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Rethinking The Nature of Political Theory: A Single-handed Defense of A DialogueAuthor(s): Richard AshcraftSource: The Journal of Politics, Vol. 44, No. 2 (May, 1982), pp. 577-585Published by: on behalf of theThe University of Chicago Press Southern Political ScienceAssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2130602Accessed: 28-06-2015 17:18 UTC
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Rethinking
The
Nature
of
Political Theory:
A
Single-handed
Defense
of
A
Dialogue
RICHARD
SHCRAFT
WISH
TO THANK
R. Bruce Douglass and Gary Marfin both for
their cogent and fair presentation
of
my views and
for
providing the
opportunity
to
clarify some aspects
of
my argument. Let me begin,
therefore, by referring
to
a major point raised
in the
article
to
which
none of my critics has yet responded. My aims in writing the essay
were
really quite modest; certainly,
far less than an
expectation
that
a mass conversion
of
contemporary political
theorists
to
my
view-
point would occur, or that, within its spatial limits,
I
could hope
to
provide a viable alternative (P. 571)
to
orthodox political theory,
for some indication of which, however, I might refer the reader to
other writings.' Rather,
I
argued that a number
of
intellectually
undefended
-
and,
in
my view,
indefensible
-
assumptions
for
many
years
have
dominated
the
study and interpretation
of
political
I
See especially the work of Quentin Skinner, History and Ideology in the English
Revolution, The Historical
Journal, 8 (1965); Conquest and Consent: Thomas
Hobbes and the Engagement Controversy, in The Interregnum: The Quest for Settle-
ment, ed.
G.
E. Aylmer (London, 1972); The Foundations of Modern Political
Thought, 2 vols.
(Cambridge, 1978). For my views, see Hobbes' Natural Man: A
Study
of
Ideological Formation, Journal of Politics,
33
(November 1971); Ideology
and Class in Hobbes' Political
Theory,
Political
Theory (February 1978);
The Two
Treatises and the Exclusion
Crisis: The Problem of Lockean Political Theory as
Bourgeois Ideology (William
Andrews Clark Library Seminar Series, 1980); and
Revolutionary Politics and
Locke's Two Treatises of Government, Political Theory
(November 1980).
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578
THE
JOURNAL
OF POLITICS,
VOL. 44,
1982
theory,
and
I hoped, provocatively,
as
Douglass
and
Marfin
rightly
observe,
to expose
the intellectual
barrenness
as
well as
the
practical
inutility
of these
assumptions,
and, perhaps,
to stimulate a
debate
and
some
more serious
thinking
about
the
nature
of
political
theory.
Instead
of a response
which
directs
our attention
to an
examina-
tion
of the
evidence
upon
which
such assumptions
are based
and
how
one
could
apply
them
in a specific
historical
instance,
however,
critics
of
my
challenge
thus
far
have
been
content
to
assume
that
these assumptions
are simply
self-evident
and
obvious,
thus
perpetuating
the tendency
to
rely upon
habit, authority,
and
tradi-
tion rather than upon argument and evidence as a basis for their ac-
ceptance.
Douglas
and
Marfin say
the
distinction
between
ideology
and
philosophy
.
. .
corresponds
to
an empirical
difference
that
is
readily
perceptible
in
the
literature
of the
Western
tradition
(P.
572)
Readily
perceptible ?,
I
thought
that
might
be one
of
the
issues
worth
discussing,
but
no, Douglass
and
Marfin
assure
us
that
there are
no
problems
here.
There
may
be
minor
difficulties
since
the distinction
is a
matter
of degree
and
is not
absolute.
We
could debate as
to
exactly
how
the distinction
should
be drawn
and
how it
should
be
applied,
but
why
should
we
when
we
already
know that
Plato's
Republic
is
a different
kind
of work
from
Lenin's
What is
to be
Done?
(P.
572)
Pardon
me,
I thought
we
were
debating
that
issue
in
order
to find out precisely
how
and
why
such
distinctions
need
to be made.
Need
I remind
the authors
that
Capital
is
not What
is
to be
Done?
either,
but
that
in itself
hardly
makes
Marx
less
of an
ideologue
than
Lenin,
only,
perhaps,
a
more
profound
thinker.
But
the
more obvious
fact
is
that
Douglass
and
Marfin, like most traditional interpreters, do not explain either the
reasoning
upon
which
their
conclusions
are
based
or
the
epistemological
grounds
of
their
interpretive
approach
to the
texts;
they
neither
reveal
the
criteria
for making
this readily
perceptible
distinction,
nor
do they
show
us
how,
in
practice,
the distinction
can
be
applied.
