“When I arrived at Harvard, I wanted to design a course in political theory that would have interested me, back when I was started out, in a way that the standard things didn't.” WayWantedPoliticalCoursesDesignTheoryStandardsHarvardBack WhenPolitical Theory Author:Michael Sandel
“It is a mistake to think of these men as visionary dreamers, playing around at Philadelphia with abstract conceptions of political theory, pulling a whole scheme of government out of the air like a rabbit out of a hat. True, many of them had read and studied enough about the science of politics to put the average statesman of today to shame. But political science was to them an extremely practical topic of discussion, dealing with the extremely practical business of running a government--not, as today, a branch of higher learning reserved for the use of graduate students.” ThinkingMenEnoughWholeUseGovernmentRunningTodayPoliticalMistakeAirStudentsTheoryHigherShameAveragePracticalsDiscussionAbstractBranchesHatsConceptionDreamerGraduatesSchemesPullingTopicsRabbitsPolitical ScienceVisionariesStatesmenReservedPhiladelphiaTrue ManGraduate StudentsPlaying AroundPolitical TheoryHigher Learning Book:55 Men, Story of Constitution Source: 55 Men, Story of Constitution
“Science, like art, religion, political theory, or psychoanalysis - is work that holds out the promise of philosophic understanding, excites in us the belief that we can 'make sense of it all.” ArtSciencePoliticalBeliefUnderstandingTheoryPromiseMake SensePsychoanalysisPhilosophicPolitical Theory Book:Women in Science: Then and Now Source: Women in Science: Then and Now
“The general point that a political theory is, among other things, a partisan intervention, is well taken. So question about the actual political implication of a theory cannot be excluded as, in principle, irrelevant.” WellsPoliticalPrinciplesTakenTheoryIrrelevantInterventionImplicationsPartisansExcludedPolitical Theory Author:Raymond Geuss
“Global warming, like Marxism, is a political theory of actions, demanding compliance with its rules.” ActionPoliticalTheoryGlobal WarmingMarxismCompliancePolitical Theory Author:Paul Johnson
“The government of the United States, under Lyndon Johnson, proposes to concern itself over the quality of American life. And this is something very new in the political theory of free nations. The quality of life has heretofore depended on the quality of the human beings who gave tone to that life, and they were its priests and its poets, not its bureaucrats.” HumansStatesGovernmentPoliticalNationsHuman BeingsUnitedQualityUnited StatesPoetTheoryConcernTonePriestsProposeQuality Of LifeJohnsonBureaucratsAmerican LifePolitical Theory Author:William F. Buckley, Jr.
“In America, much foreign policy seems contrived to be an exercise in political theory with no attention to history whatsoever. Yet there's a great reverence for history - though it's history as thumb-sucking, security blanket-nibbling self-congratulation.” SelfSeemsAmericaPoliticalAttentionSecurityPolicyTheoryExerciseReverenceForeign PolicyCongratulationsThumbsBlanketPolitical TheoryNibbling Author:Simon Schama
“[John] Adams identified himself with the political theories of [James] Harrington, [John] Locke, and [Charles-Louis] Montesquieu, whose ideas of constitutionalism, he believed, were applicable to all peoples everywhere; they were his contribution to what he called "the divine science of politics."” IdeasPoliticalDivineTheoryContributionPolitical TheoryMontesquieuConstitutionalism Author:Gordon S. Wood
“There was a time, before I was in graduate school, when political philosophy pretty much ceased to exist. The positivists thought there were only two things you could do: conceptual analysis or empirical investigation. Any kind of political theory or even ethical theory was nonsense.” KindTwoPhilosophySchoolPoliticalTheoryAnalysisTwo ThingsNonsenseEthicalGraduatesInvestigationPolitical PhilosophyGraduate SchoolPolitical Theory Author:Martha C. Nussbaum