SİYASAL DÜŞÜNCE

First systematic reflections on both how to govern and organize the society and the effects of particular policies can be traced back to the Ancient Greece.

In broad terms, the contextual approach stresses the need to historicize the works of political theory in order to understand the particular historical moment and its impact on political thinking. According to such an approach to the political thought, the way great philosophers grasp society and the spirit of their own times, the others who address their works, and their sources of influence carry significance only within a contextualized perspective towards the political ideas.

Renowned scholar Leo Strauss had a considerable level of impact upon the interpretation of political classics in the post-war era. Explicitly criticising historicism and positivism, he recommended reading between the lines and unorthodox ways of interpretation according to the standards of his own time.

In aesthetics and art, the postmodern movement was characterized with eclecticism.

Jean-François Lyotard is a French philosopher and sociologist. He also worked on the literary theory. He is accepted as one of the major proponents of the postmodern turn

In ancient Rome, the elderly and the prominent members of the society, most of who were actual members of the Senate were thought to have auctoritas.

Weber is considered as one of the founders of sociology, with Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx. Among his other contributions, his way of classifying ideal types of authorities under three categories, as charismatic, traditional, and legal, was a seminal work.

Legitimacy can be defined as rightfulness. It should not be limited to being legal, or in accordance with the laws, despite rightfulness to a great extent stems from the legal framework.

Rawls is one of the greatest philosophers of the political philosophy in the 20th Century.

In the 19th Century France, the terms of left and right were used to delineate the supporters of the Republic vis-á-vis the supporters of the monarchy.

Political thoughts are not descriptive, but normative perspectives; meaning that they do not aim to find out how things are, but attempt to convince (or persuade) us how things ought to be. In such attempts, concepts and methods constitute the unique pillars of political thoughts and theories. In fact, they are the primary underpinnings, and sometimes sources of persuasiveness, of all thoughts and theories in social sciences. They provide an essential informational basis to give meaning to thoughts that usually contend and conflict with each other and theories that systematically advocate a particular way of approaching political issues. Therefore, both thoughts and theories cannot sufficiently be grasped without being adequately informed about their conceptual and methodological frameworks.

Political theory, however, is based on argumentation and reasoned reflection. It is subject to systematic critical reflection, which has mostly been affected by the stamp of Ancient Greek thought. Ancient Greek tradition of political thinking produced a canon in both senses of the term: the first is a collection of works and ways of approaching to the “political”, deemed as inspiring sources of reference, and the second is pieces of melodies (regarded as themes) which are reproduced and imitated in other parts of the musical compositions (regarded as works of political theory).

Despite the dominance of empiricism in political science, there occurred significant contributions to the study of political ideas and history of political thought in the post-war era. Contextual approach was one of these contributions. In broad terms, the contextual approach stresses the need to historicize the works of political theory in order to understand the particular historical moment and its impact upon the political thinking. The contextual approach is one of the important responds against to the perspectives that ignore the contextual dynamics leading to the emergence of particular ideologies and political aspects.

Renowned scholar Leo Strauss had a considerable level of impact upon the interpretation of political classics in the post-war era. Explicitly criticising historicism and positivism, he recommended reading between the lines and unorthodox ways of interpretation according to the standards of his own time. For Strauss, studying political thought is “primarily and in a way chiefly... listening to conversations between the great philosophers... the greatest minds, and therefore... studying the great books.” According to the Straussian approach regarding with the political thought, universal human condition must be evaluated autonomously. According to this approach, various elements in political thought such as time and place are degenerating accompaniments for the abstract and clear form.

A particular way of understanding and interpretation offered by the postmodern approach to judge political projects of the modernity form a normative dimension in which a universally-defined “ought to be” situation or a universally-defined good/better/beautiful/desired is sceptically evaluated. Its way of denigration of grand narratives places the postmodern approach at odds with the normative aspects of the modern political philosophy. As prescribing a set of reforms and particular steps to reach to the modernity’s “ought to be” situation would pave the way for consolidating a grand narrative, the postmodern approach rather emphasizes the constitutive role of the discourse and its formation. Briefly saying, instead of sticking to an “ought to be” situation of modernity, postmodern perspective constitutes its theory on discourse and its formation.

In ancient Rome, the elderly and the prominent members of the society, most of who were actual members of the Senate were thought to have auctoritas. The term implied that their words were to be trusted and they should be respected. The word authority comes from auctoritas and can be defined as legitimate power.

Max Weber, in its ideal typical classification delineated three sources of legitimacy. Ideal type approach here does not refer to a “preferred mode” categorisation but rather classification in thought – in abstract. According to Weber, charismatic authority is the type in which the authority is believed to have unnatural superiorities or exceptional characteristics. People, according to Weber follow the charismatic figure “by virtue of his mission” and charisma sets its own limits. Nevertheless, it has a temporary character as charisma will wane into an institution, eventually being routinized. Traditional authority, on the other hand, feeds upon customs and convention. Being a source of conservatism, this type of authority also rests on identification with owner of the authority. Occupying the foreground is not, however, the transformative capacity of the rule or the organization, but rather provision of stability and preservation of social order. Legal-rational authority, as the third type of Weber’s classification, provides a source of legitimacy on a de-personalized and formal basis. The authority of the organization or the political figure rests upon legality and bureaucratic organization acting in legal-rational terms. The legal-rational authority is mostly identified with the modern nation state by social scientists.

Legitimacy can be defined as rightfulness. It should not be limited to being legal, or in accordance with the laws, despite rightfulness to a great extent stems from the legal framework. In other words, one of the most frequent and broad definitions of the concept of legitimacy underlines its characteristic of rightfulness.

As social movements and political groups campaign and struggle according to their ideological orientations, political parties deal with the task of formulating interests and particular preferences into acceptable public positions. Policy making derives from the attempt to address societal issues and the term policy mainly refers to the outcome of the struggle over resource distribution and the way governments address the social-political problems to achieve their goals in political thought.

There are various terms that are identified and pointed out as ideals of political thoughts. When we look at the history of the political thoughts and how they have been developed, we can see that liberty, freedom, justice and equality are frequently pointed out as an ideal. On the other hand, ideology is not an ideal, albeit one of the main concepts in political thought. It basically refers to the production of meanings, symbols, and ideas to be drawn on whilst interpreting various dimensions of the social reality.