What is Political Theory Philosophy by Mark E Warren

8/19/2019 What is Political Theory Philosophy by Mark E Warren

1/8

What Is Political Theory/Philosophy?

Author(s): Mark E. WarrenSource: PS: Political Science and Politics, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Sep., 1989), pp. 606-612Published by: American Political Science AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/419629

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2/8

Features

What Is Political

Theory/Philosophy?

MarkE.

Warren

Georgetown University

The

subdiscipline

f

political

heory

and

political

philosophy

continues

to

suffer

some

misunderstanding

within

political

science as a whole.

Notwithstanding

ts

renaissance

in

the last

decade,

political

theory/philosophys still oo often charac-

terized

in

terms that obscure its

roles and

functions within the

discipline.

Political

theory/philosophy

s often

referred

to

as

normative

theory

as

a

way

of

distin-

guishing

ts

concerns with values from

the

empirical

heory

and

research

of

politi-

cal

science

proper.

Where the concerns

of

political theory/philosophy

are

not

just

normative,

political

cientistsoften

charac-

terize

it

as

speculative

heory

to

distin-

guish

it

from

empirical

heory

that can

be confirmedor refuted

by

reference to

observable data.

The

terms of such

a

dis-

tinction

suggest,

of

course,

that

theories

grounded

in

certainties

can and

ought

to

replace

the

speculative

approaches

of

tra-

MARK . WARREN

ditional

political

thought.

And

because

political

heory/philosophy

elies

heavily

n

the historyof politicalhought,manysee it

as

part

of

history

and

the

humanities

rather

than

political

science--interesting

and

necessary

for

any

culturally

iterate

person,

but

fundamentally

distinct from

contemporary

political

esearch.

Terminological

istinctions

uch as

these

solidified n an

era in

which

behavioralist

agendas

shaped

subdisciplinary

ounda-

ries,

and

they

reflect

the influence

hat

neo-positivist

views of

explanation

once

had

within

the

discipline.

Since that

time,

however, we have developed more

sophisticated

understandings

of

how

theory

and

philosophy

relate to

empirical

research.

These

developments

have

in

turn affected

the

way

we

understand

he

explanatory

concerns of

political

cience,

while

also

expanding political

heory/phi-

losophy beyond

its

traditional

boundaries.

New

assessments

of

the

relation

be-

tween

theory/philosophy

nd

explanation

have

in

part

been

stimulated

by

close at-

tention to

philosophy

of science

over the

last

couple

of decades. The behavioralist

agenda

deserves

some

credit

for

this at-

tention,

since it

sought

criteria

of

scientific

authority

in

positivist

eplstemology-that

is,

the

view

that

explanatory

meaning

depends

entirely

on

reference

to

observ-

ables.

Positivism,

however,

has

long

been

superseded

by

other

accounts

of

explana-

tion.

Whatever

their

many

differences,

all

schools

of

philosophy

f

science

agree

that

explanatory meanings

are underdeter-

mined by observables. Explanation

depends

to a

much

greater

extent

than

the

positivists

appreciated

on

conceptual

relations

and

assumptions

internal

to

theory,

and thus on

the

kind

of

systematic

conceptual

analysis

raditionally racticed

by

political

theory/philosophy.

For

this

reason

political

heories

and

philosophies

have

what

I

shallcall

a

meoning-constitutive

function

within

all

explanations.

This

func-

tion is

increasingly

ecognized

within

politi-

cal

science,

and this is no

doubt

one reason

why the post-behavioralra has coincided

with

a

resurgence

of

interest

in

political

theory/philosophy.

At

the

same

time,

political

heory/phi-

losophy

has

changed

dramatically

n

the

last

couple

of

decades.

Whereas

t

used

to

PS:

Political Science

&

Politics06


3/8

What Is Political

Theory/Philosophy?

be

mostly

the

history

of

political

hought,

today

it

includes

a mixture of

conceptual,

linguistic,

nd normative

analysis, grandtheories of

society

and

politics

(which

are

w 40

44

0 *

4

44t

4 kz

Ak?4.

comingbackto lifeinnew forms),andphi-

losophy

of

social

science. As a subdisci-

pline,

it is

broader,

more

eclectic,

more

sophisticated,

and more

sensitive to ex-

planatory

concerns

than

it was

just

two

decades

ago.

