Political Judgement Essays for John Dunn

From Plato to Max Weber, the attempt to understand political judgement took the form of a struggle to define the relationship between politics and morals. This book by leading international scholars in the fields of history, philosophy and politics restores the subject to a place at the very centre of political theory and practice. Whilst it provides a range of perspectives on the theme of practical reason, it also explores a series of related problems in philosophy and political thought, raising fundamental questions about democracy, trust, the nature of statesmanship, and the relations between historical and political judgement. In the process, the volume reconsiders some classic debates in political theory ? about equality, authority, responsibility and ideology ? and offers new and original treatments of key figures in the history of political thought, including Thucydides, Montaigne, Locke, Smith, Burke and Marx.

Introduction Richard Bourke and Raymond Geuss; Part I. The Character of Political Judgement: 1. What is political judgement? Raymond Geuss; 2. Sticky judgement and the role of rhetoric Victoria McGeer and Philip Pettit; 3. Theory and practice: the revolution in political judgement Richard Bourke; Part II. Trust, Judgement and Consent: 4. On trusting the judgement of our rulers Quentin Skinner; 5. Adam Smith's history of law and government as political theory Istvan Hont; 6. Marxism in translation: critical reflections on Indian radical thought Sudipta Kaviraj; Part III. Rationality and Judgement: 7. Pericles' unreason Geoffrey Hawthorn; 8. Accounting for human actions: individual agency and political judgement in Montaigne's Essais Biancamaria Fontana; 9. Nehru's judgement Sunil Khilnani; Part IV. Democracy and Modern Political Judgement: 10. Democracy, equality and redistribution Adam Przeworski; 11. Democracy and terrorism Richard Tuck; Bibliography of the works of John Dunn.

Richard Bourke is Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at Queen Mary, University of London.
Raymond Geuss is a Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge.