Showing papers in "Political Theory in 1988"

Are Freedom and Liberty Twins

Abstract: SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH HAVE A UNIQUE opportunity: They get to choose between "liberty" and "freedom." No other European language, ancient or modern, offers such a choice. I German knows only Freiheit, French only liberte, and so on. But what is the choice worth? Almost all political theorists writing on these topics in English assert or assume that the distinction makes no difference. Sir Isaiah Berlin, for instance, in his famous essay on liberty, declares that he will "use both words to mean the same."2 Maurice Cranston, more attentive to semantic detail, nevertheless concludes that, "in English usage the words 'freedom' and 'liberty' are virtually interchangable." Which to employ, he says, "is usually a matter of literary style," but he specifies no stylistic criteria, mentioning only that "'liberty' tends to be used in legal and political contexts, 'freedom' in philosophical and more general ones."3 Context may well be a clue; yet freedom of speech and press, say, are surely much discussed in political contexts, and English philosophers have long disputed about liberty and necessity. Nor is there anything either philosophical or general about a free lunch. Among the many theorists equating freedom with liberty there is, however, one striking exception. Hannah Arendt considered precisely this conceptual difference central to her most urgent theoretical concerns, and took our blindness to it as symptomatic of fundamental modern debilities. Who is right: Arendt or everyone else? How to adjudicate such a dispute? Most people might well say, if asked, that they use the words interchangeably, but that proves little. People generally cannot give an explicit account of the regularities of their language, which they consistently observe in speaking. Modern scholarship offers two tools for investigating semantic differences: etymology and the analysis of ordinary usage. Neither tool is very useful unless applied in technical, painstaking detail. That the tedium may be worthwhile in this case is

“Supposing Truth Were a Woman...” Plato's Subversion of Masculine Discourse

Abstract: What is found at the historical beginnings of things is not the inviolable identity of their origin; it is the dissention of other things. It is diaparity.—Michel Foucault

I. Knowledge and Sorrow: Louis Hartz's Quarrel with American History

Abstract: In much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.—Ecclesiastes

II. Fred Dallmayr's Critique of Habermas:

Abstract: FRED DALLMAYR IS A POLITICAL THEORIST with a remarkable ability to engage in critical dialogue with a range of thinkers spanning what are all too frequently taken to be incompatible and even incommensurable traditions. There is scarcely a major thinker of the twentieth century that he has not encountered-always probing and interrogating them with sensitivity and judiciousness, seeking to bring forth new insights that pertain to politics. He is a master of hermeneutical skills. In Gadamer's sense, he seeks to understand, interpret, and appropriate. Some of his critics have complained that his mode of presentation-developing his own views through the sympathetic interpretations of "others"-muffles his own distinctive voice. But ever since the publication of The Twilight of Subjectivity,' a careful reader can discern the contours of the postsubjectivist, postindividualist, postmodernist theory of politics and democracy that he is on the way to developing. Considering his hermeneutical sensitivity, his most recent critical discussion of Habermas comes as a bit of a shock. For although he makes use of extensive citations to create the impression that the "author" is speaking for himself, the result is a distortion of Habermas's views. This is especially surprising because Dallmayr has written extensively and sympathetically about Habermas. He was one of the first American political theorists to highlight Habermas's contributions to social and political theory. In this paper, when Dallmayr states his own views against Habermas, he even sounds very Habermasian. My primary intention is not simply to defend Habermas against Dallmayr's criticisms. On other occasions I have developed my own criticisms of Habermas's project.2 Rather, I want to develop the critical discussion of issues raised by Dallmayr. I will proceed by highlighting themes in Habermas that Dallmayr misrepresents and then turn more directly to Dallmayr's own concerns to question and challenge what he says.

Socrates and Liberal Toleration

Abstract: W HATEVER WE THINK OF THEIR MERITS, contemporary exposes of the poverty of liberalism are not likely to strike us as shocking challenges to generally accepted principles. Indeed, debunking philosophical liberalism' is now a fashionable (if often predictable) intellectual enterprise. In spite of the barrages of criticism, however, liberalism continues to occupy, in the United States and Great Britain at least, the dominant position in contemporary political theory. Its resilience is traceable to many factors including the sheer stubbornness of some of its champions,2 the underappreciated diversity of its historical and contemporary articulations,3 and the failure of many of its critics to offer coherent alternatives.4 In addition, however, the continuing appeal of the liberal tradition stems from its endorsement of principles that seem eminently moderate and humane. Chief among these is the principle of toleration. For example, following the path set by Michael Oakeshott, Michael Williams praises the liberal society as a civil (in its most refined sense) association whose members cooperate "in virtue of their mutual recognition of the authority of a common body of law. This body of law regulates the conduct of the associates in the pursuit of their self-chosen satisfactions, it does not preclude what satisfactions are to be chosen."5 R. M. Hare is quick to emphasize that this civility is not simply prudential but also idealistic. "What distinguishes the liberal is that he respects the ideals of others as he does his own. This does not mean that he agrees with them ... nor does it imply that he lacks confidence in his own ideals . . . It is part of the liberal's ideal that a good society, whatever else it is, is one in which the ideals and interests of all are given equal consideration.6 In spite of the confidence of liberalism's defenders, its detractors are many, especially among those political theorists who call themselves