The Nature of Party Government: A Comparative European Perspective

The Nature of Party Government examines relationships between governments and supporting parties on a comparative European basis. The book does so at the level of principles: there is a major conflict between governments, which should govern, and parties, which being representative, wish to shape the way governments operate. The book studies relationships empirically as well: it shows that they occur on three planes, appointments, policy-making and patronage and assesses the extent of two-way influence, from parties to governments and from governments to parties.

In the first full-length analysis of Wittgenstein's Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, Brian R. Clack presents a fresh and innovative interpretation of Wittgenstein's conception of religion.

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In perhaps the first full-length analysis of Wittengstein's Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough (1900), Clark (philosophy, Oxford) argues that these musings on the kinship between the magic that the anthropologist investigated and metaphysics are central rather than peripheral to the philosopher's thought on religion. The methodological section specifically links magico-religious phenomena with the ideal of perspicuity in Wittengstein's later philosophy. Lastly, both seminal thinkers are regarded as beyond expressivism and instrumentalism, with metaphysics viewed through the examples of homeopathic magic and human sacrifice in the natural history of the ceremonial animal. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

In the first full-length analysis of Wittgenstein's Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, Brian R. Clack presents a fresh and innovative interpretation of Wittgenstein's conception of religion. While previous commentators have tended to sideline the Remarks on Frazer, Clack shows how the key to Wittgenstein's thought on religion lies in these remarks on primitive magico-religious observances. This book shows that Wittgenstein neither embraces expressivism, as it is generally assumed, nor straightforwardly denies instrumentalism. Focusing instead on Wittgenstein's suggestion that magic is somehow akin to metaphysics, a view of ritual as the spontaneous expression of human beings (conceived as "ceremonial animals") is presented. Wittgenstein, Frazer and Religion expounds and analyses the argument of Wittgenstein's Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough . It details the reasons for Wittgenstein's rejection of the intellectualist theory of religion, and suggests a new interpretation of his rival view of ritual. Denying that Wittgenstein's account is straightforwardly expressivist, the author builds his own interpretation on Wittgenstein's claim that magic is akin to metaphysics. In the course of the book, the author considers such matters as expressivism, 'perspicuous representation', the nature of human sacrifice, and Wittgenstein's cultural pessimism. Front Matter....Pages i-x Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Wittgenstein, Frazer and Religion....Pages 3-18 Front Matter....Pages 19-19 Wittgenstein’s ‘Expressivism’....Pages 21-36 The Possibility of Expressivism....Pages 37-50 Front Matter....Pages 51-51 Perspicuous Representation....Pages 53-78 The Prohibition on Explanation....Pages 79-92 The Frontiers of the Remarks....Pages 93-103 Front Matter....Pages 105-105 Metaphysics as a Kind of Magic....Pages 107-134 Frazerian Reflections: Wittgenstein on Beltane and Human Sacrifice....Pages 135-154 The Collapse into the Inorganic....Pages 155-176 Back Matter....Pages 177-200 In this, the first full-length analysis of Wittgenstein's Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough, Brian R. Clack presents a fresh and innovative interpretation of Wittgenstein's conception of religion. While previous commentators have tended to sideline the Remarks on Frazer, Clack shows that the key to Wittgenstein's thought on religion lies in these remarks on primitive magico-religious observances