Praxis Seminar with Jonathan Floyd: What is the point of doing ‘methodology’ in political theory? (Dec. 9, 2025)

[praxis-cful]

Praxis Seminar — Research Colloquium in Practical Philosophy

Session 9: Dec. 9, 2025, 17:15 (Lisbon Time, GMT+0)

Sala Mattos Romão (Department of Philosophy, Room C201.J) 

School of Arts and Humanities — University of Lisbon

What is the point of doing ‘methodology’ in political theory?

Jonathan Floyd (Bristol University)

Abstract

If we say that a ‘method’ is a general way of pursuing a particular task, and that ‘methodology’ is the study of those general ways, as well as the tasks they aim at, then we can say that any method is a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ method according to whether it helps us achieve the task we are aiming at. Are thought experiments, for example, a productive method of conceptual analysis? Is genealogy a useful method of critique? Is reflective equilibrium a helpful method of justification? And indeed, assuming there are some good methods out there, how should we then think about combining them, given that we rarely only have one task and one method in mind, given our wider aims? Should we, for example, sometimes combine more abstract methods with more concrete ones? More radical with more conservative? More philosophical with more politically engaged, and thus in turn more publicly accessible? In an age in which political theorists are sometimes told they need to be highly specialised publishers, and sometimes that they need to be highly engaged political influencers, getting the right mix of methods, and thus understanding what all those methods are, might turn out to be very important indeed.

All our sessions are free and open to the public.

More information about this and other Praxis-CFUL events: https://cful.letras.ulisboa.pt/praxis/programme/praxis-seminar/

The Praxis Seminar is a weekly, in-person event organized by Praxis-CFUL, the Practical Philosophy Research Group of the Centre of Philosophy of the University of Lisbon. This event is funded by Portuguese national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., within the project UID/00310.

—

Praxis-CFUL

Practical Philosophy Research Group

Center of Philosophy  University of Lisbon

https://cful.letras.ulisboa.pt/praxis/

Alameda da Universidade

1600-214 Lisboa

Portugal