Indeed,
even
to debate
such
points
seems
to them
not
a
particularly
worthwhile undertaking.
Even
those who
do not
share
my
viewpoint
might
be
inclined
to feel that
J.
S. Mill's admonition
ought to be invoked,
namely,
that basic
and popularly
accepted
principles
need
to be debated
if they are
to avoid
sinking
into the
sterility
of scholasticism.
However seriously
we take
the
text
of
Plato's
Republic,
there
are
not many
interpreters
who
would
now
undertake
a defense
of
the
truth
of his epistemological
position
as
he presents
it, or
his
view
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REJOINDER
FROM
RICHARD
ASHCRAFT
579
that
political
leaders
should
engage
in
communal
living, or
his
quasi-mystical
interest in
numerology,
et
cetera.
Perhaps
we
could
'be told why these are not
timeless
truths
for
the
long
run,
and
how
they
come to
be
sifted
out
so
easily
from
those
which
are? If,
in
reading
the
Politics,
we
are
told
that
Aristotle's
defense
of
private
property
is
justified
by
his
realistic
understanding of
human
nature,
then,
perhaps,
we
ought
to
accept
his
realistic
analysis
of
society
in
terms of
class
conflict with
the
same
degree
of
conviction.
If
we do
not
accept
his
views
on
slavery,
Machiavelli's
cyclic
inter-
pretation
of
history,
the
argument for
the
divine
right of
kings,
and
many other precepts held by past political theorists because we have
good
reasons for
not
doing
so,
reasons
which
are not
unrelated to
a
whole
complex set of
beliefs
we
hold
as well
as to
the
nature
of
our
social
institutions
which
embody and
support
those
beliefs,
then
the
same
criteria
must be
employed
in
a
defense of
those
precepts from
past
political
theories
which
we
do
accept.
It
is,
in
short,
we
who
decide
which
propositions to
extract
as
truths
from
a
particular
text,
and
which
beliefs to
reject, how
to
distribute
the
emphasis in
our
reconstructed
version
of
what
the
theorist
said
or
intended
to
say, et cetera.
The
so-called
tradition
of
political
theory
itself
as we
have
come
to
regard it
is, as
John
Gunnell
has
shown, a
recent
construction
for-
mulated
within
a
specific
historical
context.2
Political
theory has
not
always
been
viewed as
it
is
by
contemporary
theorists.
Before
we
ascribe
eternal
essences to
various
concepts
within
political
theory,
there
are
more
than
a few
questions to
be
raised
about the
assumed
eternal
essence
of
political
theory. It
is
therefore
somewhat surprising that Douglass and Marfin seem willing to stake
so
much
upon
the
changing
whims of
popularity
as
a
guide
to
the
nature of
political
theory,
since
how
and
why
beliefs
gain
a
wide
following
(P.
572) and
undergo
changes
is
certainly
a
subject
of
great
interest
to
the
sociology of
knowledge.
Of
course, if
all
of
our
widely held
beliefs
could
so
simply
be
equated with
the
intellectual
merits
of
the
case
or
with
making
sense, as
the
authors
assume in
this
instance,
sociologists
of
knowledge-and
philosophers-would
have
precious
little
to
do.
There
might
indeed
be
good
reasons for
preferring
Hobbes's
Leviathan
to
Paine's
Common
Sense as
a
work
of
political
theory,
2
John
G.
Gunnell,
Political
Theory:
Tradition
and
Interpretation,
(Cambridge,
Mass.:
Winthrop,
1979).
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580
THE
JOURNAL
OF
POLITICS,
VOL.
44, 1982
but before we
accept
the
proposition
as self-evident and pass on to
something
else, perhaps
we could explore a bit further a few dimen-
sions
of the
problem
of
making
such
judgments.
We might
wonder
why
we do not see
the truth or
significance
of
such
great political
theorists as Aquinas
or Augustine, as our predecessors
three or four
centuries
ago
did, why Cicero has
fallen
from his
place as a major
political theorist for the seventeenth
century
to
his status as a
minor theorist for
us,
if he is read at
all, why
Calvin
is
generally
not even included on our list of
political
theorists, and why,
even in
those works which
are carried forward,
what we emphasize as being
important in them is quite often very different from the way in
which individuals
in
previous
centuries read
those works.
