Public Philosophy and Political Science Crisis and Reflection

by Statham Jr, E. Robert; Carey, George W.; Ceaser, James W.; Gillespie, Michael A.; Jr, John Gueguen; Henningsen, Manfred; Lowi, Theodore J.; Marini, John; McLean, Edward B.; Peterman, Larry; Ricci, David; Smith, Steven B.; Statham Jr, E Robert

• ISBN13: 9780739102947
• ISBN10: 073910294X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-01-24
• Publisher: Lexington Books

Summary

The crisis of western civilization is a crisis of public philosophy. This is the charge of Public Philosophy and Political Science, a stunning new collection of essays edited by E. Robert Statham Jr. Vividly cataloging the decay of the moral and intellectual foundations of civic liberty, the book portrays a generation of Americans alienated from institutions built on public philosophy. The work exposes the failure of America's political scientists to acknowledge and understand this alarming crisis in the American body politic. The distinguished contributors examine the evolution of public philosophy; the inextricable relationship between politics and philosophy; and the interplay between public philosophy, the constitution, natural law, and government. They reveal the dire threat to deliberative democracy and the fundamental order of constitutional society posed by public philosophy's waning power to refine, cultivate, and civilize. The work is an indictment of a society which has discarded a way of life rooted in natural law, democracy and the traditions of civility; and is a denunciation of an educated elite that has divorced itself from the standards upon which public philosophy rests. It is essential reading for philosophers and political and social scientists seeking to resurrect the standards of American public life.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
What is the Public Philosophy?	p. 3
American Public Philosophy After the Cold War	p. 27
On the Degeneration of Public Philosophy in America: Problems and Prospects	p. 43
A Public Philosophy: Dangers, Possibilities, and Probabilities	p. 57
The Public Philosophy and the Limits of Philosophy	p. 75
The Political Philosopher in the Public Sphere	p. 91
Plato and the Modern Escape from Political Responsibility	p. 107
Political Science and Political Philosophy: An Uneasy Relation	p. 133
The Tragedy of Political Science: Science and the Moral Foundations of Democratic Order	p. 139
The State in Political Science: How We Became What We Study	p. 167
Constitutionalism, the Public Philosophy, and Political Science	p. 187
The American Crisis of Public Philosophy and Political Science as a Discipline	p. 205
Index	p. 217
Contributors	p. 223
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