Philip Pettit

Pettit argues that he wants a republic that brings the best of the old republican tradition and interpret it with a radical theory of freedom as non-domination. His theory is alright but falls flat when he tries to bring the theory into a practical framework. He has suggestions for how a republic that espouses non-domination but nothing concrete. Perhaps my reading of political philosophy is too limited and this is a flaw of the literature but it did not feel as he was initiating a plan of show more action but rather an ideal theory. When he tries to talk practically it seems that his suggestions were not all that radical indeed but rather a retelling of any republican system we have today.

There is also something to be said in that he avoids the question of economic dominance. He covers it briefly when he tries to absorb socialists into his worldview but he focuses more so on the employers rather than the role of capitalism upon society which I would argue is a greater threat to republicanism than he gives credit for.

Ultimately he does not give much practical room for his theory and when he enters the practical realm he falters. show less

This book spans a broad range of philosophical topics from political justice to democratic legitimacy. It even lives up to its title by providing a thorough theoretical model of how an ideal democracy should work. I don't remember any other work where such a broad scope has been covered without sacrificing cohesion or argumentative strength. This book is an exemplary model of what political philosophy should look like in the 21st century.

Chapter 3 on political legitimacy in democracy is show more probably the best discussion on this subject that I've come across. Chapter 5, which discusses ideas of democratic control from Schumpeter to the author's own, partly market-inspired model, is also highly original and interesting. Chapter 2 on social justice was much less inspiring, but this is probably due to my own predilections, not the text itself.

I also liked the author's concise step-by-step summary of the entire argument at the end of the book. All in all this is great work and probably unique in the way it unifies the traditional ethical perspective of political philosophy with more descriptive and pragmatic ones from democratic theory. It asks a lot from its readers but also richly rewards focused students by opening up new vistas across many different subfields in political thought. It goes without saying that I highly recommend it. show less

I bought this book because the subtitle states that it's an essay on psychology, society and politics. I've never had any interest in the "philosophy of mind", but I figured that the chapters on society and politics might still be interesting. This was unfortunately not the case.

Chapters 1-4 contain an essay on the human mind which is then expanded to a simple model of social life where "individualism" is weighed against "collectivism", and "holism" against "atomism". The author submerges show more himself in abstract philosophical theory and I can't say that his excessively long analysis (200 pages) really kindled any enthusiasm in myself. I assume the "holistic individualism" which the author champions as the best theory might be of interest to other professionals in this field, but it seemed far too abstract and simple to be of any interest to a broader audience or to have any implications for the real world.

I was happy to finally move away from the bog of philosophy of mind in chapters 5 and 6. There I hoped to find at least some insights on how societies function or how they can be understood. But in chapter 5, which I suppose could be categorized as philosophy of social science, the framework of "holistic individualism" leads the author to argue that human action can be explained by intentional explanation: by assuming that a person is rational and by observing what she does and how she responds to us, we can explain her actions. Clearly there is some truth in this conclusion, but it shouldn't take hundreds of pages of analysis to reach such a simple point. Many classical works in ethnography and cultural anthropology demonstrated this form of explanation a century ago (in much more interesting fashion).

Even the early ethnographers understood that the anthropological route to explaining human behavior - putting yourself in another person's shoes - only works in very special settings where the researcher can participate in the daily life of her research subjects. This simple fact seems to be lost on the author, who never indicates that the scope of "intentional explanation" might be limited. He does recognize "structural and historicist theory" as alternative and equally valid routes to understanding social phenomena, but the long-winded theorizing he provides on these alternative modes of explanation leads to a very murky picture of social-scientific understanding. I've read about 50 books on the philosophy and methodology of social science and this one ranks at the very bottom of that list as far as informative insights are concerned. Perhaps analytic philosophers are happy to write stuff like this for other analytic philosophers without bothering to consider how social science is actually done, but it can hardly be of interest to anyone else.

The final chapter discusses political philosophy. The author claims that his "holistic individualism" has implications also in this realm, but that claim falls apart immediately. In practice he just ignores his preceding theories and proceeds to discuss various aspects of contemporary political philosophy. Chapter 6 is certainly much better than chapter 5 because the author knows what he is talking about and has interesting things to say. The problem is that it doesn't really make any sense to include this material in a book where the first 200 pages were spent on the philosophy of mind. The pieces just don't fit together.

In conclusion, the author took on an ambitious project when he decided to write a book where the philosophy of mind is integrated with the philosophy of social science and political philosophy. It should in my opinion have been clear from the start that it would be impossible to conclude this project successfully. The author can perhaps be commended for giving it his best shot, but I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. His later works in political philosophy ("Republicanism" and "On the People's Terms") are clearly superior to this one, so I highly recommend you devote your time to them instead. show less

I know that a philosopher's job is to express universal truths and not give practical advice. But even so, I don't understand the purpose of this book at all. The author approaches his topic of investigation (the state) by reading Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Bodin, Nozick etc., and then engaging in dialogue with their arguments to construct his own theory. But the end result doesn't make sense.

After a lot of typing the author arrives at the following conclusions:

1. The function of the state is show more to provide security for citizens.
2. The state should incorporate as an agent to be able to act.
3. The people must have some constitutional and extra-constitutional power.
4. The state should recognize that citizens have some rights.
5. The laissez-faire claim against state intervention in the economy is bogus.

All of these points are obvious to anybody who is familiar with how modern democracies are governed. Unlike Bodin or Hobbes, 21st century academics can actually observe well-functioning contemporary states all around them, and such states meet the author's criteria with ease.

That's not to say that there's no more work for political philosophers. The world is still unjust and some states fail to meet any of the targets that the author lists. Many things are going badly and smart thinking will be needed to figure out how we should act. But the author's capacity for such thinking is wasted in the academic exercise he presents in this book. He buries his nose in the classics and writes longwinded arguments that lead to uncontroversial conclusions. This simply isn't interesting. show less