Taking
the texts seriously
involves some
self-critical
reflections upon
these
changes
in status, importance,
and meaning
of
works
of
political
theory.
A
view which pretends that
such
changes have
nothing
whatsoever
to do with
the
relationship
of
political
theory, past and
present, to a specific historical
context is not one
which, in my view,
takes either
the text
or
the theorist
seriously.
For
years,
we were
told
that
Hobbes's political theory should
be
read as the unique product of a genius isolated from the merely
pragmatically
directed efforts
of lesser contemporary political
writers. This
view
of
Hobbes's argument
is
historically
false.
We
now
have
evidence
and good
reasons for believing
that
Hobbes's
in-
tentions in
writing the Leviathan were no
less pragmatically
directed than
those of
lesser writers,
that his ideas were shared by
a
specific group
of
theorists,
that what his theory meant to
his
con-
temporaries
is quite different
from the meanings several modern
in-
terpreters attribute to it, and so on. We were told that Locke's use
of
concepts
such
as
the
state
of
nature,
natural law,
his
notion of
equality,
et
cetera, gave an abstract quality
to
his
political
theory,
of
the
kind
that elevated
it into a realm transcending
the level of
writings
of
those
who
seek to have an immediate practical
effect.
This, too, is historically false.
Dozens
of
pamphlets
published
in
the
1680s
employ all of these
Lockean concepts in their political
arguments.
Indeed,
most contemporary interpreters would
in most
instances be
mistaken if they were
asked to name what concepts
or
arguments in the Two Treatises are peculiar or unique to Locke.
Many
other
examples
from
the
history
of
political
thought
could be
cited,
but the
point
is
that much
of
what
we
assume
to
be true as
part
of
our philosophical interpretation
of
a
particular
work
of
political theory turns out
to be historically false.
The degree
to
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REJOINDER FROM
RICHARD ASHCRAFT
581
which
any
single instance
of this
nature
affects
the
overall status of
a
specific
interpretation
is,
of
course,
dependent
upon
the
details
of
the
historical
evidence
and the
structure
of
the
interpretation,
but it
hardly can
be a
philosophically unimportant
question in
general to
ask,
how
much
of
what
we
believe
and take
for
granted
about
a
par-
ticular
work of
political
theory is
dependent upon
our
historical ig-
norance,
and
how much is
based
upon the best
available evidence?
If
empirical
evidence
of
this
type is
to
be
allowed to
have
no
effect
in
changing the
meaning
of
the
great
works of
political
theory,
or
rather, our
interpretations
of
them,
it
is difficult to
see why we
should take seriously any interpretation with which we happen to
disagree,
for
what kind
of
evidence
and
argument could
possibly
in-
duce
an
interpreter
to
change
his
or
her
mind?
(The
text, after all,
is itself
only a
piece
of
empirical
evidence,
along
with
diaries, let-
ters,
eyewitness
accounts, et
cetera.)
If
appeals to
evidence are
presumed
to
have some
effect
-
and
this point
relates to
the
general
question raised
by
Douglass
and Marfin as to
why cultures and
societies
do
change
their
worldviews over
time -then I
do not
see
how it can
be
denied a priori
that
appeals to
historical evidence
relating
to
the theorist,
his
situation,
intentions,
audience,
political
purposes,
et
cetera indeed
may have
the
effect of
changing
the
meaning
of
a
particular work in
political
theory,
or
may
play a
decisive
role in
our decision to
accept
the
validity
of
one
interpreta-
tion of
that work
over its
contemporary rival
interpretations.3
In
my article, I
maintained that
contemporary
political
theorists
premise their
characterization of
the
crisis
or
decline of
political
theory upon all
kinds
of
historical/sociological
assumptions
for
which they provide inadequate arguments and evidence. This
point,
too, is
not
addressed
by my
critics.
Strauss,
for
example,
premises his
conclusion
that political
philosophy has
declined
upon
his
assertion that
a belief in
the
relativism
of
values, or the
rise
of
historicism, or the
politicization of
philosophy,
et cetera
spread
throughout
society
between
the sixteenth
and twentieth
centuries.
Now, these
appear
to
be
historical
suppositions about
changes
in
3
This is
a more
important
point than it
might at
first appear to be,
since it
would
mean that a particular historically grounded interpretation would have to be con-
sidered
on
the
merits
of
its
arguments,
the
specific
evidence it
presented
would have to
be
examined,
other factual
material could be
introduced
into the
discussion
bv its
critics, and so
forth;
in other
words,
the
whole
form and
structure of the
debate
regarding
various interpretations of
a
specific
theorist's political
thought
would be
significantly
changed.