But we have been less

suc-

cessful

in

developing

alternatives to the

neo-positivist

erms we

use to character-

ize the

relationsbetween

political heory/

philosophy

and

explanation,

and thus the

role

of

political

theory/philosophy

within

political

cience.

Our

failure

eaves us sub-

ject

to the

tacit blinders

of

terminological

distinctions.The distinctions offer here

as

alternatives o

those with

a

neo-positivist

genesis

suggest

one

way

of

more accurate-

ly

depicting

the

functions of

political

theory/philosophy.They

also

suggest

why

explanations

of the

political

world neces-

sarily

involve the

diversity

of

theoretical

and

philosophical

concerns

that we

are

now

seeing

withinthe

discipline.

Political Theory

atory,

all

explanatory

heories

involve,

and

are

partly

determined

by,

the

philosophi-

cal

presuppositions

that are

essential to

their

explanatory power-an

issue to

which

I

shall return.

Accordingly,

I

suggest

that we reserve

the

term

politicaltheory

(in

contrast

to

political

hilosophy)

or those

dimensions

of

conceptual

schemes that

select

and

orga-

nize

informationabout the

political

world

for

explanatory purposes-for example,

neo-marxist

theories of

the

state

or

rationalchoice models of

decisionmaking.

Political cientists

have

always

appreciated

that theories such as these suggestsignifi-

cant

problems

and

hypotheses,

as

well as

provide

common

languages

nd

conceptu-

al tools. What has

changed

in

the

post-

behavioral

era is our

appreciation

of the

meaning-constitutive

unctionsof

theories.

It is

now

an

accepted

tenet of the

philos-

ophy

of social science that

explanatory

meanings

of terms are

interdependent

within

a

body

of

theory.

There

are,

of

course,

many

different versions

of

how

this occurs and

what

its

implications

re.

e4,^

t

VC4?4

4o4t

I4i

AU

W4dve.

44

4,

To

begin

with,

it is

useful o recalla

pre-

positivist

distinction between theoretical

and

philosophical

problems:

although

closely

interrelated,

we

need

to

recognize

their

differences o

as

not

to confuse

philo-

sophical

issues with those

of

explanatory

theory.

In

the

way

I

shall use the terms

here,

theoriesare

about

things

hat

empiri-

cally

exist,

even

if

these

things

are them-

selves

ideas, values,

and

theories that

are

part

of the

political

world.

Philosophical

concerns

have to do with

conceptual

pre-

suppositions

and

judgments

that are em-

bedded

in

explanatory

heories.

Although

philosophical nalysis

s not

directlyexplan-

wokUL.

At the

very

least,

however,

the

point

im-

plies

that

in addition to care

in

specify-

ing empirical

referents

(a legacy

of behav-

ioralism),

political

scientists

need to

develop

a

greater

awareness

of

how their

theories

constitute

their

problems

and

even their

findings.Explanation,

s

always,

requires

hat we

distinguish

mpirical

rom

theoretical

questions-something

positiv-

ists

rightly

insisted

upon.

But

it

also re-

quires

us to

interrelateboth

dimensionsof

September

1989

607

AvAM,*.

AA

41

0(

f

AUt

it

Aa


4/8

Features

meaning-a

task

positivists

ailedto

recog-

nize

as

a

problem

because

they

held that

the

meanings

of theoretical

terms are re-

ducibleto theirempiricalreferents.

p4

40f e40

S

-Cc-t-ft^J ^WAfCt?b*1

u4o.

vle

A first

step

in

recognizing

he

relative

autonomy

of

theory

is to notice that we

rarely

use theories

as

representational

maps

of the

political

world

at

all,

even

though

this

metaphor

dominates

common

understandings.

More

often,

the

explana-

tory powers

of theories are indirect

in

a

way

that

provides

them with a

meaning-

constitutive

dimension: we use

them as

limiting

cases and counterfactuals

to

reduce the

complexity

of

the

political

world so it

might

become a discrete

object

of

study.

We

decide

to

reduce

complexity

in one

way

rather han another

for

reasons

that

are,

more

often than

not,

normative.

This

is the

way

it should

be,

since this is

how we

characterize

ertaindimensions

f

the world

as

problematic-say,

its effi-

ciency, justice, distributionof power, or

violence-and thus

worthy

of further

in-

vestigation.

