“A major danger in using highly abstractive methods in political philosophy is that one will succeed merely in generalizing one's own local prejudices and repackaging them as demands of reason. The study of history can help to counteract this natural human bias.” HumansReasonPhilosophyHelpingPoliticalNaturalStudyDangerSucceedDemandMajorsPrejudiceMethodLocalsBiasPolitical Philosophy Author:Raymond Geuss
“It would be a mistake to believe that one could come to any substantive understanding of politics by discussing abstractly the good, the right, the true, or the rational in complete abstraction from the way in which these items figure in the motivationally active parts of the human psyche, and particularly in abstraction from the way in which they impinge, even if indirectly, on human action.” IfsWayBelieveHumansWould BeActionUnderstandingMistakeFiguresActiveRationalAbstractionItemsDiscussingHuman ActionsHuman Psyche Book:Philosophy and Real Politics Source: Philosophy and Real Politics
“Humans in modern societies are driven by a perhaps desperate hope that they might find some way of mobilizing their theoretical and empirical knowledge and their evaluative systems so as both to locate themselves and their projects in some larger imaginative structure that makes sense to them. ... Furthermore, many modern agents would like it to be the case that the form of orientation which their life has is, if not true, at least compatible with the best available knowledge.” IfsWayHumansMightFormCasesModernProjectsStructureAvailableDrivenAgentsMake SenseDesperateImaginativeTheoreticalOrientationModern SocietyCompatible Author:Raymond Geuss
“In some central and important cases, ... the existence of specific power relations in the society will produce an appearance of a particular kind. Certain features of the society that are merely local and contingent, and maintained in existence only by the continual exercise of power, will come to seem as if they were universal, necessary, invariant, or natural features of all forms of human social life, or as if they arose spontaneously and uncoercedly by free human action.” IfsHumansKindImportantSeemsActionFormCertainSocialNaturalExistenceCasesProduceParticularExerciseUniversalRelationAppearanceLocalsFeaturesSocial LifeHuman Actions Book:Philosophy and Real Politics Source: Philosophy and Real Politics
