt on Judgment
This paper examines Hannah Arendt's views on judgment as they emerge from her account of political action. The first section outlines certain conceptual presuppositions that pertain to political life. The second section describes the role of judgment as it relates to, and is distinguished from, a variety of other mental faculties. The third and final section offers some critical and evaluative comments and suggests that Arendt's account ultimatel…
A Fallacy in Rawls's Theory of Justice
An important feature of Rawls's theory of justice is the putative separation of justice and desert. It is shown that Rawls in fact presupposes a quite strong theory of desert which provides the key justification for the original position. It is further argued that the theory of desert has implications for distributive shares which contradict those of Rawlsian justice in general and the difference principle in particular. Finally, it is claimed th…
Ruling: Guardians and Philosopher-Kings
According to some accounts, Plato views ruling as a philosophical activity; according to others, he understands it to be a craft. Given the apparent discrepancy between philosophical and technical endeavor, it seems that the two interpretations cannot both be correct. The issue is explored in light of the relationship between guardians and philosopher-kings as it manifests itself in the basic structure of the Republic and also with respect to que…
Logic and Politics: Hegel`s Philosophy of Right
The Concept of Political Judgment
What is good political judgement? Is it a science subject to strict standards of logic and inference, or is it something more like an art, the product of intuition, feeling, or even chance? Peter J. Steinberger shows how the seemingly contradictory claims of inference and intuition are reconciled in the concept of political judgement. Resting his argument on the larger notion of judgement itself, Steinberger develops an original model of how poli…
Public and Private
The problem of public and private is often thought to be a boundary problem. ‘Public’ and ‘private’ are said to denote separate areas of human endeavour – distinct ‘realms’, ‘spheres’, or ‘spaces’. The task of formulating clear boundaries, however, has proven to be enormously complex. It seems that every attempt at conceptualizing a purely private area of activity runs into a particular kind of difficulty, namely, many of the activities character…
Hannah Arendt on Judgment
This paper examines Hannah Arendt's views on judgment as they emerge from her account of political action. The first section outlines certain conceptual presuppositions that pertain to political life. The second section describes the role of judgment as it relates to, and is distinguished from, a variety of other mental faculties. The third and final section offers some critical and evaluative comments and suggests that Arendt's account ultimatel…
Hobbesian Resistance
Hobbes, Rousseau and the Modern Conception of the State
Obvious and numberless differences between the principal political writings of Hobbes and Rousseau—differences of language and style, of descriptive focus and prescriptive detail, of cultural and historical context—should not blind us to certain profound agreements of doctrine. If Hobbes's great triumph is to have unearthed and delineated a conception of the state that is implicit in and underwritten by modern notions of individualism, I will arg…
The Impossibility of a "Political" Conception
Justice as fairness is understood to be freestanding in that it is to be presented apart from any specific comprehensive doctrine. It is, in other words, "political, not metaphysical." The idea of a such a political conception, however, raises a number of very serious problems with respect to justification and rationality. Ultimately, to ask if political philosophy should be done without metaphysics is to overlook the sense in which any political…
Analysis and History of Political Thought
Criticisms of Quentin Skinner's approach to the study of the history of political thought have generally failed to directly address the philosophical presuppositions on which Skinner himself relies. Those presuppositions involve, primarily, theories of language associated most closely with Austin, Searle, and Grice. An investigation of the uses that Skinner makes of philosophical pragmatics raises serious doubts about a number of his central clai…
Who is Cephalus
C EPHALUS, the wealthy old metic who welcomes Socrates and offers his hospitality to those who would engage in philosophical discussion, provides the very first definition of justice to be found in the Republic.' But while this definition, like all of the others, undergoes elenchic scrutiny, Cephalus himself does not answer any questions about justice. After a brief and pleasant conversation with Socrates about age and wealth, and precisely as th…
Ruling: Guardians and Philosopher-Kings
According to some accounts, Plato views ruling as a philosophical activity; according to others, he understands it to be a craft. Given the apparent discrepancy between philosophical and technical endeavor, it seems that the two interpretations cannot both be correct. The issue is explored in light of the relationship between guardians and philosopher-kings as it manifests itself in the basic structure of the Republic and also with respect to que…
Rationalism in Politics
