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Political Philosophy and Empirical Political Science: From Foes to Friends?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Avner de Shalit
Avner de Shalit*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel
*
E-mail: msads@mscc.huji.ac.il
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Abstract

Political science has been detached from philosophy in general and political philosophy in particular. The latter has also ‘celebrated its purity’. But should political philosophy cooperate with empirical political science? This article argues that since political philosophy is part of the study of politics, if it does not cooperate, political philosophy might lose its relevance, create a distorted notion of politics, and commit a methodological mistake. It is further argued that democratising political philosophy is the way to encourage such cooperation.

Keywords

political philosophypolitical sciencemethoddemocratisation

Information

Type
Symposium
Information
European Political Science , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 37 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 European Consortium for Political Research

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