Political philosophy was the original context, but not the only object of my analysis.

I agree with this: “Put another way, he can know the eternal, but only in a temporal way.”

Thank you for the interesting conversation.

If this is simply to make the point about fundamental limitations of knowledge, then, I am perplexed as to what makes it a particular observation about political philosophy.

Zach,

Philosophy is impossible. Which, for me, makes it almost anti-epistemological and focuses on the problem of being and ontology.

1. What do you mean by “true knowledge of politics”?

2. A philosopher can, I believe, reach beyond the temporal and touch the eternal, but not by fully rising above the temporal to where the temporal is left behind or left below. Put another way, he can know the eternal, but only in a temporal way.

I do not think this is true, and I think this idea is rooted in a crippling skepticism. To the extent that a philosophical critique incorporates true knowledge of politics his critique is “above” politics. I do not think this is an impossibility – I think to say it is is to deny the possibility of philosophy, or to reduce philosophy to epistemology – which is pretty boring.

(I do not mean to say that a philosopher is not conditioned and influenced by his circumstances; this is obviously true. )

You’ve got me. I don’t have a great definition for “ideology” within my own way of thinking, so I try not to use the word. But, yes, in that post you could probably substitute “ideology” wherever I said “political philosophy” without messing up what I was trying to say. I’ll concede the point about political philosophy as a pursuit in itself being rather different than “political philosophies” as they exist in the world of punditry and poli-sci.

For what it’s worth, the author of the post I was trying to explicate does describe conservatism, liberalism, etc. as ideologies.

Kyle,

Thanks for linking and commenting — I like your take on things here.

-wrb

I don’t see that a political philosophy being theological or accountable to theology frees it from its fundamental limitations and its “situatedness” in history: the theologian thinks about God, but his thoughts, however well formulated, remain ideas rooted it time, albeit ones (we hope) reaching toward the heavens.

I agree that political philosophy is something one does, but then political philosophy, being a human action, cannot be outside or above history. The political philosopher, like any philosopher, is situated in time and place. He may seek eternal things like justice, but his search for and cognition of such things is mediated by things temporal. He cannot critique politics from above because he cannot fly above the political. For one thing, he cannot cast aside the political terminology he uses to formulate his ideas about eternal things like justice.

And for what it’s worth I would agree that every political arrangement falls short of being perfect because every political arrangement is human and will eventually break. This is a great piece of political philosophy!