Much recent political thought has been devoted to the proposition that neither political endeavor properly understood nor theorizing about such endeavor is or could ever be a kind of rational activity. I examine three broad approaches that celebrate, respectively, rhetorical practices of political persuasion, agonistic conceptions of democracy, and, more generally, a kind of hard-headed critical realism rooted in the plain facts of political life…
Desert and Justice in Rawls
Rawls's theory of desert has been largely ignored by scholars. The present article considers certain of the theory's implications with, I believe, significant consequences. Specifically, the burden of the article is threefold: first, to show that, contrary to Rawls's own apparent understanding, the theory of desert must have implications for distributive shares; second, to show that these implications contradict those of the theory of justice its…
A Fallacy in Rawls's Theory of Justice
An important feature of Rawls's theory of justice is the putative separation of justice and desert. It is shown that Rawls in fact presupposes a quite strong theory of desert which provides the key justification for the original position. It is further argued that the theory of desert has implications for distributive shares which contradict those of Rawlsian justice in general and the difference principle in particular. Finally, it is claimed th…
Hegel on Marriage and Politics
This essay examines Hegel's theory of marriage and the rôle that it plays in the argument of the Philosophy of Right. It aims to show that the theory of marriage is based on a particular conception of the human self as developed in the threefold structure of the Philosophy of Right. It also seeks to demonstrate the cogency and relevance of Hegel's specific arguments pertaining to love, sensuality, the marriage contract, and the marriage ceremony.…
Hegel as a Social Scientist
The purposes of this essay are (1) to identify Hegel's role in the propagation of certain philosophic principles essential to the development of an interpretive social science, (2) to demonstrate in what ways Hegel himself can be understood as an early sociologist, and (3) to indicate those aspects of Hegel's thought that might be of greatest use to contemporary philosophers of social and political inquiry. The first part of the exposition relies…
Hegel as a Social Scientist
The purposes of this essay are (1) to identify Hegel's role in the propagation of certain philosophic principles essential to the development of an interpretive social science, (2) to demonstrate in what ways Hegel himself can be understood as an early sociologist, and (3) to indicate those aspects of Hegel's thought that might be of greatest use to contemporary philosophers of social and political inquiry. The first part of the exposition relies…
Calhoun's Concept of the Public Interest: A Clarification
John C. Calhoun has been called a conservative, viewed alternatively as a precursor of interest group pluralism and more recently as one of the few corporatist theorists in the predominantly liberal American tradition. Professor Steinberger finds both the conservative and the pluralist interpretations at odds with the evidence and suggests an alternative position which seeks to reconcile Calhoun's individualism with the need for civil virtue and …
Desert and Justice in Rawls
Rawls's theory of desert has been largely ignored by scholars. The present article considers certain of the theory's implications with, I believe, significant consequences. Specifically, the burden of the article is threefold: first, to show that, contrary to Rawls's own apparent understanding, the theory of desert must have implications for distributive shares; second, to show that these implications contradict those of the theory of justice its…
Books in Review
Hegel's Occasional Writings: State and Individual
Perhaps the most basic and enduring theme in political philosophy is that which concerns the inherent tension between individual values and social values. Indeed, the task of reconciling, in thought, the individual and social is virtually a definition of political philosophy. Of course, in much secondary work, and some primary work as well, this basic task often gets lost in a maze of more particular considerations, including the analysis of mora…
Hegel on Crime and Punishment
Hegel's theory of crime and punishment is tested by raising against it three difficult questions: Why must we punish the criminal? Must the punishment fit the crime? Is insanity an acceptable defense? It is argued that a Hegelian approach can generate plausible answers to these questions, answers that help to explain and justify a number of our own morally implicated practices. It is further argued that Hegel's method of arriving at such answers …
Nostromo's Fall: Conrad on Political Action
Many commentators on Conrad's Nostromo treat its political themes in broad ideological terms. But also noteworthy is Conrad's position on some of the more subtle problems in political theory. Professor Steinberger's reading of the novel brings out the distinction Conrad seems to have made between "authentic" politics and "politics as usual
Urban Politics and Communality
This study considers some of the political implications of the so-called community question, in particular the relationship between communality and levels of participation in local politics. Communality is here understood as a cultural phenomenon residing in the action orientations and symbolic constructions of individuals. Original survey data are used to test the hypothesis that communality and participation are correlated positively. The findi…
