Raymond Geuss’ radicalization of realism in political theory

Abstract

Raymond Geuss has been viewed as one of the figureheads of the recent debates about realism in political theory. This interpretation, however, depends on a truncated understanding of his work of the past thirty years. I will offer the first sustained engagement with this work (in English and German) which allows understanding his realism as a project for reorienting political theory, particularly the relationship between political theory and politics. I interpret this reorientation as a radicalization of realism in political theory through the combination of the emphasis on the critical purpose of political theory and the provision of practical, contextual orientation. Their compatibility depends on Geuss' understanding of criticism as negative, of power as 'detoxified' and of the critical purchase of political theory as based on the diagnostic engagement with its context. This radicalization particularly challenges the understanding of how political theory relates to its political context.

Political realism as ideology critique

“…4 While some general, in-principle defences of the emancipatory or radical potential of realism have been put forward (e.g. Geuss, 2010a;Prinz, 2015a, Rossi 2010, Bernard Williams' theory of legitimacy 5 remains the main systematic attempt to explain how one may tackle a classic problem of normative political theory within a realist framework. So for our purposes, Williams' theory of legitimacy is an explorative exercise into how one may criticise a set of political practices or institutions while remaining committed to evaluating them with standards internal to political practices themselves.…”

“…The classical view is closely related to a long-standing realist tradition in political thought (Dyson, 2005;McQueen, forthcoming;Rossi & Sleat, 2014), and it wishes to return political theory to its traditional blend of descriptive and normative elements, against the 'normativist' (Prinz, 2015b) tendencies of mainstream contemporary approaches. 2.…”

“What is to be done” when there is nothing to do?: Realism and political inequality

“…As such, political realism should focus on power; this is partly what Jansoch Prinz argues for in his recent call to radicalize realism. Following Geuss, Prinz () advocates a detoxified approach to power that encourages citizens to imagine its exercise more creatively, drawing upon both the concrete political terrains that they inhabit and the criticisms that inform their perspectives (pp. 783, 789).…”

“…783, 789). In this way, power is not approached as something to be “normatively sanctioned in either a positive or negative way,” evaluating it according to presumed democratic or liberal norms of legitimacy, but as a set of “contextually specific techniques and rationalities” that can be put in the service of “potentially radically subversive and transformative criticism” (Prinz, , pp. 789–790; cf.…”

“…Far from agreeing with her characterization of the two, I tend to take more seriously the moments of optimism found for Williams at the end “The Liberalism of Fear” and made explicit for Geuss throughout Prinz's account (see Prinz, ).…”