Friday, January 12, 2007

Stahl as theoretician of tradition

Alasdair MacIntyre once wrote (Whose Justice? Which Rationality? p. 8) that "Burke theorized shoddily, Newman theorized with insight, but both did so in an awareness of a sharp antithesis between tradition and something else, an antithesis which was unavailable to the earlier inhabitants of the kind of tradition with which I am concerned." Without entering into the details of MacIntyre's argument, it should be pointed out that Stahl's political philosophy is precisely theorizing about tradition, quite successfully in my opinion. He should be added to MacIntyre's pantheon -- and now finally can be, thanks to this translation (if I do say so myself).

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