Models

of

democracy

work

in

this

way,

as do rational choice

models,

models of

organizational

structure,

theories of

development,

conflict,

world

systems,

and so

on. The

normative com-

ponent

of

limiting

cases and counterfac-

tuals

is

a

problem only

if one

uses

them as

if

theories were

representational

maps

rather

than

meaning-constitutive

ecisions

of

a

community

of

political

cientists.

One

can avoid these mistakesonly by making

the theories themselves

into

objects

of

study. Only

then

can

one

defend the con-

stitutive

meanings

and normative

implica-

tions that

inevitably

ollow from them.

A

second role of

political heory

in

ex-

608

planation

whose

importance

s

increasingly

recognized

s

that

it

deals

with the

concep-

tual

coherence

of

interpretative

schemes

that (empirically) nter into politicalac-

tions

through

actors'

understandings

nd

uses

of

the

terms of

political

discourse.

Ex-

amples

would be

analyses

of

political

deol-

ogies,

cultures,

rhetoric,

diplomatic

docu-

ments,

as

well

as

everyday

discourses

as

they

come to bear

on

the

political

world.

To take

a

simple

example,

the

act

of vot-

ing

is

caused

in

part

by

the

way

actors

understand

he normative

significance

nd

political

unction

of

voting

within a demo-

craticsystem. Forthis reason,the intelligi-

bility

of

voting

requires

something

more

than observation: it

requires

(conceptual)

interpretation

of an

empirically-existing

universeof

discourse

n

which are embed-

ded

understandings

bout

democratic

rep-

resentation-or

indeed,

whatever other

discourse

happens

to

impact

on

voting.

These

textual

elements of

politics

are

an intrinsic

part

of

the

political

world

because

they

conceptually

orient

individ-

uals

toward

collective

decisionmaking.

Wj%ie,4es

^eto

14$%At4

l

tuw

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^


5/8

What

Is

Political

Theory/Philosophy?

nology,

hermeneutics,

and

interpretive

sociology.

A

less

obvious

example

of

an

in-

terpretive approach is rational choice

theory:

it views the

political

world as

made

up

of

conceptually

coherent

inten-

tions that

formulate

nstrumentally

ational

action orientations.What

distinguishes

a-

tional

choice

theory

from

other

interpreta-

tive

approaches

is

a

confusion

about

the

status of its methods:

it

constitutes he do-

main of intentions

by

means of axioms

rather

than

treating

ntentionality

s an

in-

terpretive

problem.

This confusion

has

allowed

rational

choice

theory

to inherit

positivist expectations for a definitive

empirical

theory

that would

displace

traditional

political heory.

Political

Philosophy

the nature and fundamental

properties

of

reality.

We

no

longer

believe

we can

carry

out such investigationsbecause we no

longer

presume

intellectual ccess to real-

ity

as such.

For

good

reason

ontology

as a

science has fallen out of favor. None-

theless,

the term has been resurrected

in

political philosophy

for

slightly

different

purposes:

whether

reality

is

knowable or

not,

we

unavoidably

make

general

as-

sumptions

about the nature of

the

reality

we are

investigating.

hese

mightproperly

be

called

ontological

ssumptions

because

they

are

logically

prior

to

any

explanation

and serve as its conditions of possibility.

Covvso

e^ftl.

4of

44,4

%Ces

44

We

might

reserve the term

political hi-

losophy

as

opposed

to

political

heory)

or

concernsthat are

not

immediately

xplan-

atory.

Political

philosophy

typically

in-

volves

questions

having

to

do with the

conceptual presuppositionsof theoretical

orientations,

as well

as

questions

of

judg-

ment about

truth and

value. A common

misconception

in

political

science is

that

most

questions

of

politicalphilosophy

are

about normative

issues;

hence its

overly

narrow identification

with normative

theory.

In

fact,

the

problems

of

political

philosophy

all

into three

distinct,

although

interrelated,

categories

of

analysis

and

judgment,only

one of

which

is

normative.

Wt4

---

c ?

00 44e4

44e.41L40-444~4440

~&? t?~~

O4441f.

-

4ic

^^^M

H4c4ot,q,

1

4,K*t

. . .

Although

necessary,

they

cannot be em-

pirically

nvestigated

because

they

charac-

terize

general properties

of the world

we seek to

investigate.

Most

ontological

assumptions

are

so

fundamental

hat we

take them for

granted,

not

understanding

how

they

frame,

select,

and

limit

possibili-

ties

for

explanation

and

judgment.

