6/12/2023 0 Comments Ockham disparate terms![]() ![]() As contemporary political theorists redefine the canon and explore the margins of the Western tradition, the opportunity exists for a reevaluation of the chronological and conceptual constructions that have forced the Middle Ages deep into the background of scholarly interest. But their successes in breaking the pattern offers some hope for those frustrated with the deep reluctance of political theorists to confront the ideas of the Middle Ages. Scholars who have favored the introduction of issues such as gender, class, and race into the teaching of political theory will likely recognize this cycle of resistance. ![]() Academic discomfort with a millennium of medieval theory has achieved almost canonized status: shunned in graduate as well as undergraduate curricula, the topic is likewise disregarded in textbooks and anthologies, which only exacerbates the ignorance of another generation of students of Western political philosophy.(2) ![]() Thomas Aquinas (who, for all his brilliance and originality, represents merely one current in the mighty medieval river). Augustine (who is more properly a late classical figure) and St. Princeton University's Paul Sigmund - himself one of the few political scientists whose career has run counter to this trend - is fond of citing a survey in which college-level political theory instructors identify the teaching of medieval thought as among their most onerous and unpleasant tasks.(1) Consequently, student exposure to the Middle Ages, when it occurs at all, is generally confined to St. Numerous reasons may be adduced for this fact, but I suspect that many of them can be traced to a deeply ingrained pedagogical prejudice that is reproduced each semester in classrooms throughout the English-speaking world. There is surely no field of study within the broad tradition of Western political theory that has been so grossly underrepresented in recent scholarship as the Latin Middle Ages. ![]()
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