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New Ways and Old to Talk About Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Michael A. Weinstein
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Extract

This article will sketch a political science that is founded on principles different from those underlying the discipline at present. The major thesis is that contemporary American political science is Newtonian and interactionist in orientation in a world in which scientific thought has become field-oriented and transactionist. Political scientists are still primarily concerned with defining abstract units of analysis and exploring the relations among these units, while many natural scientists and even novelists like Lawrence Durrell have advanced to the stage of studying fields of behavior and domains of human activity. What would a transactionist political science look like? What are some of the reasons for adopting such a political science as a starting point for research and analysis?

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , January 1973 , pp. 41 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1973

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References

1 In the introductory note to Balthazar (New York, 1961)Google Scholar, Lawrence Durrell writes: “Modern literature offers us no Unities, so I have turned to science and am trying to complete a four-decker novel where form is based on the relativity proposition.” He continues that he will attempt to discover “a morphological form one might appropriately call ‘classical’ — for our time.” While both physicists and novelists have grasped the need to create new unities, political scientists have been content to accept traditional forms of thought. This discussion is a modest attempt to sketch a new morphological form.

2 Dewey, John and Bentley, Arthur F., Knowing and the Known (Boston, 1949), p. 107Google Scholar.

3 Ibid., p. 108.

4 Engelmann, Hugo O., “What Is Modern Science?” The Sociological Quarterly, III (01, 1962), 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Ibid., 3–4.

6 Rommen, Heinrich A., The Natural Law (St. Louis, 1955), p. 6Google Scholar.

7 Natural law perspectives are summarized by Gierke, Otto, Natural Law and the Theory of Society (Boston, 1960)Google Scholar; Rommen, The Natural Law; and Strauss, Leo, What is Political Philosophy? (New York, 1959)Google Scholar.

8 Mackenzie, W. J. M., Politics and Social Science (Baltimore, 1967), p. 86Google Scholar.

9 See Easton, David, The Political System (New York, 1953)Google Scholar; Isaak, Alan C., Scope and Methods of Political Science (Homewood, 1969)Google Scholar; Mackenzie, Politics and Social Science; Meehan, Eugene J., Contemporary Political Thought: A Critical Study (Homewood, 1969)Google Scholar; Young, Oran R., Systems of Political Science (Englewood Cliffs, 1968)Google Scholar; for discussions of interactionist political theories.

10 A good summary of the major content-oriented political theories is contained in Hallowell's, John H.Main Currents in Modern Political Thought (New York, 1950)Google Scholar. Form-oriented theories, such as interest group theory, organization theory, elite theory and systems theory, are discussed in Young, Systems of Political Science.

11 Bentley, Arthur F., The Process of Government (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), p. 467CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 For useful introductions to the existentialist description of the human condition see Barrett, William, What Is Existentialism? (New York, 1964)Google Scholar; Breisach, Ernst, Introduction to Modern Existentialism (New York, 1962)Google Scholar.

13 Hocking, William Ernest, “Marcel and the Ground Issues of Metaphysics,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, XIV (06, 1954), 467Google Scholar.

14 Cassirer, Ernst, An Essay on Man (New York, 1970), p. 206Google Scholar.

15 The best pragmatic descriptions of the public situation are found in the works of Dewey, John. Particularly important are Individualism Old and New (New York, 1962)Google Scholar; The Public and Its Problems (New York, 1927)Google Scholar; Reconstruction in Philosophy (New York, 1952)Google Scholar. Hook's, SidneyPolitical Power and Personal Freedom (New York, 1965)Google Scholar is also useful.

