Foundations Shaken but Not Stirred 107- In Richard Flathman’s work, in the 1970s and 1980s, it appeared to be reaching its apo-
theosis, a conceptual analysis potentially of every political concept which moved. By the
late 1990s there appeared to be a more ‘Nietzschean’ anxiety lurking in the wings and a
possible weariness. - The general sentiment being that ‘dealing in some way with the “basics” is the least we can
expect from a great political theorist’, Condren (1985: 45). - Another related problem to this demeanour is that ‘A sort of conceptual inflation will thus
be encouraged, resulting in an ever expanding syndrome of “basic” or “fundamental” or
“enduring” issues, which by its existence robs such predicates of their meaning’. However,
as Condren adds, for most conceptual theories ‘a little historical, linguistic, logical, and
metaphysical dubiety may be thought a tolerable one to pay’, Condren (1985: 48, 55).