All

em-

pirical

esearch

presupposes

hat some set

of features of the humancondition-such

as

consciousness,

language,

carcity,

tem-

porality,

causal

determination,

lawlike

regularity-defines

a

political

world as

a

knowable

object

of

study.

Decisions o

in-

clude some features

of the human

condi-

tion

and

exclude others are not

trivial:

they

constitute

disciplinary

domains

by

defining

objects

of

explanation.

For

exam-

ple,

the behavioralist

claim that

only

observablesthat

can be ordered

into

logi-

cal

associations

ount as a

(knowable)

part

of political ealityproducesone kindof dis-

ciplinary

domain. The rationalchoice

pre-

supposition

that

politics

is

an effect of

in-

strumentally

rational actions

produces

a

second kind

of domain. The Weberian

focus on

intentional

ctions molded

by

dis-

September

1989

Ontologicat

questions:

Some

of

these

problems

are

ontological.

The term

ontol-

ogy

refers to the science

that

investigates

609

3kct

*

4

*tlo1 od

d^o

v

awlcW

qw


6/8

Features

tinctive cultural

possibilities

produces

a

third.

Those

who see

social and

organiza-

tional

structuresas irreducible o behavior

or

intentional

action

produce

still

another

definitionof

what

features of

the human

condition

makes the

political

world

possi-

ble.

4


7/8

What

Is

Political

Theory/Philosophy?

verified

by

referring

to

theory-indepen-

dent

observations.

This

is

why positivists

deny a (knowable)causalstatus to inter-

pretive

phenomena

in

the

political

world,

and

seek to reduce

them to

lawlike

regu-

larities. In

contrast,

much

political

philosophy

oday

has

to

do

with articulat-

ing postpositivist

accounts

of the

authority

of

social scientific

nterpretations

of inter-

pretative

phenomena.

Recent

critical

theory,

for

example,

focuses on

criteriaof

authority implicit

in the

intersubjective

dimensions

of action.

Normative

questions:

It is

well

recognized

that

political

philosophy

deals with a

third

category

of

questions,

those

having

o

do

with

normative

judgment.

The

classical

form

of

questioning

n

political

philosophy

occurs

when

problems

of

explanatory

judgment

can be

distinguished

rom those

of normative

judgment.

Thus,

assuming

that

the

relevant

aspects

of

a

political

do-

main

are

known,

how are

they

to be

judged?

What

are

the

criteria

of

judgment,

and how are they relatedto fundamental

human

values?

What

modes

of

political

organization

would

maximize

hese

values?

Although

normative

judgments

are

logi-

cally

distinct

from

explanatory

concerns,

they

are also

closely

related

by

the

pecu-

liar

way

that

political

cience

is

defined

as a

discipline.

Whatever

other

disagreements

there

might

be

about

domain,

we

usually

call

something

political

f it concerns

col-

lective

decisionmaking,

where the

ques-

tion whatoughtwe to do? isalways

m-

plicit.

Political

cience

is

unique

among

the

social

sciences

in

that

its

domain s

precon-

stituted

by

normative

questions.

Stated

otherwise,

such

questions

are

intrinsic o

the

possibility

of a

political

cience.

This

logical

ormulation

has

an

empirical

orre-

late:

individuals ct

politically

when

they

are

normatively

oriented toward

collec-

tive

problems.

Political

philosophers

artic-

ulate

this

dimension

of

politics

when

they

reconstruct

and

analyze

the

normative

dimensionof politicaldiscourse.

Normative

and

explanatory

goals

are

closely

related

in other

ways

as

well.

As

suggested,

we often

assign significance

o

political

research

according

o

normative

judgments.

For

example, studying

voting

presupposes

that

voting

is

problematic,

which

in

turn

presupposes

a normative

theory of liberal-democracywithin which

voting

is

a central

and definitiveelement.

In

contrast,

Marxist

theories

downplay

voting

because of the normative

udgment

that

political

democracy

is

diminished n

value without

economic

democracy;

his

is

partly why

Marxistsare interested

in

the

effects

of economic

structures

on

politics.

o4

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a

d4It

44A144W''W

4fd40C..

0'

44e4ccltv

-4.~e~o~c~J?.

