Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 Introduction The history of political thought and the national discourses of politics
- 2 The voice of the ‘Greeks’ in the conversation of mankind
- 3 History of political theory in the Federal Republic of Germany: strange death and slow recovery
- 4 A German version of the ‘linguistic turn’: Reinhart Koselleck and the history of political and social concepts (Begriffsgeschichte)
- 5 One hundred years of the history of political thought in Italy
- 6 Discordant voices: American histories of political thought
- 7 The professoriate of political thought in England since 1914: a tale of three chairs
- 8 The history of political thought and the political history of thought
- 9 The rise of, challenge to and prospects for a Collingwoodian approach to the history of political thought
- 10 Towards a philosophical history of the political
- 11 ‘Le retour des émigrés’? The study of the history of political ideas in contemporary France
- 12 National political cultures and regime changes in Eastern and Central Europe
- 13 The limits of the national paradigm in the study of political thought: the case of Karl Popper and Central European cosmopolitanism
- 14 Postscript. Disciplines, canons and publics: the history of ‘the history of political thought’ in comparative perspective
- Index
- IDEAS IN CONTEXT
13 - The limits of the national paradigm in the study of political thought: the case of Karl Popper and Central European cosmopolitanism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 Introduction The history of political thought and the national discourses of politics
- 2 The voice of the ‘Greeks’ in the conversation of mankind
- 3 History of political theory in the Federal Republic of Germany: strange death and slow recovery
- 4 A German version of the ‘linguistic turn’: Reinhart Koselleck and the history of political and social concepts (Begriffsgeschichte)
- 5 One hundred years of the history of political thought in Italy
- 6 Discordant voices: American histories of political thought
- 7 The professoriate of political thought in England since 1914: a tale of three chairs
- 8 The history of political thought and the political history of thought
- 9 The rise of, challenge to and prospects for a Collingwoodian approach to the history of political thought
- 10 Towards a philosophical history of the political
- 11 ‘Le retour des émigrés’? The study of the history of political ideas in contemporary France
- 12 National political cultures and regime changes in Eastern and Central Europe
- 13 The limits of the national paradigm in the study of political thought: the case of Karl Popper and Central European cosmopolitanism
- 14 Postscript. Disciplines, canons and publics: the history of ‘the history of political thought’ in comparative perspective
- Index
- IDEAS IN CONTEXT
Summary
Central European cosmopolitanism demonstrates the limits of the study of political thought in its national context. My argument is not that one cannot write a history of a ‘national tradition’ in political thought. The fascinating narratives produced for this book are proof enough to the contrary. They seem to me most interesting, however, where the national tradition opens to foreign influences. Such openings often have a transformative effect, but national narratives rarely foreground them. I shall use Central European cosmopolitanism to argue for the relativisation of the national viewpoint in the study of political thought and for the complementarity of national and international perspectives. By interrogating the categories of both ‘nationalism’ and ‘cosmopolitanism’, I shall show that there is neither a closed national tradition of political thought that can be historically understood apart from international interaction nor a cosmopolitan tradition that can be understood apart from its national origin. Both nationalism and cosmopolitanism remain useful concepts, a point of departure for understanding and writing the history of political thought, but, standing on their own, they produce impoverished histories. Only their interaction can provide a viable historical account. Accounting for the interaction involves exposing the hypocrisy of nationalist claims to an authentic closed tradition, on the one hand, and disclosing the national origin of cosmopolitanism on the other. This chapter on Central European cosmopolitanism endeavours to do both.
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- Information
- The History of Political Thought in National Context , pp. 247 - 279Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001