Office, Political Theory, and the Political Theorist
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8959362 |
|---|---|
| Authors | David Richard Kearns (The University of Sydney, corresponding author), DAVID KEARNS, Ryan Walter (0000-0003-1907-001X, The University of Queensland, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 63 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 317-337 |
| Publication date | 2019-07-08 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Historical Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-246X • E-ISSN: 1469-5103 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0018246x19000220 |
| OpenAlex | W2961795114 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 48 |
‘Theory’ is taken for granted as an object of historical study, especially in relation to the history of political thought, and most historiography proceeds as if little were lost by construing authors such as Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Smith as ‘theorists’. This article argues that the costs are likely to be high, and that in consequence ‘theory’ ought not to be considered a generic category capable of neutrally describing a given piece of thinking from the past. On the one hand, ascribing theoretical argument can obscure the nature of rival idioms for making claims regarding political life, such as biblical criticism, the common law, and ‘office talk’. On the other hand, the evidence suggests that the ‘political theorist’, as an avowed identity, only emerged in Britain late in the eighteenth century, tentatively and under the force of peculiar pressures. It follows that it will rarely be appropriate to use the term before c. 1800, and considerable caution will still be necessary when using the label in the post-1800 period. Abiding by this discipline is likely to lead to new discoveries in what has been a flat terrain of ‘political theory’
Aesthetics · Argument (complex analysis · Criticism · Epistemology · Historiography · Identity (music · Linguistics · Object (grammar · Political philosophy · Political science · Politics · Relation (database · American Constitutional Law and Politics · History · Law · Philosophy · Political Theory and Influence · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought
The Foundations of Modern Political Thought
Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes
Working Knowledge
Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man
Abuse of Casuistry
Rival Enlightenments
Aspects of Hobbes
A Theory of Justice
The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Philosophy
The Varieties of British Political Thought, 1500–1800
Behemoth or The Long Parliament
The Basic Structure as Subject
The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle's Politics
The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
The Philosopher in Early Modern Europe
That Noble Science of Politics
Ancient Wisdom in the Age of the New Science
Richard Hooker and Reformed Theology
'The Matter, Forme, and Power of a Common-wealth'
The Politics of Commonwealth
Adam Smith’s free trade casuistry
The legitimacy of international interventions in Vattel’s The Law of Nations
The Bullion Controversy and the history of political thought
The Enthusiasm of David Ricardo
Kant and Vattel in Context
Politics, language, and time
The History of the Common Law of England
Thomas Reid - Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man
Rawls, Public Reason and the Limits of Liberal Justification
Isms
The Works of Thomas Robert Malthus
Realism in Normative Political Theory
The History of Theory
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |