Recensions I Reviews

Edmund Burke and the Critique of Political Radicalism Michael Freeman Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980, pp. 250

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This is an engaging study in which Professor Freeman offers a comprehensive and insightful interpretation of Burke's political philosophy. The book's thesis is as follows: Burke is the proponent of a general conservative political theory intended as the critique-refutation of political radicalism. Freeman sees in Burke's critique of the French Revolution the challenge to political radicalism. "If political radicalism is to be rendered plausible," Freeman declares, "Burke's critique must be overcome" (14). The fierce debate between conservatives and radicals regarding the desirability and viability of modern revolutions must be resolved in the theoretical context of the confrontation of its archetypes: the conservative Burke and the radicals of the French Revolution. Freeman's first objective is to interpret Burke's political thought by demonstrating its significance, indeed indispensability, to our understanding and possible resolution of the conservative-radical debate and by pointing out its weakness and inadequacy. He correctly argues that Burke has either been celebrated quite uncritically or has been simply underestimated (16). Freeman's second objective is "to contribute to the solution of the scientific and moral problems raised by modern revolutions" (6) the last of which the author describes as events of "high moral drama" (1). Freeman's insistence on interpreting Burke critically but diligently and his desire to be equally critical of naive radicalism renders this study an important prolegomenon to any empirico-normative theoretical comprehension of the phenomenon of modern revolutions. The Burke that emerges from Freeman's interpretation is a coherent, complex and, of course, superbly articulate theorist. Freeman examines his metaphysics, epistemology, sociology and political perspective. He provides a penetrating interpretation of Burke's thought which he shows to be systematic and rich, especially in its sociological dimension (social structure and causes of revolution). Burke's metaphysics (Christian metaphysics), which Freeman finds inadequate, serves as the foundation for his political conservatism (19). Tensions, ambiguities and insurmountable contradictions are pointed out. Burke's theological naturalism, his empiricism and pragmatism and his concept of reason, all features of a divine cosmological order, are shown to be in imperfect harmony. The status of evil, reason and practice, abstract speculation and empirical reality, certainty of knowledge, providential reason and the necessity of revolution, human nature, God's benevolence and human suffering are central to Freeman's interpretation and to our balanced understanding (thanks to this study) of Burke's thought. Freeman stresses Burke's insistence that religion be viewed as true and as socially useful (16-18). Religion and property constitute for Burke the twin foundations of society (64). The author argues that Burke's god is simultaneously a god of order and agod of revolutions (26). Thus Burke's bizarre situation: his relentless hostility toward the French Revolution and his inability to rule out that it could have been divinely ordainedan inscrutable divine mystery. Freeman suggests a degree of romanticism in Burke (74). In the final analysis, the Burke of this book is "a man of two worlds: the world of deference and discipline and the world of free thought and free enterprise. The contradiction between these two worlds runs through his thought. The contradiction is brought to the point of crisis by the French Revolution" (150). It might be more accurate to see Burke as consciously seeking to enlist traditional

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Recensions / Reviews

social structures in the service of the capitalist market economy, rather than see him as torn between a romantic yearning for the past and a commitment to his contemporary social order. Freeman concludes his study with a chapter in which he details, based on the findings of the study as a whole, the theoretical reconstruction of the conservative-radical debate regarding revolution. It is a powerful culmination to an intriguing and challenging volume.
ALMS KONTOS University of Toronto

Political Obligation in its Historical Context: Essays in Political Theory John Dunn Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980, pp. x, 355 John Dunn, as Alaisdair Maclntyre and Alan Ryan have stated, is the most important political theorist in the English-speaking world. In this book we see clearly why this is so. The book consists of eight previously published essays, a new and important chapter on political obligation and an introduction explaining how the essays are related in various ways to political obligation; the theme he believes should be the centre piece of the study of politics, broadly conceived. Dunn has written books on John Locke, modem revolutions, African politics and the relevance of the study of our inherited political traditions. The articles in this collection display an equally wide range of interest and expertise: two are on Locke's political theory and its influence, two on the philosophy of social science, two on African politics, one on democratic theory, one on revolution and one directly on obligation. To understand Dunn it is necessary to realize that he does not believe that the study of politics either really is or should be segmented into political theory and political science. This belief will come as no surprise to those who have followed recent attempts to reunite the two parts of our discipline by Jurgen Habermas and others. Dunn, however, has actually shown, better than any other philosopher of social science, how such a union might be achieved in his brilliant article on this topic in 1978, now reprinted as chapter five of this book. Not only does he offer a philosophical solution, or dissolution; his work in the history of political theory and in contemporary political science and theory also embodies his solution in practice. The chapter on the success and failure of modern revolutions is perhaps the most exemplary in this respect. Dunn's point is that the explaining social sciences serve to tell us what is causally possible in the realm of political action and what in fact people do value and believe. Political theory, on the other hand, by explicating the traditions available to us, some of which provide the normative framework of the explaining sciences, tells us what people could possibly, here and now, believe and value, and the normative implications of the causal possibilities open to us. We might characterize his approach as political science informed of the moral import of its assumptions and conclusions and a political theory informed of the causal possibilities for implementing its recommendations for a better political life. His work thus exemplifies the closest thing we have today to Aristotle's view of political knowledge as a kind of critical practical judgment, of phronesis. It follows as a matter of course that political obligation will be the heart of the study and activity of politics understood in this way. For the quest will be for what sort of political direction we ought to strive for and respect, given what we know is the case, and is possible, and what we know about the range of possible futures available to us in our normative traditions that, historically, could possibly be brought about by exploiting the causal properties of our political