The Nature of Political Theory

22 The Nature of Political Theory

wave. Strauss was therefore clear in his own mind, that a distinction had to be drawn
between classical and modern political philosophy.^3 In like manner, Dante Germino,
in another archetypal history of political thought, saw three cosmic phases or tra-
ditions in political theory: theocentric humanism (where God is the measure and
centre of all things), anthropocentric humanism (where humanity is the measure of
all things), and finally, messianic humanism (which seeks a qualitative transforma-
tion of human existence and is the groundwork for twentieth century totalitarian
movements) (Germino 1967). This also has some loose parallels to W. H. Greenleaf’s
distinctive classification of traditions in political theory in terms of order, empiricism,
and rationalism (see Greenleaf 1964).
The above types of classification—from the more mundane contextualist historical
position to the cosmically dramatic—could be the subject of a separate detailed study.
However, the classification adopted (more pragmatically) here focuses on certain
broad intellectual tendencies, which are taken as very general indicative signposts.^4
There is no sense here that they should be taken as anything other than ‘ideal types’.
The first category focuses on order and nature. The basic theme is that there is a
complex pre-established, unchanging, usually divine, order, which provides the rules
and structures for all human willing, reasoning, and judgement. These rules and
structures are the ground for all legitimacy, authority, duty, and obligation. Law and
justice are also embedded in this universal prestructured nature. The function of
theory is to identify that order, explicate it and show how it fits the world, or, how the
world of political and legal institutions can be modulated and adapted to reflect this
inner purpose or natural teleology. This tradition can be associated with broad philo-
sophical movements of Aristotelianism, Platonism, and medieval Christianity. It also
has strong associations with the long-established tradition of natural law. Ethics, in
this context, is associated with universal pre-existent reasonable rules. The mod-
ern adaptation of this tradition appears more tenuously, and usually without overt
teleology and metaphysics, in forms of cosmopolitanism and some human rights
theory.
The second tradition is empiricism. This raises the spectre of human will and arti-
fice. This is the tradition which, although having roots in classical Greek thought,
develops systematically from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Faith is sep-
arated from the use of reason. Reason is more focused on the theme of individual
autonomy, artifice, and will. It concentrates on the crucial role of human interests,
preferences, wants, desire, and interests. Furthermore, it tends to be sceptical of
any overarching knowledge claims (particularly large scale metaphysical claims) and
relies more upon the collation of empirical information, data and facts about human
behaviour, so that generalizations can be corroborated or tested. Improvements will
gradually arise as human knowledge grows. Politics, in this reading, can be seen as
a function of the correct technical means or administration of the world. One of
the foremost seventeenth century spokesmen of this tradition is Thomas Hobbes,
although Machiavelli is also often taken to be another key figure. Ethics, in this
tradition, is relative to human desires and passions. In consequence, moral rules
are vulnerable to mutable human wants and passions and their contingent settings.