Top Ten Greatest American Political Thinkers
Jun 7th, 2007 | 20 responses
Because lists are fun! And debating them, more so.
“Political thinker” is defined broadly. List is created without much serious thought–I’m sure there are obvious omissions which you are perfectly free to debate about in comments. Obviously, it reflects personal political biases of mine as well.
To the list!
Honorable Mentions (no order):
Angela Davis, Professor, University of California (1944-present)
Alexander Hamilton, Treasury Secretary, (1755-1804)
bell hooks, Professor, Berea College (1954-present)
Michael Sandel, Professor, Harvard University (1953-present)
Henry David Thoreau, Writer, (1817-1862)
10. Abraham Lincoln, President (1809-1865)
9. Thomas Jefferson, President (1743-1826)
8. Robert Nozick, Professor, Harvard University (1938-2002)
7. John Rawls, Professor, Harvard University (1922-2002)
6. Iris Marion Young, Professor, University of Chicago (1949-2006)
5. Fredrick Douglass, Writer & Orator (1818-1895)
4. Martin Luther King, Jr., Reverend (1929-1968)
3. John Dewey, Professor, Columbia University (1859-1952)
2. James Madison, President (1751-1836)
1. W.E.B. Du Bois, Professor, Atlanta University (1868-1963)
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20 Responses to “Top Ten Greatest American Political Thinkers”
What are your criteria, because you seem to have an odd mix of politicians, radicals, religious leaders, and Academics? Some propounded theory, whereas others could implement their ideas. Others were just on the lunatic fringe.
cosmoetica,
Yesterdays lunatic fringe is today’s mainstream. Unless you still consider Frederick Douglass lunatic fringe :-p
David,
Good list, though obviously I think something like that could go on forever. Plus, there are many more names no one knows, and I didn’t recognize six you listed btw. For instance, and I would put him under honorable mention, Gerrit Smith. But of course, I’m showing my bias since I’ve been busy researching his time in Congress for the past year.
And I, for my part, have never heard of Gerrit Smith.
Just for fun, I’m going to take a flier on the six you haven’t heard of as…
Davis, hooks, Sandel, Nozick, Young, and Dewey?
Is this a list that reflects your favorites, or a list of who you consider the best? I think this matters because something can be a “favorite” even if you recognize it is flawed to a greater or lesser degree.
I’m gonna sit back and think of my own Top 10, but I don’t think any of yours will crack the list..except maybe Madison.
Also, would you limit this to the post 1776 era?
BTW I consider Iris Young’s Justice and the Politics of Difference one of the truly appalling works of the last 30 years.
I didn’t know she had passed away last year, however. That is sort of sad as she was much debated when I was in grad school.
I know Dewey for his education work, pragmatist philosophy, phil of nature, and even some of his work on logic. Never got around to the democracy stuff.
Actually, Davis I’ve heard of …. don’t know much about her, but enough to recognize the name … Rawls would be the other one I’ve never heard of.
Gerrit Smith was actually a friend of Frederick Douglass for a time, up until the Brown incident. He was also a co-founder of the Liberty Party, and was one of the main supporters of the idea that slavery was not supported by the constitution. Wiki has a short article that has a bit more on him if you are interested.
BTW, I always found it amusing that his second wife was a Fitzhugh, making him related to one of the largest slave holding families, which included Robert E. Lee. Also extremely ironic since he was good friends with John Brown and helped to fund (without realizing what he was funding) Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry.
I’m gonna take a rather expansive view as to what consitutes a “political thinker” as I will include people whose main work may not have been expressly political but who nonetheless impacted political thought.
10) Frederick Jackson Turner, Historian (1861-1932)
Thomas Samuel Kuhn, Physicist and Historian (1922-1996)
9) Elmer Eric Schattschneider, Political Scientist (1892-1971)
7) Benjamin Franklin, Renaissance Man (1706-1790)
6) Charles Austin Beard, Historian (1874-1948)
5) William James, Psychologist and Philosopher (1842-1910)
4) Edmund Sears Morgan, Historian (1916-)
3) Henry David Thoreau, Writer (1817-1862)
2) Charles Sanders Peirce, Philosopher (1839-1914)
1) James Madison, President (1751-1836)
Well, my list certainly wouldn’t get past the PC police, would it?
John Rawls? For serious? Ouch.
David,
Yeah, I only had one political science class, and it was a 100 level, though the prof did teach it as a 300 level political theory class … never, that I remember, did he give the name of any political theorists during the class… though it is just as likely he did and I had drifted off.
How about Kenneth Waltz? Neorealism is still the dominant theory of International Relations almost thirty years after he developed it.
And I would throw up Alexander Wendt on the honorable mention list. He’s a relative newcomer, but I think in 50 years, his strand of constructivism could be talked about the way we talk about Waltz and neorealism today.
I’d hardly lump Douglass with Angela Davis. Sometimes loons are loons immemorial.
I like how #8 turned into a
for Thomas Kuhn–especially fitting because Kuhn is a seriously cool dude.
I’m a huge Ben Franklin fan (far more than any other founder), but I don’t consider him to have had sufficient impact on political thought.
And I do have to question the list being 10 White men. I feel like Du Bois, particularly, has to be on the list somewhere.
As for Kenneth Waltz, I kind of split American political thought from IR in my head, but on the IR side of it he certainly is deserving, I feel.
Peirce a political philosopher? That IS broad.
I’ve met hooks; she’s an interesting cat.
You’re telling me Daniel Webster doesn’t make that list????
Du Bois would have made the next ten. Thorstein Veblen, O.W. Holmes and Upton Sinclair would have made the honorable mention list as well.
I know…but if you go back an re-read “The Fixation of Belief” with an eye for its political implications, they are profound. Read that way they are in fact the most original words any American has added to political theory excepting Federalist #10.
If there was an “orator” list I’m sure he’d be there.
But Webster is in good company, nobody mentioned Paine either.
Paine was the name my dad gave me as the obvious omission on the list. Veblen, of course, as a Carleton alum, gets mucho respect from me–but I consider him an economist rather than a political thinker (ditto for Holmes–law, not politics).
Constitutional law or politics, how can you draw a clear distinction? And as for Veblen, he sure did a lot to alter the way we view class in America with huge political implications.
Were we to expand the list to include influential thought that may have had a more pernicious aspect to it the list could grow even more interesting (and contrversial.)
Off the top of my head I think of John C. Calhoun, Woodrow Wilson and almost everyone involved in the early years of establishing Political Science as a academic discipline (especially Charles E. Merriam.)
I also notice my list has no real conservatives on it. Were the list expanded to 30 I’m sure I’d find a place for Milton Friedman and Forest McDonald.
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