16 Peirce, Charles S., Essays in the Philosophy of Science (Indianapolis, 1957), p. 43nGoogle Scholar.

17 Dewey, , Reconstruction in Philosophy, p. 161Google Scholar.

18 Dewey, The Public and Its Problems, passim.

19 Cassirer, Essay on Man; Collingwood, R. G., The New Leviathan (London, 1942)Google Scholar; Jordan, Elijah, Theory of Legislation (Chicago, 1952)Google Scholar; Mumford, Lewis, The Condition of Man (New York, 1944)Google Scholar; Mukerjee, R., The Philosophy of Social Science (London, 1960)Google Scholar; Northrop, F. S. C., The Meeting of East and West (New York, 1966)Google Scholar; Santayana, George, Reason in Society (New York, 1962)Google Scholar; Sheldon, W. H., God and Polarity (New Haven, 1952)Google Scholar; Sorokin, Pitirim, Sociological Theories of Today (New York, 1966)Google Scholar; and Whitehead, Alfred North, Adventures of Ideas (New York, 1933)Google Scholar.

20 De Grange, McQuilkin, The Nature and Elements of Sociology (New Haven, 1953), p. 38Google Scholar.

21 Ibid., p. 239.

22 The best existentialist descriptions of the public situation appear in Jaspers, Karl, Man in the Modern Age (Garden City, 1957)Google Scholar; Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, Signs (Evanston, 1964)Google Scholar; Ricoeur, Paul, Fallible Man (Chicago, 1967)Google Scholar. Also see Weinstein, Michael A., “Hocking's Existential Sociology,” Sociology and Social Research, LII (07, 1968), 406–415Google Scholar; Tiryakian, E., Sociologism and Existentialism (Englewood Cliffs, 1962)Google Scholar.

23 Varma, Vishwanath Prasad, “Political Philosophy in the Modern Age,” Indian Journal of Political Science, XXX (01–03, 1969), 19Google Scholar.

24 Barrett, , What Is Existentialism? p. 56Google Scholar.

25 Jaspers, , Man in the Modern Age, p. 35Google Scholar.

26 Ibid., p. 37.

27 Mumford, Lewis, The Conduct of Life (New York, 1951), p. 5Google Scholar.

28 Gelber, Sidney, “Toward a Radical Naturalism,” Journal of Philosophy, LVI (02 26, 1959), 195Google Scholar.

29 Koch, Adrienne, Philosophy for a Time of Crisis (New York, 1959), p. 251Google Scholar.

30 Bentley, Arthur F., Relativity in Man and Society (New York, 1926), pp. 206–207Google Scholar.

31 See especially David Eastern, The Political System; Truman, David, The Governmental Process (New York, 1951)Google Scholar; Zeigler, Harmon, Interest Groups in American Society (Englewood Cliffs, 1964)Google Scholar.

32 See especially Blau, Peter M. and Scott, W. Richard, Formal Organizations (San Francisco, 1962)Google Scholar; Gerth, Hans and Mills, G. Wright, From Max Weber (New York, 1958)Google Scholar; Simon, Herbert A., Administrative Behavior (New York, 1960.)Google Scholar

33 See especially Finer, S. E. (e d.), Vilfredo Pareto: Sociological Writings (New York, 1966)Google Scholar; Lasswell, Harold D., Politics: Who Gets. What, When, How? (Cleveland, 1958)Google Scholar; Sereno, Renzo, The Rulers (New York, 1962)Google Scholar.

34 See especially Easton, David, A Framework for Political Analysis (Englewood Cliffs, 1965)Google Scholar; Easton, David, A Systems Analysis of Political Life (New York, 1965)Google Scholar; Kaplan, Morton A., Macropolitics (Chicago, 1969)Google Scholar.

35 Contrast this normal sequence of political thought with the one presented by Leo Strauss in What Is Political Philosophy? Strauss argues that all political action aims at preservation or change, therefore it is guided by thought of better or worse, thought of better or worse implies thought of the good, thought of the good is questionable, men are directed towards such a thought of the good as is no longer questionable, thus all political action has in itself a directedness towards knowledge of the good. While Strauss's presentation takes knowledge of the good as the aim of political thought, the present discussion takes surmounting problems in the public situation as the goal of political thought. To make knowledge itself the aim breaks the unity of theory and practice.