T. D. Weldon On Politics and Philosophy

Abstract

OME JOURNEYS are interesting as much because of the route taken and the scenery surveyed as for the destination arrived at. This seems particularly true of philosophizing. It is especially evident in contemporary instances of linguistic analysis, where the method employed (the route taken) and the imaginative use of examples (the scenery surveyed) are intrinsically engaging aspects of the philosophical subject-matter. Even political philosophy has felt the influence of the newer way, as shown by some recent writings of the now deceased T. D. Weldon, who devoted several decades of his scholarly life to preoccupation with the problems of politics. Weldon seems unreservedly to have gone over to the significant philosophical camp of the analysts, for he wrote in one place: purpose of philosophy, then, is to expose and elucidate linguistic muddles; it has done its job when it has resolved the confusions which have occurred and are likely to recur in inquiries into matters of fact because the structure and use of language are what they are. ' Since I hold that Weldon has some important things to say about politics and philosophy, I want here to treat of selected aspects of his published views.2 What I hope to accomplish is twofold: to characterize his notions of what politics and political appraisals are about; and to analyze his conception of the philosopher's task with some key words in the political vocabulary. Weldon's relevant political writings sometimes cause a critic to wonder how their author estimated the nature of their intended audience. His method of discussing issues in political philosophy often evidences a surface awareness of contemporary British philosophizing; yet only in one chapter of The Vocabulary of Politics does he concern himself with a detailed treatment of crucial words in the political vocabulary. Often Weldon brings a set of philosophical convictions to political discussion. He does not arrive at these conclusions as a result of his analyses but rather applies them to the materials in which he is interested. Weldon also makes a loose use of the word important, especially whenever he discusses the ways in which politics and morals are related as well as when he attempts to distinguish the interests of the political philosopher from those of the academic moral theorist. It is clear that Weldon writes most frequently for persons who are broadly interested in talk about politics in more than immediately practical ways, neither especially for nor yet excluding technical philosophers. This results from what may have been Weldon's uncertainty about whether political philosophy is, after all, an important subject-matter in the twentieth century.3