Political Philosophy: Fact, Fiction and Vision

Routledge (2009)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

This book is about politics, political theory, and political philosophy. Although these disciplines are often conflated because they interact, they actually are distinct. Political theory is part of political science, whereas political philosophy is a hybrid of political theory and philosophy. The former discipline is descriptive and explanatory, whereas the latter is prescriptive--to the point that it is often called "normative theory." It is in fact the evaluative study of political societies. Whereas political theorists describe and explain politics, political philosophers examine it critically and venture to suggest improvements and, on occasion, radically different social futures. Political philosophers propose scenarios and dreams where political scientists offer snapshots of existing polities. While these disciplines are distinct, Mario Bunge asserts that they must inform each other. Political philosophy is not yet a well-defined field: it hovers between political theory and utopian fantasizing. Few, if any earlier thinkers could have anticipated any of the most pressing political issues of our time, such as the need to stop global warming, reduce nuclear armaments, stop the rise of inequality between individuals and nations, and fight authoritarianism, particularly when it comes disguised as democracy or as socialism. Not even more recent social thinkers had much to say about such topical issues as environmental degradation, gender and race discriminations, participative democracy, nationalism, imperialism, the North-South divide, resource wars, the industrial-military complex, or the connections between poverty and environmental degradation, and between inequality and bad health. Beyond ideological divergences, most political philosophers have been nearly unanimous in their indifference to the plight of the Third World. Bunge does not share that indifference. He also believes that political philosophers should pay more attention to numbers, such as the standard index of income inequality and the more comprehensive United Nations human development index for the various nations. It is pointless to write about redistributive policies unless we have some of idea of current wealth distribution. This is, in short a modern treatise of inherited concerns.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

    This entry is not archived by us. If you are the author and have permission from the publisher, we recommend that you archive it. Many publishers automatically grant permission to authors to archive pre-prints. By uploading a copy of your work, you will enable us to better index it, making it easier to find.

    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 102,394

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Bunge Nevertheless. [REVIEW]Joseph Agassi - 2013 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 43 (4):542-562.
Social science and ideology! The case of behaviouralism in american political science.Iohn G. Gunnell - 2013 - In Michael Freeden, Lyman Tower Sargent & Marc Stears (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies. Oxford University Press. pp. 73.
Why Political Theory Matters.Thom Brooks - 2015 - In Gerry Stoker, B. Guy Peters & Jon Pierre (eds.), The relevance of political science. New York: Palgrave. pp. 136-147.
Political Equality and Political Sufficiency.Adrian Blau - 2023 - Moral Philosophy and Politics 10 (1):23-46.
John G. Gunnell: History, Discourses and Disciplines.Christopher C. Robinson - 2016 - New York: Routledge. Edited by Christopher C. Robinson.
Political Theory and Political Economy.Stephen L. Elkin - 2006 - In John S. Dryzek, Bonnie Honig & Anne Phillips (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Political Theory. Oxford University Press.
History.Richard Tuck - 1996 - In Robert E. Goodin, Philip Pettit & Thomas Winfried Menko Pogge (eds.), A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 69–87.
Political Theory and Social Theory.Christine Helliwell & Barry Hindess - 2006 - In John S. Dryzek, Bonnie Honig & Anne Phillips (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Political Theory. Oxford University Press.

Analytics

Added to PP
2020-11-21

Downloads
17 (#1,175,946)

6 months
6 (#818,268)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Mario Bunge
Last affiliation: McGill University

Citations of this work

The Ontic Account of Scientific Explanation.Carl F. Craver - 2014 - In Marie I. Kaiser, Oliver R. Scholz, Daniel Plenge & Andreas Hüttemann (eds.), Explanation in the special science: The case of biology and history. Dordrecht: Springer. pp. 27-52.
Mario Bunge (1919–2020): Conjoining Philosophy of Science and Scientific Philosophy.Martin Mahner - 2021 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 52 (1):3-23.
Analytical Sociology: A Bungean Appreciation.Poe Yu-ze Wan - 2012 - Science & Education 21 (10):1545-1565.

View all 6 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references