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582
THE JOURNAL
OF POLITICS, VOL. 44,
1982
social
consciousness
in Western societies. But
what
historical
evidence
is actually presented
in
support
of such global
assertions,
and
what
theory
of social change or cultural transformation
is of-
fered to guide us
through
these shifts
in world-historical thought
spread
over four
centuries? In some
simple
but
unexplained
man-
ner we are
left to assume
that the ideas of Machiavelli
and
Hobbes
(as interpreted
by Strauss,
but not necessarily
as they were actually
read by
anyone else, since
this
point
is
not
demonstrated)
merely
flowed
into the
mainstream
of
social
consciousness
for the West.
Similarly,
Wolin
writes
of the
decline
of the
political
and
its
replacement by the social and other theorists tell us of the
secularization
of
political
thought, and
so forth, as
if the
historical/sociological
evidence
in
support
of such sweeping
generalizations
was
perfectly self-evident,
or could be deduced
easily
from the
citations
from the
writings
of
a
few
philosophically
oriented
thinkers. Such a way
of
presenting
an argument
about
historical and social
change is,
in plain terms, nonsensical;
yet,
unless
the
historical
plausibility
of the
presuppositions
held
by
Strauss,
Wolin, Germino, and
others
is
accepted,
their
theoretical
conclusions and
arguments
would lose both
their
internal-logical
and
their
social-practical significance.
Nevertheless,
it is
far
from
clear
why
we should take
seriously
these assertions
about historical
and social
changes
when
so
little evidence is
presented
relating
to the
structure
of
society;
viz., the interrelations
between
various
social
groups,
the relationship between
the
political
theorists discussed and
these
social groups,
the extent
to
which
their ideas
were
accepted
by particular groups
and for what
purposes, the place of
political
ideas in relation to other religious, philosophical, aesthetic beliefs,
the
reasons
for
changes
in
these
patterns and
relationships, and
many more such questions,
to which we would certainly
require
some concrete answers
in
order
to
assess
the
intellectual
merits of the
grandiose assertions
made by some
contemporary political theorists.
(Nor need anyone suppose
that
we need philosophers who
make such
wild and
unsupported
statements
in the
guise
of
critical analysis
in
order to set lesser
minds rummaging for grubby
facts; there
is a
sufficient
surplus
of such broad-gauged
theories among
contem-
porary
historians and
sociologists.)
When,
in their
remarks, Douglass and Marfin consider
these
issues, they too, combine
great conviction
about cultural
change
with
a
paucity
of evidence. We
are
advised that somehow,
through
some
unexplained
mechanism,
the ideas of a great philosopher
flow
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REJOINDER FROM RICHARD
ASHCRAFT 583
into the collective social
consciousness, through
a kind of mystical
mental osmosis. Cultures
and societies change,
the authors write,
and
the
course
of
change can
be
and
is affected by philosophical
ideas. This piece
of historical news is followed by the assurance
that philosophers have played a key role in effecting
the change
(P. 575) but precisely
how such vague generalities could find
their
meaning
in
any specific
social/historical
context
is not
even
hinted
at. The reason
for this
seems
to be
that Douglass
and Marfin have
no ideas at all about
how cultural or social changes occur, since they
write . . . Short of
totalitarian control,
there
really
is
no
program
for the transformation of a culture; and, regarding the relationship
between philosophy and political action, they
declare,
. . . there is
not a great deal
to be said (P. 575).
I
appreciate
these
admissions
of
honesty
on their
part,
but
perhaps
the rest of us will be
forgiven
if
we
attempt
to
push
on
a bit
further
past
these frontiers
of
ignorance
in the
search
for
an answer
to
these problems.
Douglass and Marfin
are quite right
to
say
that what it means to
be
political and
to
have
a political effect is a centrally important
issue (P. 574). But
elusive references to cultural transformations
or to
philosophical
ideas exercising
some
profound
effect
upon
politics
in the
long run
no more
constitute a
theory of politics than
they
do
a theory
of
history
or
social change.
They do
not
add up
to
a
theory
of
anything, only
a
string
of
vacuous
phrases.
When the
authors
attempt
to
provide
us
with some definite statements about
some
particular political
theorist
effecting
some specific change
in
some
concrete society,
then
I
shall consider
with
great
interest
what
kind of evidence they choose
to
present
in
support
of such assertions,
and what it means to be political in light of their answers to those
specific questions.
