First published in 1989, this Routledge Revival is a major collection of essays on the competing traditions of social and political theory. The contributions, by international scholars, reflect the re-examination of the boundaries between the 'political' and the 'social', the 'public' and 'private', and 'state' and 'society'. The reissue will be of great value to students in both sociology and political science. Bringing new arguments to bear on the debate about the place of political theory in social science, the contributors discuss such issues as the different languages used by sociologists to describe the state; Marxist and socialist theory; class analysis; the welfare state; feminist political theory; and the impact of post-modernity on contemporary social thought.

In a central section of Ideology and Utopia Mannheim argued that ‘it was not often noticed that a Weltanschauung is not of necessity a source of error, but often gives access to spheres of knowledge otherwise closed’ (Mannheim 1960: 150). This insight provides a clue to the problem that fascinated Baldamus throughout his career. In trying to make sense of the modern development of the social sciences he never lost sight of the controversial implications of Karl Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge. What happens when we apply the methods of the sociology of knowledge to sociology itself?

Stuart Hampshire's political thought is an important but often overlooked contribution to contemporary debates concerning the nature and permanence of Plural and conflicting values. In its combination of a pessimistic view of the limits of politics with a deep respect for pluralism and disagreement Hampshire's thought can be regarded as a significant version of 'the Liberalism of fear'. This is grounded in a belief that the inherited innocence of moral and political thinking has been undermined by our experience of the horrors of the twentieth century. Hampshire's response is to propose a minimal form of proceduralism that contrasts with Rawls's political liberalism. Hampshire offers a criticism of the moralism that characterizes Much modern political philosophy without advocating a stark realism.

John Gray has argued for a distinctive form of 'agonistic liberalism'. This arises from three themes: his rejection of 'the Enlightenment project'; his acceptance of the thesis of value-pluralism; and his endorsing of the idea of modus vivendi as the appropriate politics for the modern world. Although Gray has challenged much of orthodox contemporary Anglo-American political theory in interesting ways, it is still open to question whether he has either offered a convincing diagnosis of political modernity or if his own responses successfully avoid some of the problems that he has identified in other forms of liberalism.

Much of contemporary Anglo-American Liberal political theory is still living under the shadow of Max Weber. In particular, it seems to accept the idea of disenchantment and has more recently discovered the problem value pluralism. Max Weber’s idea of the political still serves as an antidote to the prevalence in much of this kind of theory of the priority of the moral over the political. Unfortunately, Weber’s own theory is incomplete and needs to be supplemented. «If one accepts Weber’s premises, it is easy to be imprisoned by them».(1) It is a striking feature of much contemporary political theorising that it seems to be living in the shadow of Max Weber without, with a few notable exceptions, recognising or admitting that fact. The nature of the answer to the question of what is still alive in Weber’s thought will naturally depend upon the interest of the questioner. The main claim being made here is that Max Weber is still our contemporary with respect to the problem of value pluralism. He is also, or ought to be, our contemporary, with regard to his insistence upon the hard and tragic realities of political life. Much contemporary political theorising, especially in the Anglo-American world, has become divided between those who see it as being essentially normative and a branch of moral philosophy and those who insist on the autonomy of the political in such a way that denies the value of that kind of work. The problem of value pluralism has become a central topic in modern political and moral philosophy. This, in turn, is linked to the persistence of the idea of ‘disenchantment’. The deeper the disenchantment the more intense the effects of value pluralism become. Most modern Anglo-American political theory is written in an analytical style that seems to discount any reference to and, hence, recognition of the presence of an implicit historical interpretation. Political philosophy, even in its most analytical form always presupposes or works within the framework of an implicit historical story.(2)