Sometimes I think that analytical philosophy is intrinsically harmful to political theory.

(This is *not* a defense of continental philosophy! I was educated in continental programs, but have pretty decisively moved out of that idiom.)

A mini-rant: 1/7

What do I mean? Well, the analytical style basically has 3 commitments: 1. Truth obtains at the level of the proposition; 2. Thought experiments clarify concepts; and 3. Abstraction aids understanding. (Quarrel all you want, but I’m right.) 2/7

These commitments often make for spectacularly bad political thought. They literally make a hash of political phenomena by driving analytically inclined people away from the world in which political concepts matter. 3/7

Thinking about this now because I just read the SEP entry on domination. Like most SEP entries, it is a nice, clear map of the state-of-the-field. I have no complaints about the entry itself. It’s good! But I don’t like what it reveals! 4/7

Take this example from Frank Lovett’s book. Does imagining a society with slave laws but no slaves actually clarify anything about what it means to be dominated? Nope. Does it tell us whether slaves are dominated by the salve system or by individuals? Nope. 5/7

Or look at this one. As soon as you say, “Suppose a dictator made an army of un-reprogrammable robots to enforce his will after he dies,” I think: you have no idea what these words mean. You have no idea what it means to hang on the whim of another person. 6/7

These sorts of things don’t help anyone understand or clarify the concept of domination. Instead, they abstract away from the very possibility of understanding and clarification. It’s word salad. Just knock it off!

/end rant