POLITICAL THEORIES - IMPACT OF CONTROVERSIES AND HISTORY ON IT

Author Name: Dr. Nagendra Singh Bhati

Volume/Issue: 02/07

Country: India

DOI NO.: 08.2020-25662434 DOI Link: https://www.doi-ds.org/doilink/12.2021-57678341/UIJIR

Affiliation:

Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Jai Narain Vyas University, Jodhpur , Rajasthan, India

ABSTRACT

Political theory has a hoary historical past. It is more than 2300 years old. It has often sprung from incongrous and heterogeneous sources, and was even seeded and nourished by other branches of knowledge. From the days of the Greeks to the present age, it has flowed through luscious meadows and thorny paths, sunny days and weedy gloom, and the periods of fructification and decay. Its birth was characterised by Plato's idealism and Aristotle's rationalism-the two most powerful currents which have often been interpreted, tossed or twisted by the political thinkers of the latter ages. The elevated idealism of Plato, and the scientific methodology of Aristotle, have been a considerable source of inspiration, debate and even wrangles among political thinkers from age to age. Since the days of the Greeks, the setting of political theory has altered often, the emphasis has moved back and forth, the term used has changed its meanings, until sometimes it bears almost the opposite of its original significance.1 The lack of consensus as to its meaning and the varieties of political theory, often overlapping, make the task of delivering lectures on political theory almost a difficult and intricate one. So many hands have helped in developing its myriad forms and shapes that the corpus of political theory has, today, many 'oddshaped humps and bumps'.2 In the modern period, John Dewey and Bertrand Russell were philosophers; J. A. Hobson and Friedrich Hayek were economists; Max Weber and Emile Durkheim were sociologists; Sigmund Freud and Erich Fromm were psychologists; T. S. Eliot and Aldous Huxley were literary men; Vilfredo Pareto and Georges Sorel were engineers; Hitler and Mussolini were men in power; Gandhi and Thoreau were saints, and Stalin and Mao Tse-tung were path finder’s who could boast of discovering the basic laws of the universe. Political theory, thus, has sprung from heterogeneous sources and its dimensions are complex and scattered.

Key words: Idealism, Rationalism, Scientific-Methodology, Continuum, Amorphous, Heterogeneous