The Nature of Political Theory

We Have a Firm Foundation 25

and 1980s, defined theory as the clarification of concepts and the critical evaluation
of beliefs (Raphael 1976: 3; see also Kateb 1968: 15; and Blackstone 1973: 25). Even
after this period, the same rough themes still keep on reccurring. Thus, David Miller
directly echoes Plamenatz in defining political theory as ‘systematic reflection on the
nature and purposes of government’ (David Miller et al. 1987: 383). Philip Pettit
considered political theory as ‘the project of evaluating the different social structures
that political activity enables us to contemplate as alternatives’. He describes this as
a normative enterprise, which is designed to ‘evaluate rather than explain’ (Pettit
1993 b: 217; and 284–5).^5 Will Kymlicka or Jean Hampton’s introductions are also
more openly focused on rigorous normativism, although, again, still from a more
distanced conceptualist and evaluative viewpoint (Kymlicka 1990; Hampton 1998).
In most of the above theorists (with some exceptions) there is not a great deal of
recognition of the complex ‘traditions’, which inform the classical normative per-
spective. Complex traditions are often seen to be the preserve of historians of political
thought. Thus, the usual standpoint, on what many take to be the classical normative
political theory tradition, is oddly thin and selective. The point of political theory
for many is ‘presentism’. It is not to mull over the past, but rather to deal with the
present and its manifold political problems. Consequently, only certain dimensions
of contemporary normative theory appear to be aware or interested in the complex
antecedents of many of their own ideas in, for example, the empiricist tradition.
They also appear oblivious to the historical tradition, which is premised on the idea
that virtues cannot be universal, but are rather an expression of their own time and
place—moral, political, philosophical, and religious ideas all reflecting a contingent
sense of place. In some ways, one of the most recent and popular faces of this his-
torical contingency and mutability argument appears in Thomas Kuhn’s writings on
paradigms in natural science, which, after its publication, spread like wildfire in the
social science and humanities vocabularies (Kuhn 1962). However, this still did not
prevent many able political theorists, well into the late twentieth century, offering
universalistic theories, and being seemingly untroubled by the complex and deeply
researched claims of the historical reason tradition. However, again, many others in
the twentieth century have clearly been concerned by the import of such historical
arguments. In fact, part of the deep anxiety of political theory at the close of the twen-
tieth century—particularly over issues such as universal human rights, international
justice, and the future of nationalism—is focused on forms of historicist argumenta-
tion. Certainly, the arguments presented to us in writers such as Wilhelm Dilthey,
Benedetto Croce, R. G. Collingwood, Michael Oakeshott, or Hans-Georg Gadamer,
and many others, are still far from being adequately assessed.
One further point also needs to be made here, which registers doubts about the
whole idea of traditions of classical normative political theory. This is an argument,
which will be returned to again. The basic point of the normative argument is the
claim that there is a pattern of theorizing from the ancient Greeks, which can be said
to have continued through the twentieth century. Despite my brief discussion of the
three traditions of theory, it is still wise to remind ourselves that all history is still
present history. There is also a question mark over the idea of a ‘continuous practice’