WELL: James asks, below:
"What's driving your political theory/political philosophy distinction? You seem to be saying that political theory is what we do (whatever that might be) and political philosophy is like an analytic philosophy of politics, something a la Rawls or perhaps even more like analytic philosophy than that. Or are you saying that political theory is historical and that political philosophy is normative?"
The answer is going to be somewhat unsatisfactory here, as any political theory/philosophy discussion is bound to be. Let me give an example of two talks I heard a few years ago, and within a month or so of each other, one by Tom Hurka and the other by Arlene Saxonhouse. Both were excellent, well-considered, and left open questions in the right places (so my claim is not that there's any distinction of value between the two). Hurka's talk had a few references to the work of well-known philosophers, but used those arguments mostly as starting points; Saxonhouse's was an extended discussion of a few key scenes from Aristophanes. It's not surprising to me, on that basis, that Hurka is in a philosophy department and Saxonhouse is in a political science department.
I choose two cases far apart, but I could name people who come closer to the dividing line (Gerry Postema's reading of Bentham, or Robert Nozick when he muses on the process of philsophy; or Michael Walzer making all those analytic distinctions in Just and Unjust Wars, or maybe John Tomasi's book on liberalism). But one thing that seems to repeat itself in these distinctions is the use of texts--some relevant classification might fall out from Hurka's not using them extensively and Saxonhouse's reading them closely.
As a textualist and someone who wants to cross that political theory-political philosophy divide (insomuch as it exists), I can't commit myself to the idea that political theory is historical and political philosophy is normative. To wrap around to the original point of my first post, I don't quite believe that 'historical' and 'normative' are types of methodology, as opposed to purposes or aims of the study of politics. But I think there is a difference between what the two are trying to accomplish.
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