陳建強的動向研究所

Political philosophy and the policy studies organization. By Ethan Fishman Political Sciences and Politics, Vol.24, No. 4, Dec., 1991,720-723.

Political philosophy enjoyed a questionable status within the discipline of political science during the post World WarⅡera. The efforts of behavioralists to equate political philosophy with antiquarianism and to deny the validity of qualitative analysis had convinced many political scientists that knowledge gained from studying the history of western political thought was no longer relevant. p.720

“The most important aspect of the relation between social values and public policy,” Nagel observed in 1980…”Political philosophy can contribute a greater awareness of alternative values that one might seek to maximise. Those values are generally not explicitly part of the more narrowly focused criteria used by policy analysts, although they may underlie the criteria that are used(Nagel, 1980: 812). P.721

Along with their exegesis, they need “to address living politics and focus on its continuing concerns, translating its insights in language comprehensible to participants”. p.722

(Dobel J. Patrick,1988:3)

“the history of politics, an engaged if critical perspective on the evolution of policy” p.722

Barber Benjamin,1991

There Aristotle distinguished between two types of reason, which he described as the theoretical and practical sciences, and the faculties these sciences employ. In contrast to theoretical science, which involves knowledge for its own sake and yields universal truths, Aristotle argued, practical science involves truths which are contingent and apply to a majority of circumstances. In contrast to the intellectual faculties, which are learned in theory , he maintained, the moral faculties derive from life experiences. p.722

“…Thus, a critical problem facing the modern university is whether it will confront these problems within an interdisciplinary setting or ignore them by continuing the pursuit of specialization and fragmentation”.

(Hollingsworth, J. Rogers,1986:427-28)

By essentially ignoring the history of Western political philosophy in their examination of contemporary American social, issues, policy scientists continue to risk triviality and the reinvention of the wheel. By contemplating the great books in isolation from pressing contemporary American social issues, political philosophers continue to risk abstracting themselves from political reality. p.723