The Nature of Political Theory

326 The Nature of Political Theory

foundational readings can be re-described as a concern with political metaphysics. In
this reading, political theorists who are concerned with political metaphysics, can be
defined as those who have never finished with problems, and political metaphysics
itselfcanbedefinedasthe‘scienceoftheunfinishedproblemsofpoliticalordinariness’.
This is the real value of political metaphysics. It asks systematically about what is most
familiar and yet unresolved and keeps encouraging us to try to explain it. In this sense,
it is the most indelibly human of all our thoughtful occupations. Consequently, a key
assumption of this present book has been a foundational pluralism underpinning
political theory. Political theory is intrinsically a plural discipline—a mixed mode or
polyvocalformofstudy. Further, itassumesthattherearenooverarchingauthoritative
exemplars, methods, or absolutely key foundational concepts within the discipline.
The book has, therefore, been about the diverse foundational approacheswithin
political theory. To adopt one particular univocal approach (or focus on one particular
concept) undermines this aim. This does not mean that there are no theorists, texts,
ideas, or theories which claim to be authoritative or hegemonic. The history of
the twentieth century has been, in fact, punctuated by such claims. However, my
assumption is always to remain sceptical of authorities or schools of thought on
metaphysical and hermeneutic grounds.

NOTES

1. There is no more philosophical activity, even if it is bound to scandalize any normally
   constituted ‘philosophical mind’, than analysis of the specific logic of the philosophical field
   and of the dispositions and beliefs socially recognized at a given moment as ‘philosophical’
   which are generated and flourish there, thanks to philosopher’s blindness to their own schol-
   astic blindness. The immediate harmony between the logic of a field and the dispositions it
   induces and presupposes means that all its arbitrary content tends to be disguised as time-
   less, universal self-evidence. The philosophical field is no exception to this rule. (Bourdieu
   2000: 29).


2. As Collingwood stated ‘any positivist stands logically committed to the principle that meta-
   physicsisimpossible. Butatthesametimeheisquiteatlibertytoindulgebothinmetaphysics
   and in pseudo-metaphysics to his heart’s content, so long as he protests that what he is doing
   is just ordinary scientific thinking...that is, so long as he finds himself disposed for what
   I call the “heads I win” attitude of pretending that a given absolute presupposition is a
   generalization from observed fact’. (Collingwood 1969: 149).
   3.Gleichshaltung—a demand for conformity in moving together, or being forced into line.