Somewhat

less obvious

is the

way

that

different

normative tendencies

and

possi-

bilities follow

from

ontological

decisions

that select

for some

kinds of

applications

and exclude

others. For

example,

if one

constitutes

the

political

universe as

made

up

of

behaviors,

the

form of

knowledgeone

produces

will lack connections to in-

tentional and

linguisticphenomena.

Lack-

ing

these

connections,

it will be

relatively

useless-or at best

insufficient-for

in-

creasing

ndividual

apacities

or choice and

self-direction.

What behavioral

research

can be

used

for

is behavior

modification

as,

for

example,

in

campaign

use

of

opin-

ion

survey

research

o tailor media

images

for

desired

responses.

But such

applica-

tions

are

technocratic rather than

demo-

cratic. Becausebehavioral ormsof knowl-

edge

can be more

easily put

to

such uses

(rather

than,

say,

locating

conditions

of

public discourse)

they produce

a

bias

toward

technocracy

and

away

from

democracy

September

1989

611


8/8

Features

The aim of

politicalphilosophy

here,

of

course,

is to make such

normative

judg-

ments into problems that one can treat

systematically.

At

the same

time,

aware-

ness about the

interrelations etween nor-

mative orientations

and research can

guard

against

scientistic

political

cience

-that

is,

research that

tacitly

confuses

political

or

value

problems

with

scientific

findings,

History

of Political

Thought

Finally,

comment

may

be

useful

about

why

political theory/philosophydoes so

much

of its work

by

means

of

the

history

of

political

thought.

Classical

systems

of

political hought-from

Plato

and Aristotle

to

Marx and

Weber-exemplify

different

kinds

of

answers

to

many

of the

above

questions,

answers

that

express

central

strains

in

our

political

culture. Political

scientists

nevitably ely

on

the

conceptual

and

linguistic

ools

provided

by

their

politi-

cal

culture-indeed,

if

only

so that

they

can

take the communicationndsignificancef

their

research or

granted.

Cultural

ware-

ness

is

no doubt valuable or

its own sake:

how else could we

know

who the

we is

that is defined

by

a

tradition of

political

discourse?

But,

in

addition,

studying

rela-

tively comprehensive

and

discrete

systems

of

thought

is

an invaluablemeans

of

devel-

oping

an awareness about

our

own

pre-

suppositions

and values.

The canon of

political

hought

is

close

enough

so we can

recognize

our

own

assumptions

within

it,

but distant enough so we can recognize

discrete sets

of

values,

problems,

presup-

positions,

and mistakes.It is never

simply

a

question

of

learning

and

borrowing

from

past

masters,

but also

one

of

seeing

them

as

exemplars

of the

interdependence

of

philosophy, heory,

and

explanation,

such

that

we

might

understand

he

powers

and

limits

of

different

possibilities,

and

gain

a

criticalawareness

of our own

Conclusion

The

resurgence

of

political heory

and

philosophy

s,

in

my

view,

part

of

the disci-

pline's

recovery

from

self-imposed

mis-

understandings

about the nature

of the

political

world,

and about

how it

is

possi-

ble to

know and

judge

it. The

discipline

s

healthier

today

because these

questions

are no

longermarginalized

y

an exclusive-

lybehavioralagenda.Butit is now time to

do

away

with the

terminological

distinc-

tions inherited

rom the

behavioralera as

well. These terms

suggest

indefensible

roles for

political

theory/philosophy,

and

they

continue to confuse us about what

roles,

exactly,

political heory/philosophy

does

play

within

he

discipline.

The distinc-

tions and

interrelations

I

offer

here-be-

tween

theory

and

philosophy,

and

be-

tween

ontological, epistemological,

and

normative

questions-provide

one

way

of

replacing

hese terms and

explaining

hese

roles.

They

also advocate

my

own view

that

the

current renaissance of

political

theory/philosophy

eflects

a

growing rigor

and

depth

in our

understanding

f

political

life

About the

Author

MarkE. Warren s AssistantProfessor f

Government

t

Georgetown

University.

e is

authorof

Nietzsche

nd

Political

houghtMIT

Press,

1988),

nd

currently

orking

n

a book

entitled

Democracy

nd

the

Self

which

will

examine

relations

etween

language,

olitical

interaction,

and

subjectivity

n democratic

theory.

PS: Political

Science

&

Politics

12

What is Political Theory Philosophy by Mark E Warren

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