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Terence Ball - Reappraising Political Theory: Revisionist Studies in the History of Political Thought

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In this lively and entertaining book, Terence Ball maintains that classic works in political theory continue to speak to us only if they are periodically re-read and reinterpreted from alternative perspectives. That, the author contends, is how these works became classics, and why they are regarded as such. Ball suggests a way of reading that is both pluralist and problem-driven--pluralist in that there is no one right way to read a text, and problem-driven in that the reinterpretation is motivated by problems that emerge while reading these texts. In addition, the subsequent readings and interpretations become more and more suffused with the interpretations of others. This tour de force, always entertaining and eclectic, focuses on the core problems surrounding many of the major thinkers. Was Machiavelli really amoral? Why did language matter so much to Hobbes--and why should it matter to us? Are the roots of the totalitarian state to be found in Rousseau? Were the utilitarians sexist in their view of the franchise? The authors aim is to show how a pluralist and problem-centered approach can shed new light on old and recent works in political theory, and on the controversies that continue over their meaning and significance. Written in a lively and accessible style, the book will provoke debate among students and scholars alike.

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Page iii
Reappraising Political Theory
Revisionist Studies in the History of Political Thought
Terence Ball
CLARENDON PRESS OXFORD
1995
Page iv
Oxford University Press, Walton Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bombay Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan
Oxford is a trade mark of Oxford University Press
Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York
Terence Ball 1995
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press. Within the UK, exceptions are allowed in respect of any fair dealing for the purpose of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of the licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms and in other countries should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above
The paperback edition of this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in publication Data
Ball, Terence.
Reappraising political theory: revisionist studies in the history
of political thought / Terence Ball.
Includes bibliographical references.
1 Political scienceHistory. 2. Political sciencePhilosophy.
I. Title.
JA81.B253 1994 320.01dc20 94-21129
ISBN 0-19-827953-1
ISBN 0-19-827995-7 (Pbk)
Set by Hope Services (Abingdon) Ltd. Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd. Guildford & King's Lynn
Page v
For
Jean and Glenn Willson
Page vi
Picture 2
Although I do not believe the classics beyond criticism, I hold that they have merits especially well-calculated to counterbalance our defects. They provide support just where we are most likely to fall.
De Tocqueville, Democracy in America
Page vii
PREFACE
This is the second in a series of three companion volumes travelling under the general title 'Political Theory and the Human Sciences'. The first, Transforming Political Discourse (Blackwell, 1988), dealt with the ways in which political theorizing, argumentation, and criticism change the meanings of the concepts with and through which political discourse is conducted. The third volumePositivism, Politics, and the Social Scienceswill examine aspects of the history and philosophy of the social sciences, as seen from within, and criticized from outside, the positivist tradition of political and social enquiry. Taken together, this trilogyif that is not too kind a term for a rough-hewn three-legged stoolis intended as a commentary on, and criticism of, several key features of modern social and political theory.
The present work proceeds from the premiss that political theory is in part, and inescapably, a backward-looking historical enterprise. This second volume accordingly consists, in the main, of a series of studies in the history of political thought. I tend to favour the essay as a form and a forum for these reappraisals. For an essay, in its original meaning, is not only a literary form or genre but a 'test' or 'trial' in which an author's views are tried out, tested, and considered from several sides. An essay is also an 'assay' or 'appraisal' of the adequacy or worth of an idea or argument. This is not merely a way of writing but one of thinking and even, one might say, of living one's life. As Robert Musil says of his protagonist Ulrich in The Man Without Qualities: 'It was approximately in the way that an essay, in the sequence of its paragraphs, takes a thing from many sides without comprehending it wholly... that he believed he could best survey and handle the world and his life.' For a student of political thought, the world and one's life are inextricably bound up with one's studies. That, it seems to me, is why the essay is especially well suited to the study of political theory and the reappraisal of the thinkers and texts that comprise it.
Different though these essays are, all are connected by a common thread. That thread is the idea that the study of political
Page viii
thought requires the reinterpretation and reappraisal ofto use a now-contentious termthe 'classics' of political theory. That indeed is how they retain their status as classic works. But it is important to note that this 'canon' (if indeed that is what it is) does not consist of timeless truths preserved unchanged for those fortunate few who can decipher the coded messages contained in The Great Books. The ideas that inform and constitute political discourse are not, pace Plato, eternal entities, ideal forms floating freely above the political fray. Political ideas and concepts are conceived and articulatedand amended or transformedwithin particular political contexts, at specific sites, and within a determinate range of rhetorical possibilities. Although bound by context, political ideas are historical artefacts which can, and characteristically do, exist in several contexts at once. They can, for one, be traced to, and placed back in, the context of their origins, as the tool or brain-child of this or that writer or party with a particular political agenda. Or they can be placed in the context of their subsequent reception by this or that audience, each having its own political problems and agendas, and its own reasons for reworking old ideas for new purposespurposes unforeseen and perhaps even unforeseeable by an earlier author. One of my purposes in the present volume is to show, by way of a fairly wide-ranging series of studies, how tensions and confusions arise when contexts of origin and reception are confused or are not taken into account by those attempting to write the history of political thoughtor, more often, particular episodes thereinfor various purposes, be they political or scholarly. To expose, criticize, and solve such interpretive problems is, at the same time, to reappraise the theorist and theory under discussion. Such reappraisals, I contend, are a necessary feature of the political theorist's craft, inasmuch as they inform and enrich our understanding of our predecessors' contribution to the political traditions to which we are heir and to which we contribute even as, and because, we think and write about them.
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