Political Science 1020E Chapter Notes -Political Question, Logical Positivism, Monism

• School: Western University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: Political Science 1020E
• Professor: Bruce Morrison

Document Summary

If one defined the state tradition on the basis of the concept of the state, one can also defined the content of this concept on the basis of its perceived place in this tradition. The state concept was gradually disentangled from its institutional realities and turned into a means for representing these realities and then criticized for its inability to represent these realities accurately. Early state bashers had to confront a problem of political order which was cast in monist terms. The traditional notion of the state is out of accord with present political conditions, in a word, we have here a case in which the political evolution has outstripped the theoretical statement of political relations. The state was no longer a unity but a multiplicity that happened to be stuck within a given territory. Authority was no longer indivisible but ought to be understood as profoundly and irreversibly divided between groups and institutions in society.