The Nature of Political Theory

98 The Nature of Political Theory

still attempt to gain greater clarity and will thus fixate upon one particular use of a
concept. However, in this context, as Wittgenstein remarked, language tends to ‘go
on holiday’. Philosophy, in drawing attention to the diversity of usage, performs what
Wittgenstein refers to as a therapeutic function. It helps to emancipate individuals
from conceptual muddles resulting from inattention to the diversity implicit in lan-
guage and the way it functions in human affairs. In this sense, it is not recommending,
but reminding us of what we already know.
If we turn now directly to political concepts: as with ordinary language theory, ana-
lysis has a function—to analyse and clarify the complex internal structure of concepts,
such as justice, rights, obligations, and so forth. As with Hegelian idealism, descript-
ive phenomenology,Verstehenbased hermeneutics, or the Oakeshottian conception
of philosophy, all that can be done is to analyse whatisalready the case, namely, to
understand the existing conceptual structures and to assemble reminders of what is
the case. Political theory cannot move (in theory) into the sphere of direct normative
recommendation, although it still does take normative argument seriously.
It is in the above context that ordinary language theory, qua Wittgenstein and
Austin, is particularly opposed to essentialism in conceptual usage. The function of
political theory should be the registering and elucidation of the diverse uses of political
concepts. The term ‘essential contestability’ is thus set up in direct opposition to
essentialism. Essentialism in simple format, is a doctrine, which can be identified with,
for example, Plato’s philosophy of ideas, where the function of political philosophy
is seen to be the attempt to identify the ‘essential’ meaning of ideas such as justice.
The crucial philosophical question for essentialism is therefore what is thecoreor
essential element of justice. Once the essence has been identified and defined, then
it can be used to correct and explain the nature of justice in general. Any reference
to justice, by definition, must refer to its essence. The same argument would hold
for all political concepts. If it makes sense, we should be able to give some definition
of its essence. If a word makes sense and can be defined, then it has some kind of
reality. However, essential contestability directly adopts the Wittgensteinian mantle
in denying that concepts and words have essences.
For W. B. Gallie, who coined the term ‘essential contestability’ in a lecture in 1956,
it implied that many disputes about concepts are intractable. Although thesame
concept is at issue, there are different uses and criteria of application of the concept
that are in direct conflict. To link this directly with Wittgenstein, each particular
use is embedded in a language game or form of life. For Gallie, therefore, certain
concepts have ‘no clearly definable general use which can be set up as a correct or
standard use’ (Gallie 1955–6: 168). Different criteria for concepts embody standards
of excellence, but these are diverse and in dispute. Each party discussing, say, art,
democracy, or a religious doctrine will claim, with reasonable arguments, to have the
correct usage. This endless disputation is neither due to what he calls, ‘metaphysical
afflictions’, nor some deep psychological cause. There is something else at the root.
There are, in other words, perfectly genuine disputes about concepts with respectable
argument and evidence on all sides. The proper useitself‘involves endless disputes
about their proper uses’ (Gallie 1955–6: 169). Another resonant term, employed by a
later theorist, is that of ‘cluster concepts’ (see Connolly 1983; Freeden 1996).