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11 - On (Lost and Found) Analytical History in Political Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 December 2022

By
Ira Katznelson
Edited by
Richard Bourke  and
Quentin Skinner
Richard Bourke
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Quentin Skinner
Affiliation:
Queen Mary University of London
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Summary

I argue that feminism develops a historicist critique of philosophy from within philosophy. Feminist thinkers bring to bear both history and historicist sensibilities to reveal concepts as constructs of power rather than given in nature, and reason as fractured, weaponised, and thickly situated in political structures. They thereby take aim at both philosophy and – relatedly – patriarchy. But feminists are not immune from the lure of conceptual analysis, from wanting to fix, to get right, the terms of their campaign – nor indeed from wanting themselves to claim a transcendent vantage point of truth. This chapter is about the gulf between history and philosophy, and the feminist bridge between them.

Keywords

Political sciencehistory
Type
Chapter
Information
History in the Humanities and Social Sciences , pp. 260 - 285
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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