Abstract
This collective monograph focuses on the question "how to read political thinkers?" Thirteen Czech and Slovak scholars with various academic backgrounds including philosophy, history and political science discuss the most influential approaches to interpretation of political texts since the end the World War II. The book is divided into three main sections according to geographical criterion in combination with the philosophical background of the respective authors.
The first part investigates approaches of originally German authors (H.-G. Gadamer, Leo Strauss, Hannah Arendt and Reinhart Koselleck) embedded in continental philosophy who followed or reacted to philosophy of Martin Heidegger.
The second group of authors (Quentin Skinner, J. G.
A. Pocock, J.
B. Schneewind and Michael Freeden) includes authors from Anglophone areas who draw their approaches mostly on the linguistic turn and analytical philosophy.
The third cluster of authors (Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Ernesto Laclau and S. M.
Okin) consists of thinkers of heterogeneous origins reacting to poststructuralism. The main objectives of the book are to challenge methodological nationalism through introducing the rich variety of different perspectives on political text, to help readers identify the dimensions of political texts they might not have thought about and to broaden their horizons in thinking about political, historical and philosophical issues (not only) related to textual interpretation.