Alexander the Great is often understood to be the first statesman to attempt a “universal state,” owing in large part to his philosophical education under Aristotle. This picture of Alexander informs many of his depictions in popular culture, and influences his appropriation in contemporary discourse on globalization. I argue here that Plutarch's Life of Alexander offers an alternative view of Alexander's political action, one that explains his imperial ambitions by focusing on his love of honor (philotimia) and the cultural indeterminacy of his native Macedon, rather than his exposure to philosophy. Plutarch's portrayal of Alexander provides a useful model for the study of globalization by showing how political expansion can arise from and give rise to indeterminate political identities.

This article engages the longstanding debate over Hobbes's use of rhetoric, with the aim of rethinking both the political logic of Leviathan and the way contemporary theorists approach rhetoric in relation to reason. Rhetoric was a particularly acute problem for Thomas Hobbes, whose pursuit of a stable political order may appear to require the absence of rhetoric and the presence of a purely rational order. This appearance is misleading, and it is suggested therefore that political theorists rethink how they understand rhetoric to grasp more fully Hobbes's understanding of political order. The common view that Hobbes resolves the problem of semantic indeterminacy must be questioned. Hobbes in effect understands that stable meaning structures are impossible to attain, even under Leviathan. This reworking suggests the need for refining our understanding of Hobbes, who envisions political order not by privileging reason over rhetoric, but by moving beyond engagements with language altogether.

The moral theory of “mixed modes” John Locke presents in his Essay concerning Human Understanding is beset with paradoxes. On the one hand, he tells us that all mixed modes, including moral concepts, are “arbitrary” mental constructs. On the other hand, he speaks of an “eternal law” of right and wrong, and is well known as a champion of objective, universally valid natural law. This paradox stems from problems created by the new natural science. That science is predicated on the demolition of Aristotelian Scholasticism. Locke participates in that demolition on behalf of science, but it leaves him with limited options in building his own moral theory. Samuel Pufendorf responded to this situation by devising a theory of “moral modes,” and Locke follows Pufendorf's model. The essay concludes by noting some similarities and differences with the moral metaphysics of Immanuel Kant.

Edmund Burke's emphasis on emotional phenomena is often seen as a rejection of reason. The relationship between reason and the emotions in Burke's work is paralleled by the relationships between the individual and society and between rights and duties. Emotions support duties because they bind us to social life and a particular social location. Burke filters rights claims through our emotional attachment to specific circumstances, thus creating social rights of man in contrast to the individualistic, abstract rights of men of the social contract theorists. Prejudice is presented as an example of a Burkean filter for rights that moderates rights claims by binding individuals to society. Thus, Burke sees reason and emotion as interconnected phenomena that support the balancing of the claims of both individual and the community.

The recent US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have renewed the debate over whether military interventions intended to impose democracy in a foreign state are consistent with liberal principles. The liberal political tradition within the United States has often been divided over this question. At issue is what place, if any, military force should have in a foreign policy dedicated to promoting goals such as the spread of electoral democracy, respect for human rights, and the rule of law.

“Religion” has retaken a front seat in the news. Its presence in the media is echoed in the concerns of policymakers, whence it is more strongly felt again in the thinking and writing of social scientists. Concerning religion, “resurgence” is a word that shows up in many a social science title of late. For scholars such as sociologist Rodney Stark, this language is merely further evidence of a deep-seated secularist inattention in the social sciences: religion has never been absent from human affairs, it just hasn't been of interest to prejudiced scholars. “Pluralism, not secularism, is the dominant trend in an ‘age of explosive, pervasive religiosity,’” argues former secularization theorist Peter Berger in the title words of his 2006 article. The three books under consideration here do not share directly in either of these arguments. Nor do any make a claim for “resurgence,” though each author acknowledges some version of the secularization myth and its dismantling in developments and events of the recent past, and each knowingly writes in that context (Benne, 2–6; Buruma, 1–3; Beiner, xiv n11, 4–5, 312).