MUST POLITICAL THEORY BE HISTORICAL?

It is said in some quarters that political theory need not, and perhaps should not, be a "historical" enterprise. It should be concerned with discovering and articulating timeless truths or addressing "perennial problems." Or it should be an ahistorical "analytical" study in which one aims to answer important questions definitively and once and for all. The author argues that these and other attempts to de-historicize political theory are misguided and that, indeed, political theory is inescapably historical in several senses of that term. Firstly, works of political theory are written in particular places and times by authors attempting to address particular questions. Secondly, these works are received and read by audiences in other times. And thirdly, the meanings of these works are interpreted by readers through the medium of one or another interpretive framework, which is itself historically datable. All these considerations point to the conclusion that political theory is necessarily "historical."