Theoretically Political

(*If “massacre” seems melodramatic, recall that the death-toll – so far – is 6; that of the “Boston Massacre” was 5.) There has been a good deal of heated rhetoric about the role tha...

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2011/01/tucson-massacre-some-thoughts-about.html

Over the past several weeks I've been following the discussions around the prospect, and then the reality, of Elena Kagan's nomination to succeed John Paul Stevens on the U.S. Supreme Court; and ...

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2010/06/some-thoughts-on-elena-kagan.html

I've just gotten back from the CPSA (Canadian Political Science Assoc) conference, part of the enormous SSHRC super-congress in Montreal (summary judgment: them Canucks do conferences and cities ...

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2010/06/return-but-to-what-end.html

The current (or as of a couple of minutes ago*) opening on the entry for 'Atonement' on Wikipedia: "The ATONEMENT is a superstition found solely within Christianity and Judaism and considered a...

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2007/08/why-wikipedia-supersedes-all-other.html

There might be some interest -- among my co-bloggers, at any rate -- in this piece from the New Republic Online about John Rawls. Much of it's thrust will be familiar: the charge that Rawls's po...

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2007/07/misplaced-dislike-of-john-rawls.html

Well, now that that's over ... Those with an interest in European politics may be find this new blog , by Arthur Goldhammer of our own CES, enlightening; I don't know much about the subject mysel...

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2007/05/french-politics-and-very-early-rawls.html

Last year (if I'm remembering the time frame correctly) David 'Dave' Cameron shocked his Tory followers by imploring them to 'hug a hoody'. Apparently, by 'hug' he meant 'tackle'. British politi...

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2006/12/tough-love-in-uk-josh.html

Funnily enough, a week after I presented a paper on Isaiah Berlin and Hannah Arendt at our political theory workshop, the Chronicle of Higher Ed publishes a piece on Arendt by Russell Jacoby whic...

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2006/12/berlin-and-arendt-in-news-alas-josh.html

By temperament, I'm a small-c conservative. If a political system is working reasonably well, I tend to be leery of dramatically changing it; if it's working poorly, my first impulse is to look f...

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2006/11/nice-election-results-shame-about.html

Two questions about the defensability of things that I am doing have come up in recent conversations with other contributors to this blog; and I'd be interested in hearing what others have to say...

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2006/11/two-moral-questions-or-help-salve.html

As most of the contributors to this blog know, the Political Theory Workshop here is having a special meeting next week to discuss the nature of our field (or discipline, or vocation, or common p...

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2006/10/political-theory-whats-point-and-who.html

Here is a counterexample to consequentialism that I've been discussing with someone, and I'd like to hear others' thoughts on it and whether it's a standard example in the voluminous literature o...

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2006/10/consequentialism-sean.html

The conversation by Don and ‘Cheerful Hobbist’ below (see this post ), as well as a number of conversations in recent weeks, has raised the question of why one might want to study the history...

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2006/10/history-of-political-thought-whats-it.html

I'd like to hear responses to the following simple argument that voting for Nader in 2000 was at least as rationally defensible as was voting for Gore. Either (a) a choice of vote should be base...

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2006/10/voting-sean.html

Since we're getting a lot of new traffic in the comments section of both old and new posts, I just want to remind members of _Theoretically Political_ that a copy of each post or comment is sen...

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2006/10/memo-on-records-tp-admin.html

Spurred on by some topics mentioned today at the Theory Worksop, I want to ask what the relationship might be between where one is born and what kinds of treatment one is entitled to get. Somet...

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2006/10/nativism-counterintuitively.html

A while ago I brought up the question of the grounds, if any, under which the presence and current activity of American troops in Iraq could be deemed legitimate and whether they are satisfied. T...

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2006/09/war-and-sovereignty-again-sean.html

The question of what (human) rights are is a big, and a vague, one (ditto the related questions of where rights come from, and what obligations they impose, etc.). I don't know how to answer it, ...

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2006/09/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about.html

Analytic ethics? Or neurotic ethics? Happily, I say, Both. Sean's question (not here posted) concerning the Newcomb Problem brought this to mind. As most things tend to do for me. ***** CAN ...

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2006/08/and-people-laugh-at-aristotelian-final.html

This article may be of interest to some of the bloggers here -- it suggests, if nothing else, that some of the issues that some of us have been batting-around over the last year are of interest ...

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2006/08/emotion-cognition-and-double-effect-or.html

It's been a very, very bad week fora lot of people; it's also been a sad week in the smaller world of political theory. On Tuesday Iris Marion Young died (see also here ); she had been ill with ...

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2006/08/political-theory-necrology-josh-c.html

This started out as a comment on Sean’s post , immediately below; but it got too long, and I decided that nothing was gained or lost by having it a separate post instead. It is a pretty remarka...

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2006/07/more-on-strauss-josh-c.html

All I read from the blogger's post was his translation of this letter (you have to scroll down a bit to get to it) that Strauss sent to Karl Loewith in 1933. The letter contains the following pro...

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2006/07/letter-from-strauss-to-loewith-sean.html

Does anyone on the board think the U.S. should stay in Iraq but refuse to go along with the prime minister's proposal to end immunity for U.S. soldiers?

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2006/07/sovereignty-in-iraq-sean.html

Anyone interested in international political theory -- and addicted to the internet -- will be thrilled to learn of the (I think, new; new to me, anyway) website called, creatively enough, Intern...

http://theoreticallypolitical.blogspot.com/2006/05/international-political-theory-josh-c.html