Philosophy, Theory and Ideology in the Context of Political Studies

Year 2021, Issue: 73, 7 - 24, 15.07.2021

Mustafa Erdoğan

Abstract

As an age-old discipline that originated in the ancient Greece roughly 2500 years ago,
studying politics had begun with political philosophy. However, in time political studies
have diversified and so divided into subdisciplines. Although historically the first appearance
of studying politics was political philosophy, today political theory has come to
the fore in the field and rose to a position of considerable rival to it. However, ‘’political
theory’’ has still no well-defined identity. This uncertainty in identity of the discipline of
political theory shows itself in a number of ways in the literature. For one thing, in fact
students of politics occasionally use ‘’political theory’’ and ‘’political philosophy’’ interchangeably.
On the other hand it is not easy to draw a decisive distinction in terms of both
subject-matter and method between political theory and political science as well. In order
to serve hopefully to enlighten the identity of the discipline in this essay the author tries
to distinguish political theory conceptually from ‘’political philosophy’’ on the one hand
and from ‘’political science’’ on the other.

Keywords

Political Philosophy, Political Theory, Political Science, İdeology, Normative Discipline, Analytical Discipline, Justification

SİYASET İNCELEMELERİ BAĞLAMINDA FELSEFE, TEORİ VE İDEOLOJİ

Abstract

Eski Yunan dönemine kadar geri giden siyaset incelemelerinin yaklaşık 2500 yıllık tarihi
siyaset felefesi ile başlamıştır. Ancak siyaset incelemeleri zamanla çeşitlenmiş ve değişik
alt disiplinlere ayrılmıştır. Siyaset araştırmaları tarihsel olarak siyaset felsefesiyle başlamış
olsa da günümüzde gitgide öne çıkan siyaset teorisi disiplini siyaset felsefesinin
hatırı sayılır bir rakibi konumuna yükselmiştir. Yine de ‘’siyaset teorisi’’nin henüz iyi
tanımlanmış bir kimliği yoktur. Bu disiplinin kimliği konusundaki belirsizlik siyaset incelemeleriyle
ilgili literatürde çeşitli biçimlerde kendisini göstermektedir. Nitekim ilgili
literatürde zaman zaman siyaset teorisi ile siyaset felsefesinin birbirinin yerine kullanıldığına
tanık olunmaktadır. Öte yandan, siyaset teorisi ile siyaset bilimi arasında da kesin
bir ayrım yapmak her zaman kolay değildir. Bu makale siyaset teorisinin bir yandan ‘’siyaset
felsefesi’’nden, öbür yandan ‘’siyaset bilimi’’nden ayırt edimesini mümkün kılacak
şekilde bu disiplinin kimliğini belirlemeye yönelik bir denemedir.

Keywords

Siyaset Felsefesi, Siyaset Teorisi, Siyaset Bilimi, İdeoloji, Normatif Disiplin, Analitik Disiplin, Haklılaştırma

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