Philosophy, Social Science and Political Theory

Abstract

The major difficulty in introducing the subject of political theory to the student is the fact that there is so little agreement amongst the practitioners as to what the subject is about. While it is true of all social science subjects that they involve from the outset highly contentious methodological questions, so much so that the concepts in social science have been called ‘essentially contested’ concepts (see below), the difficulty seems to be greater in political theory than in, say, economic theory. While economists do engage in fierce methodological disputes, especially in macroeconomics, there is nevertheless some considerable agreement about the contents of an introductory course book for students. At least such books are not likely to handle radically different material and, within the limits of the Western world, are not likely to differ all that much from place to place.