Ideology & the Urban Crisis
Ideology and the Urban Crisis
Hegel on Marriage and Politics
This essay examines Hegel's theory of marriage and the rôle that it plays in the argument of the Philosophy of Right. It aims to show that the theory of marriage is based on a particular conception of the human self as developed in the threefold structure of the Philosophy of Right. It also seeks to demonstrate the cogency and relevance of Hegel's specific arguments pertaining to love, sensuality, the marriage contract, and the marriage ceremony.…
Logic and Politics: Hegel`s Philosophy of Right
A Fallacy in Rawls's Theory of Justice
An important feature of Rawls's theory of justice is the putative separation of justice and desert. It is shown that Rawls in fact presupposes a quite strong theory of desert which provides the key justification for the original position. It is further argued that the theory of desert has implications for distributive shares which contradict those of Rawlsian justice in general and the difference principle in particular. Finally, it is claimed th…
Ruling: Guardians and Philosopher-Kings
According to some accounts, Plato views ruling as a philosophical activity; according to others, he understands it to be a craft. Given the apparent discrepancy between philosophical and technical endeavor, it seems that the two interpretations cannot both be correct. The issue is explored in light of the relationship between guardians and philosopher-kings as it manifests itself in the basic structure of the Republic and also with respect to que…
Books in Review
Plato's Paradox? Guardians and Philosopher-Kings
For centuries scholars have engaged in interpreting the meaning of Plato's Republic . In this exchange, Peter Steinberger and Christopher Duncan debate the role of guardians and philosopher-kings in the ancient city. This controversy is ignited by Steinberger's essay on Platonic rulers in the December 1989 issue of this Review
Hannah Arendt on Judgment
This paper examines Hannah Arendt's views on judgment as they emerge from her account of political action. The first section outlines certain conceptual presuppositions that pertain to political life. The second section describes the role of judgment as it relates to, and is distinguished from, a variety of other mental faculties. The third and final section offers some critical and evaluative comments and suggests that Arendt's account ultimatel…
Logic and Politics: Hegel's Philosophy of Right
Maure L. Goldschmidt
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button
The Concept of Political Judgment
What is good political judgement? Is it a science subject to strict standards of logic and inference, or is it something more like an art, the product of intuition, feeling, or even chance? Peter J. Steinberger shows how the seemingly contradictory claims of inference and intuition are reconciled in the concept of political judgement. Resting his argument on the larger notion of judgement itself, Steinberger develops an original model of how poli…
Who is Cephalus
C EPHALUS, the wealthy old metic who welcomes Socrates and offers his hospitality to those who would engage in philosophical discussion, provides the very first definition of justice to be found in the Republic.' But while this definition, like all of the others, undergoes elenchic scrutiny, Cephalus himself does not answer any questions about justice. After a brief and pleasant conversation with Socrates about age and wealth, and precisely as th…
Was Socrates Guilty as Charged?: Apology 24c-28a
Public and Private
The problem of public and private is often thought to be a boundary problem. ‘Public’ and ‘private’ are said to denote separate areas of human endeavour – distinct ‘realms’, ‘spheres’, or ‘spaces’. The task of formulating clear boundaries, however, has proven to be enormously complex. It seems that every attempt at conceptualizing a purely private area of activity runs into a particular kind of difficulty, namely, many of the activities character…
The Impossibility of a "Political" Conception
Justice as fairness is understood to be freestanding in that it is to be presented apart from any specific comprehensive doctrine. It is, in other words, "political, not metaphysical." The idea of a such a political conception, however, raises a number of very serious problems with respect to justification and rationality. Ultimately, to ask if political philosophy should be done without metaphysics is to overlook the sense in which any political…
Political Obligations and Derivative Duties
The idea of tacit consent has long been regarded as indispensable in accounting for the political obligations of all but a handful of citizens. If we have such obligations, they must be rooted not in the act of signing (however metaphorically) a social contract but in something quite different, namely, the fact that we have accepted and enjoyed the benefits that political society provides. Acceptance and enjoyment are thought to constitute a kind…
Political science (30 works) · Law (28 works) · Philosophy (26 works) · Politics (26 works) · Epistemology (25 works) · Sociology (25 works) · Law (23 works) · Philosophy (22 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (15 works) · Classical Philosophy and Thought (6 works)