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Principles of social and Political theory

By: Material type: TextTextPublication details: Oxford; Clarendon Press; 1956Description: 284pSubject(s): DDC classification:
  • 320.01 Bar
Summary: This book is based on a course of lectures regularly delivered Tin in the University of Cambridge during the latter years of my tenure of the chair of political science. (The course was last delivered in the academic year 1938-9.) Encouraged by some of those who originally attended the lectures, and especially by one or two who have since become teachers and lecturers in the subject, I have turned some eighty pages of crabbed manu script notes, packed with additions and alterations, into some thing which may seem new and strange to those who knew the argument in its original form. It has been a little like putting the pieces of pith called 'Japanese flowers' into water; but it has taken much more time and very much more mental effort. I despaired again and again in the course of writing the book (the arteries of the mind are hardened by the time one reaches the middle seventies); but somehow I got to the end, and I now present to the reader the testament of my old age. I had written the major part of this book when I came across a passage in one of Professor Whitehead's books which com forted me greatly. It is a sentence in one of the essays in his Aims of Education, and it runs as follows: 'It should be the chief aim of a University professor to exhibit himself in his own true character that is as an ignorant man thinking, actively utilis ing his small store of knowledge.' I was the more comforted by these words, and especially by the word 'ignorant', because I was very conscious of my want of that sort of knowledge of politics which comes from actual experience. But my mood changed when I noted that Mr. Amery, in the introduction to his Thoughts on the Constitution, had quoted a sentence from Spinoza which could not but be depressing to the theorist of the study. 'It cannot be doubted that politicians themselves have written much more happily than philosophers about political matters.' Professor Whitehead had comforted me. Could I think of any comfort in the face of Spinoza's dictum? A reflection occurred to my mind, which I drew from my master Aristotle. In a passage in the third book of his Politics he draws a distinction between those who are 'executants', or 'men of directing skill', in any given field of activity, and those who are simply 'cultivated', or possessed of some general knowledge; and he then goes on to suggest that persons belonging to the latter class may be credited with a power of judgement which entitles them to be heard. It is on this ground that he bases an argument for the right of the ordinary citizen to have some say in politics. On the same ground, perhaps, the ordinary student, who has sought to acquire some share of general knowledge, and to utilize it, as best he can, in thinking about the problems of social and political theory, may venture to submit his thoughts to the consideration of others. At any rate I have done so; and here is the result. These excuses are perhaps superfluous; but they are some relief to the mind and some satisfaction of the conscience. There is another acknowledgement which I desire to make, with more confidence in its propriety. It is an acknowledgement of the debt which I owe to the students who attended my lectures. They not only encouraged me to think by their presence: they also stimulated me, by their questions, to revise and correct my thoughts. In the latter years of my lecturing I formed the habit of inviting questions at the end of each lecture; and I tried, at the beginning of the next lecture, to give some answer to the questions I received. I gained a good deal in this way; and though I cannot, after all these years, identify the passages in the book which are all the better for the questions I was asked and sought to answer, I know that they are numerous. I do not forget my debt.
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This book is based on a course of lectures regularly delivered Tin in the University of Cambridge during the latter years of my tenure of the chair of political science. (The course was last delivered in the academic year 1938-9.) Encouraged by some of those who originally attended the lectures, and especially by one or two who have since become teachers and lecturers in the subject, I have turned some eighty pages of crabbed manu script notes, packed with additions and alterations, into some thing which may seem new and strange to those who knew the argument in its original form. It has been a little like putting the pieces of pith called 'Japanese flowers' into water; but it has taken much more time and very much more mental effort. I despaired again and again in the course of writing the book (the arteries of the mind are hardened by the time one reaches the middle seventies); but somehow I got to the end, and I now present to the reader the testament of my old age.

I had written the major part of this book when I came across a passage in one of Professor Whitehead's books which com forted me greatly. It is a sentence in one of the essays in his Aims of Education, and it runs as follows: 'It should be the chief aim of a University professor to exhibit himself in his own true character that is as an ignorant man thinking, actively utilis ing his small store of knowledge.' I was the more comforted by these words, and especially by the word 'ignorant', because I was very conscious of my want of that sort of knowledge of politics which comes from actual experience. But my mood changed when I noted that Mr. Amery, in the introduction to his Thoughts on the Constitution, had quoted a sentence from Spinoza which could not but be depressing to the theorist of the study. 'It cannot be doubted that politicians themselves have written much more happily than philosophers about political matters.' Professor Whitehead had comforted me. Could I think

of any comfort in the face of Spinoza's dictum? A reflection occurred to my mind, which I drew from my master Aristotle. In a passage in the third book of his Politics he draws a distinction between those who are 'executants', or 'men of directing skill', in any given field of activity, and those who are simply 'cultivated', or possessed of some general knowledge; and he then goes on to suggest that persons belonging to the latter class may be credited with a power of judgement which entitles them to be heard. It is on this ground that he bases an argument for the right of the ordinary citizen to have some say in politics. On the same ground, perhaps, the ordinary student, who has sought to acquire some share of general knowledge, and to utilize it, as best he can, in thinking about the problems of social and political theory, may venture to submit his thoughts to the consideration of others. At any rate I have done so; and here is the result.

These excuses are perhaps superfluous; but they are some relief to the mind and some satisfaction of the conscience. There is another acknowledgement which I desire to make, with more confidence in its propriety. It is an acknowledgement of the debt which I owe to the students who attended my lectures. They not only encouraged me to think by their presence: they also stimulated me, by their questions, to revise and correct my thoughts. In the latter years of my lecturing I formed the habit of inviting questions at the end of each lecture; and I tried, at the beginning of the next lecture, to give some answer to the questions I received. I gained a good deal in this way; and though I cannot, after all these years, identify the passages in the book which are all the better for the questions I was asked and sought to answer, I know that they are numerous. I do not forget my debt.

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