In view of
their failure
to
bring politics
down
from the
airy
heights
to
which they
have banished it,
I think it is possible to see
why Douglass
and
Marfin misunderstand
my
point
about Strauss
and
others.
I
did
not-and
would
not-deny
that Strauss's
ideas
have practical effects
or
political consequences,
or
that he
himself
had political aims which
he sought to achieve through his writing
and
teaching.
Indeed,
if
I
had
not believed
this,
I
would not
have
written the
essay
in the first
place. However,
one
does
not
have
to
be
totally enveloped
in the literature
of
political
sociology
and
behavioral science
to know
that apathy,
counsels
of
withdrawal,
or
what
I
called
a retreat
to
philosophy
do have
political consequences.
But, having political consequences and political
purposes
are
not
the
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584
THE
JOURNAL
OF
POLITICS,
VOL. 44,
1982
same
thing, as
I
have
tried to show,
as having
a theory
of political
action whose meaning
is
dependent
upon
an
analysis
of
political
relationships
between
existing
social
groups.
In my
article,
I cited
Strauss's
statements
extolling
a
life devoted
to contemplation
as
being
the highest
subject
of political philosophy
as a
misdirection
of others
as to
an understanding
of
the
nature of political
theory.4
That
such a
view of political
theory
nevertheless
has
definite
political
consequences,
and especially
with
reference
to political
in-
volvement,
is true
enough;
that
it
is
the most important
definition
of political
theory available
and that
it
has
established
that claim
to
importance, in part, through the significant role it has played in the
process
of
historical
and
social
change
is
a point we
would
all like
very much
to see demonstrated.
Finally,
in their reply,
Douglass
and
Marfin manifest precisely
the
level
of understanding
of
ideology
which is generally
prevalent
in
the literature
on
political
theory
when they
say
that what
is
involved
is simply
the attempt
to
look beyond the substance
of
theories
to
their social
sources
and
function
and
to demonstrate
that
class
in-
terest
played
a
role in
determining
the character
of the political
thought
of
a
particular
theorist
(P.
572).
One
aim
of
my
article,
indirectly
stated,
I
admit,
was
to
encourage
political
theorists
to
think through
the issues
beyond
the
simplistic
characterizations
of
ideology
in
terms
of
reductionism
or social
function
and
other
equally
superficial
pronouncements
by
contemporary
political
scientists.
The latter
seem
unable
to
grasp
the
possibility
that
ideology might
be something
more than a
blunt instrument
with
which
to
bludgeon
ideas
to
death.
How much
longer,
one
wonders,
will all the issues and problems raised by the view of political theory
as
ideology
be treated
as
though
Kautsky
were
the
only
Marxist
who
ever lived and
his ideas
had gained
universal
acceptance?
I do
not
suggest
that
recent
writings
by
Marxist
theorists and
scholars have
solved all
the
problems
associated
with such a position,
nor would
I
deny that
some
of
these
writers have
carried
forward
what are,
in
my
view, ill-grounded
assumptions
held by earlier
thinkers. Never-
theless,
it
does seem
reasonable
to expect some
of
my
non-Marxist
colleagues
to
update
their
reading
and
improve
upon
their
4 Political Theory and
the Problem of
Ideology, Journal
of Politics,
42 (August
1980), 703, note
51.
I
also
take Professor
Germino's
statements about
the meditative
life and the
bios theoretikos
to be a confirmation
of this viewpoint.
Comment
on
Ashcraft's 'Political
Theory
and the Problem
of Ideology,'
707-708 in
the same
jour-
nal.
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REJOINDER
FROM
RICHARD
ASHCRAFT
585
understanding
of
what
is actually
being said
by
their contem-
poraries,
from time
to
time.
I am sure
that Douglass
and
Marfin
will
understand,
therefore,
if I
do
not
recognize
anything
they said
about
ideology
as having any
relationship
to
or
bearing
upon what
I
believe
or
have
written.
In these
brief
comments,
I have
tried to develop
further
some of
the
general points
I
made in my article,
as
well as to
respond
to the
criticisms
of Douglass and
Marfin.
In
attempting
to fulfil both ob-
jectives,
I
hope
that
I
have
made
it clear why the
view of political
theory as
ideology
requires
a
rethinking of
many of
the notions
about political theory we have inherited and which are still prom-
ulgated
by
contemporary political
theorists.
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