Political Science’’ ( 1967 ), Taylor argued that every explanatory theory—in the
language it uses, the constants it assumes, and the variables it recognizes—
‘‘secretes’’ a set of norms and standards of the good society. He showed, for
instance, how Seymour Martin Lipset’s ( 1960 ) own explanatory account of
Political Mancarried preliminary judgments about how to organize the good
society, breaking with Marxism, radical democracy, and conservative doc-
trines in doing so. But what if Lipset himself had refused these implications,
supporting, say, Sorelian violence?
Supposing he just maintained that violence was better than its opposite, not qua
stimulus to creativity, or essential element in progress, but just qua violence; [or]
that it was better that only the minority be served, not because the minority would be
more creative but just because it was the minority? A position of that kind would
be unintelligible. We could understand that the man was dedicating himself to the
furtherance of such a society, but the use of the words, ‘‘good’’ or ‘‘better’’ would be
totally inappropriate here, for there would be no visible grounds for applying them.
(Taylor 1967 , 111 )
Others pursued the related idea that many concepts used in empirical research
describe from a normative point of view (Barry 1965 ; Connolly 1974 ; Flathman
1966 ). And some of these are ‘‘essentially contestable,’’ exposing a political
dimension in the very grammar of these concepts. If power, politics, interests,
authority, and freedom were subjected to such scrutiny, terrorism, identity,
secularism, sovereignty, and the territorial state would be added to the list
now. The neutrality bubble burst. The war was devastating for the Vietnamese,
young Americans, the economy, the future of the democratic party, and the
staid view of political science. But it invigorated teaching and theory.
Now that political theory had found its feet again, the issue was which variety
to adopt. Rawlsian theory captured many (Rawls 1972 ), particularly in phil-
osophy departments. But by the early 1970 s the hermeneutics of Hans Gada-
mer and Charles Taylor ( 1971 ), the critical theory of Marcuse, Adorno, and
Horkheimer, and, above all, the new critical theory of Ju ̈rgen Habermas were
also on the agenda. I recall a meeting of theXedgling Conference for the
Study of Political Thought in 1970 when Habermas was introduced in person
to American theorists. Fred Dallmayr ( 1981 ), if I recall, was one of the few in
the audience prepared to engage his work with conWdence. The debts of
Habermas to Hegel, Marx, and Kant were diYcult at that point for many to
assess. With the publication of the English translation ofLegitimation Crisis
in 1974 , Habermas became perhaps the leadingWgure invoked in America to
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