We Have a Firm Foundation 21powers. In addition, there is usually a common anxiety over any difference, disson-
ance, or conflict within civic existence, and a more general preference for some form
of consensus or common good, to avoid the possibility of factionalism, division, and
civil unrest. In sum, the classical normative view embodies the belief that there are
common aims, purposes, or goods which can be, or are, embodied in political life.
These can be minimal thin conditional rule-bound goods or maximal thick cultural
goods. This latter point links in closely with conceptions of the importance of order,
security of existence, and the maintenance of common values in politics and the
related critical examination of the preconditions of both order and disorder.
The above themes are admittedly extremely general and open-ended. The most
cursory reading of the history of political thought will give rise to the conclusion that
classical theories do vary very widely over above themes. Commentators on norm-
ative political theory have, in fact, commonly drawn further distinctions between
‘traditions’ of theory, in order to try to pin down and make sense of the diversity.
There are, though, many ways in which older forms of classical political theory have
been classified. No classification has been definitive. A classification though is more
of a tool of analysis, a way of thinking though the material. Such traditions are largely
ex post facto‘invented’ phenomena. History, in this sense, is always present history.
The way in which the past of theory is classified tends to metamorphose between
the various interpretations of political theory. Historians of political thought often
favour fairly complex contextual classifications, which focus on larger or more sub-
stantial periodizations. These cover such things as classical Greek, early, middle and
late medieval, early modern and modern, and so forth. Each stage then usually
becomes a micro-focus for further more detailed classifications. These have become
the ‘stock-in-trade’ of the large number of histories of political thought. This more
unwieldy structure can also be simplified into the diverse languages of political the-
ory, such as natural law, classical or civic republican, classical political economy,
and the science of politics (see Pagden 1987). Those more engaged with twentieth
century developments in moral and political philosophy favour much simpler, less
contextually-sensitive classifications, than historians of political ideas. Thus, categor-
ies such as consequentialism and deontology are taken to encompass a whole range
of material. More dramatic cosmic classifications of normative political theory can be
found in the likes of Leo Strauss. Strauss focused on the theme of cultural crisis. He
saw, for example, three consecutive ‘waves of modernity’, which gave rise to a dynamic
distinction between classical and modern political philosophy. Thus, for Strauss, the
first wave was initiated by Machiavelli—who is regarded as the founder of modern
political philosophy. Machiavelli is seen to have basically subordinated all morality
and religion to politics. The second wave is associated with Rousseau, where moral
standards are sought from the contingent values of history. For Strauss, the latter
stage laid the philosophical groundwork for later German Idealism and historicism.
The third wave was initiated decisively by Nietzsche and Heidegger. It retained the
insights of Rousseau’s and German Idealism’s historicism, but denied the rationality
of the process and introduced the theme of nihilism. Heidegger is taken by Strauss
as the most radical expression of the self-consciousness of the modernity of the third