Search results for "History of political thought"
showing 4 items of 4 documents
The Nation of the Socialist Intelligentsia: The National Issue in the Political Thought of Early Latvian Socialism
2012
This article deals with the political debates of early Latvian socialists concerning the national question in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. These debates were crucial for the later development of Latvian politics. The idea of Latvian democratic statehood was first pronounced and advocated in this context. The debate also strongly influenced those Latvian socialists, who as the ‘vanguard of Bolshevism,’ later became devout followers of Lenin. An interaction of several intellectual traditions can be observed in these debates, both German and Russian. The internationalist orientation of the later Bolsheviks (Fricis Roziņš, Pēteris Stučka) is mainly due to the influence of th…
Recensione a "La democrazia nell’età moderna", a cura di Claudio Vasale e Paolo Armellini (Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino Editore, 2008)
2009
Nel volume, di cui nella recensione si presentano contributi e concetti, sono descritti e documentati gli aspetti ideologici e istituzionali che hanno contribuito alla formazione ed evoluzione dell'ordimento democratico nel corso dei secoli moderni.
Between historical semantics and pragmatics
2006
This paper discusses the methodology of conceptual history, a branch of the study of the history of political thought which focuses on the changing meanings of political concepts over the course of time. It is suggested here that methodological disputes among historians of political thought frequently arise out of differing theories of language and meaning and that historians should be more open-minded to the idea of combining various research strategies in their work. Conceptual history, for instance, can be viewed as the combination of historical versions of semantics and pragmatics. While the study of the macro-level semantic changes in the language of politics can reveal interesting lon…
Political Theorizing as a Dimension of Political Life
2005
Quentin Skinner’s thesis ‘that political life itself sets the main problems for the political theorist’ marks a turning point in the study of the history of political thought. The Protestant princes who revised Luther’s doctrine of disobedience in order to save Lutheranism as a political force are the best example of this ‘Skinnerian revolution’ in The Foundations of Modern Political Thought. This is in accordance with his claim that principles play a legitimating and innovating role in politics. A tacit implication of the thesis is that we should not only read theorists as politicians but also read politicians as theorists. The politician possesses a special competence in discerning betwe…