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Aristotle and the Recovery of Political Judgment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Richard S. Ruderman
Richard S. Ruderman*
Affiliation:
University of North Texas
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Abstract

Renewed interest in the concept of political judgment—a mode of reasoning that steers a middle way between abstract, technical reasoning and willful self-assertion—frequently takes the form of a return, qualified in various ways, to Aristotle's concept of phronesis or prudence. I examine this renaissance of interest in Aristotelian prudence through a study of the works of several leading democratic theorists and Aristotle scholars and conclude that they stop short of some of the very elements of Aristotle's thought that can assist us in promoting prudence. In particular, I try to show that these contemporary advocates of political judgment undermine the case for political science (Aristotle's primary concern) and thereby risk losing the independent judgment that Aristotelian political science supports. They fail to give sufficient weight to Aristotle's claim that phronesis, while distinguishable from scientific reason or philosophy, functions best even as a practical science when it accepts certain of philosophy's guiding insights.

Type
Forum
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 91 , Issue 2 , June 1997 , pp. 409 - 420
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1997

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