The Paradigmatic Approach in Political Historiography – Nature and Solutions

• Authors: Boris Manov
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The present essay aims to contribute to the contemporary debate on what the most appropriate approach for political historiography is. In it, three approaches are outlined as the most influential and widespread today: philosophico-methodological historicism, contextualism, and the paradigmatic approach. The paradigmatic approach is investigated with respect to its nature, contents and heuristic parameters, and the legitimacy of its application is explained. The defining feature of this approach is that it presents the development of political thought as a progressive three-stage dialectical and logical process of “overcoming” the “outdated” and establishing new paradigms. The implementation of the paradigmatic approach in political historiography allows the coming of new political doctrines to be seen as the expression of the requirements set by the existing political paradigm in a given historical period and not as the effect of chance or divine inspiration.

Keywords

EN

political thought; history of political thought; political paradigms; contextualism; philosophical historicism; paradigmatic approach in historiography

• Publisher: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej
• Journal: Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Skłodowska, sectio K – Politologia
• Year: 2016
• Volume: 23
• Issue: 1

Dates

published

2016

online

2017-04-04

Contributors

author

Boris Manov

References

• Ball, T. 1976. From Paradigms to Research Programs: Toward a Post-Kuhnian Political Science, “American Journal of Political Science”, 20, pp. 151-177
• Croce, B. 1921. Theory and History of Historiography, trans. D. Ainslie, George G. Harrap, London
• Denzer, H., Maier, H. eds. 20073. Klassiker des politischen Denkens, Bd. I, C.H. Beck, München
• Denzer, H., Maier, H. eds. 20083. Klassiker des politischen Denkens, Bd. I, C.H. Beck, München
• Dugin, A. 2002. Èvoljucija paradigmal’nyh osnovanij nauki, Artogea, Moscow
• Fodor, J. A. 2003. Hume Variations, Oxford University Press, New York
• Frazer, M. 2010. Three Methods of Political Theory: Historicism, Ahistoricism and Transhistoricism (draft for presentation at the 2010 CPSA), http://www.cpsa-acsp.ca/papers-2010/Frazer.pdf (access 15.05.2016)
• Fukuyama, F. 2004. State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st century, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York
• Gadamer, H.G. 2004a. Philosophical Hermeneutics, trans. D. E. Linge, University of California Press, Berkley et al.
• Gadamer, H.G. 2004b. Truth and Method, 2nd rev. edition, trans. J. Weinsheimer and D. G. Marshall, Crossroad, New York
• Ginev, D. 1986. Modeli na naučnoto razvitie, Nauka i izkustvo, Sofia
• Handa, M. 1987. Peace Paradigm: Transcending Liberal and Marxian Paradigms (paper presented at the “International Symposium on Science, Technology and Development”, New Delhi, India, March 20–25)
• Hegel G. W. F. 1892. Lectures on the History of Philosophy, trans. E. S. Haldane, vol. 1, Kegan Paul - Trench and Trübner, London
• Kanev, A. 2010. Teorija na filosofskoto razvitie, Sofia University Press, Sofia
• Koikkalainen, P. 2011. Contextualist Dilemmas: Methodology of the History of Political Theory in Two Stages, “History of European Ideas”, 37, pp. 315-324
• Koikkalainen, P. 2015. The Politics of Contextualism: Normativity and the New Historians of Political Thought, “Journal of the Philosophy of History”, 9, pp. 347-371
• Kuhn, Th. 19702. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, Chicago
• Kuhn, Th. 1991. The Natural and the Human Sciences, in The Interpretative Turn. Philosophy, Science, Culture, eds. D. R. Hiley, J. F. Bohman, R. Shusterman, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, pp. 17-24
• Küng, H. 2007. Islam: Past, Present & Future, trans. J. Bowden, Oneworld Publications, Oxford
• Lamb, R. 2009. Quentin Skinner’s Revised Historical Contextualism: A Critique, “History of the Human Sciences”, 22, pp. 51-73.
• Laslett, P. 1960. Introduction, in J. Locke, Two Treatises of Government by, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 3-120.
• Laslett, P. 1965. The World We Have Lost, Methuen, London
• Marx, K. 1977. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1959), trans. S. W. Ryazanskaya, Progress Publishers, Moscow
• Marx, K. 1996. Capital, in Marx and Engels Collected Works, Volume 35, Lawrence and Wishart, London
• Masterman, M. 1970. The Nature of a Paradigm, in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, eds. I. Lakatos, A. Musgrave, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
• Plato 1925. Timaeus, in Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9, trans. W. R. M. Lamb, Harvard University Press and William Heinemann Ltd, Cambridge, MA and London
• Plato. 1969. The Republic, in Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6, trans. P. Shorey, Harvard University Press and William Heinemann Ltd, Cambridge, MA and London
• Pocock, J. G. A. 1957. The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law: a Study of English Historical Thought in the Seventeenth Century, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
• Pocock, J. G. A. 1972. Languages and Their Implications: the Transformation of the Study of Political Thought, in Politics, Language and Time: Essays on Political Thought and History, ed. J. G. A. Pocock, Methuen, London, pp. 3-41.
• Pocock, J. G. A. 1975. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition, Princeton University Press, Princeton
• Pocock, J. G. A. 2005. The Discovery of Islands. Essays in British History, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
• Pocock, J. G. A. 2008. Political Thought and History: Essays on Theory and Method, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al.
• Rorty, R. 1984. The Historiography of Philosophy: Four Genres, in Philosophy in History, eds. R. Rorty, J. B. Schneewind, Q. Skinner, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
• Skinner, Q. 1969. Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas, “History and Theory”, 8, pp. 3-53.
• Skinner, Q. 1978. The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
• Skinner, Q. 2002. Visions of Politics. Volume 1: Regarding Method, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
• Solov’ev, A. 2006. Politologija. Političeskaja teorija. Političeskie tekhnologii, Aspent Press, Moscow
• Weber, M. 1904. Die »Objektivität« sozialwissenschaftlicher und sozialpolitischer Erkenntnis, in Id., Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenshaftslehre, ed. J. Winckelmann, Mohr, Tübingen 19856, pp. 146-214
• Weber, M. 1917. Der Sinn der »Wertfreiheit« der soziologischen und ökonomischen Wissenschaften, in Id., Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenshaftslehre, ed. J. Winckelmann, Mohr, Tübingen 19856, pp. 489-540
• Weldon, Th. D. 1946. States and Morals: A Study in Political Conflicts, John Murray, London

Identifiers

DOI

10.17951/k.2016.23.1.131