Trusting the Process: Current Fashions in History of Political Thought

Abstract

Some very recent “states of the field” of the history of political thought are rich in valuable information and raise many considerations. As often happens, though, rather than dwelling on what is shared, perhaps it could be more fruitful to reason in dialogue with the authors on how their reflection surprises or perplexes. In order to avoid unconscious ideological trends, the main issues to debate seem to be the idea of a role for the history of political thinking, the global perspective, the meaning of context, the relationship between the history of political thought and political theory and, mainly, the concept of scholar’s interest.