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The Political Animal : Studies in Political Philosophy from Machiavelli to Marx
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January 12, 2025
"...A way must be found to expose ideological illusions and thereby to overcome the situation that makes illusions necessary for life to go on. In this way, man the creator becomes the fully conscious creator, the fully rational creator. The synthesis of these views would be the moral imperative for man to take fully conscious control-at last-of his collective destiny. This is man's task as a political animal." (Rauch, 230).
Thus ends the foray into the 'giants' of political philosophy, in the Western world at least, by esteemed professor of Politics, Leo Rauch. And what a journey it is! For Professor Rauch, in the course of seven enthralling chapters, dealing with six major political philosophers, explores, analyzes, prods, nudges, and judges the veracity, the nimbleness, the appropriateness, and the facileness of the following masters of political theory: Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hegel, and Marx. So we get portraits of Machiavelli, the master who first made 'modern' the realistic study of 'Realpolitik'; Hobbes, whose psychological base created one of the most influential, and long lasting, portraits of sovereignty and power; Locke, whose property-based presuppositions created the foundation of the bourgeois republic of the United States; Rousseau, whose supposition of the 'Collective Will' created so many problems for future political theorists; Hegel, whose 'Absolute spirit' based method sought to include all of human knowledge in a concatenation of a system that proved so influential to later thinkers; and finally Karl Marx, that innovative thinker who profoundly altered our world, for the better and the worse. Indeed, reading this work is like encountering a parade of figures that have embodied the political world of the West for hundreds of years. And the method of Dr. Rauch, expanding on the main ideas and then commenting on more recent developments with the selfsame thinkers, is ideal for the committed reader that is his audience, for we are exposed to the failures, successes, and after-lives of each successive thinker in a clear and unbiased manner. As a matter of fact, the reader is buoyed by the developments in each thinker in relation to their predecessors, creating a 'process' of development that complements the content of the thinkers, particularly the latter ones, who themselves include the ideal of 'forward movement' in their own teleological political systems. This creates a complete and holistic overview of theoretical developments in Western political thinking that becomes a 'must read' for adherents of the political world. I enjoyed this book immensely, and so therefore I would recommend it to others intrigued by the rewarding field of political theory!
Thus ends the foray into the 'giants' of political philosophy, in the Western world at least, by esteemed professor of Politics, Leo Rauch. And what a journey it is! For Professor Rauch, in the course of seven enthralling chapters, dealing with six major political philosophers, explores, analyzes, prods, nudges, and judges the veracity, the nimbleness, the appropriateness, and the facileness of the following masters of political theory: Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hegel, and Marx. So we get portraits of Machiavelli, the master who first made 'modern' the realistic study of 'Realpolitik'; Hobbes, whose psychological base created one of the most influential, and long lasting, portraits of sovereignty and power; Locke, whose property-based presuppositions created the foundation of the bourgeois republic of the United States; Rousseau, whose supposition of the 'Collective Will' created so many problems for future political theorists; Hegel, whose 'Absolute spirit' based method sought to include all of human knowledge in a concatenation of a system that proved so influential to later thinkers; and finally Karl Marx, that innovative thinker who profoundly altered our world, for the better and the worse. Indeed, reading this work is like encountering a parade of figures that have embodied the political world of the West for hundreds of years. And the method of Dr. Rauch, expanding on the main ideas and then commenting on more recent developments with the selfsame thinkers, is ideal for the committed reader that is his audience, for we are exposed to the failures, successes, and after-lives of each successive thinker in a clear and unbiased manner. As a matter of fact, the reader is buoyed by the developments in each thinker in relation to their predecessors, creating a 'process' of development that complements the content of the thinkers, particularly the latter ones, who themselves include the ideal of 'forward movement' in their own teleological political systems. This creates a complete and holistic overview of theoretical developments in Western political thinking that becomes a 'must read' for adherents of the political world. I enjoyed this book immensely, and so therefore I would recommend it to others intrigued by the rewarding field of political theory!
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