Политическая теория, дискурс и реальность: предварительный анализ взаимоотношений

Abstract

The article analyzes the relationship between political reality, theory and discourse. Political reality must be distinguished from political facts. Political facts appear only with the appearance of political theory. Increasing the number of theories we always increase the number of facts. The key moment in relationships between theory and facts is that theories “cover” only a very small number of facts. A source from which we draw facts is reality. Reality is incomprehensible, infinite, inexhaustible etc. that is it is something like medieval philosophers’ God. Due to political theories origin, in particular, their close relationship with their creators’ personalities and their principal, essential normativity such theories can exist, to a certain extent, in parallel, independently of political reality. Theories serve as a source of words for political discourse and models for political institutions arrangement. The relationships between theory and discourse are best described using the metaphor of producing. That is, discourse is not just a simplistic or distorted version of a theory: it has its own nature. The theory makes consensus on political institutions possible because it provides a limited set of alternatives for such institutions. Regardless of how these alternatives are understood by politicians, their, alternatives, limited number, as well as the fact that any political discourse must be based on political theory, leads to the fact that sooner or later the agreement on one of these alternatives arises.