This inquiry opens up questions about more recent critiques of ideal theory in political philosophy, which seek to integrate a power-conscious approach to politics with more substantial political ideals.
The term Realpolitik is largely associated with Bismarck’s master diplomacy and by extension with an interest-based approach to foreign policy that prioritizes national interest, power struggles, and practical considerations over ideological or moral concerns in international relations. This talk, however, explores a different history of the concept, focusing on its role in the politics and thought of the liberal and democratic Left after the 1848 Revolution in Germany.
It examines the intellectual profile of Ludwig August Rochau’s Principles of Realpolitik (1853) within the broader context of mid-nineteenth-century debates on the relationship between might and right. The paper argues that, for Rochau, Realpolitik entailed a more comprehensive analysis of power relations in politics—extending from party ideologies and public opinion to economic and social forces, as well as international relations. Furthermore, the paper traces Rochau’s work back to Enlightenment debates on the violent origins of society and their reception in the thought of his contemporaries, particularly Marx and Ferdinand Lassalle.
Alexander Schmidt is DAAD Visiting Associate Professor of European Studies at Vanderbilt University. He has held visiting professorships and fellowships at Chicago, Cambridge, and the University of Edinburgh. His work focuses on the history of German political thought, especially the long eighteenth century, with an emphasis on the intersection between ideas of human nature, legal thought, and aesthetics. His first peer-reviewed monograph Vaterlandsliebe und Religionskonflikt: Politische Diskurse im Alten Reich 1555-1648 (Brill, 2007) researches humanist ideas of love of fatherland and their impact on political debates in early modern Germany.
He is interested in the engagement of early modern and modern writers with Greek and Roman moral and political thought. His articles have appeared in The Historical Journal, History of Political Thought, Modern Intellectual History, History of European Ideas, Francia, and a number of edited volumes. Schmidt has also edited Friedrich Schiller’s On the Aesthetic Education of Man (Penguin Classics, 2016) and is currently completing an edition of Schiller’s essays on universal history for Princeton University Press.
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