Richard E. Flathman

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Richard E. Flathman (b. August 6, 1934; St. Paul, MN) is the George Armstrong Kelly Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. He is known for having pioneered, with Brian Barry, David Braybrooke, and Felix Oppenheim, the application of analytic philosophy to political science. He is a leading advocate of liberalism and a champion of individuality.

He received his PhD from Berkeley in 1962. He has been a professor at Johns Hopkins since 1975, and was chair of his department from 1979-1985. Prior to joining Hopkins, he taught at the Universities of Washington and Chicago, and at Reed College.

With his colleague and interlocutor William E. Connolly, Flathman founded what is sometimes called the "Hopkins School" of political theory.

[edit] Selected Publications

• The Public Interest: An Essay Concerning the Normative Discourse of Politics (1966)
• "Equality and Generalization: A Formal Analysis" NOMOS IX: Equality (1967)
• Political Obligation (1972)
• The Practice of Rights (1976)
• The Practice of Political Authority: Authority and the Authoritative (1980)
• "Rights, Needs, and Liberalism" Political Theory 8 (1980)
• "Egalitarian Blood and Skeptical Turnips" Ethics 93 (1983)
• "Moderating Rights" Social Philosophy and Policy 1 (1984)
• The Philosophy and Politics of Freedom (1987)
• "Convention, Contractarianism, and Freedom" Ethics 98 (1987)
• Toward a Liberalism (1989)
• Willful Liberalism: Voluntarism and Individuality in Political Theory and Practice (1992)
• Thomas Hobbes: Skepticism, Individuality, and Chastened Politics (1993)
• Reflections of a Would-Be Anarchist: Ideals and Institutions of Liberalism (1998)
• Freedom and Its Conditions: Discipline, Autonomy, and Resistance (2003)
• Pluralism and Liberal Democracy (2005)
• "Here and Now, There and Then, Always and Everywhere: Reflections Concerning Political Theory and the Study/Writing of Political Thought," in David Armitage (ed.) British Political Thought in History, Literature, and Theory, 1500-1800 (Cambridge University Press, 2006)

[edit] As Editor

• Concepts in Social and Political Philosophy (1973)

[edit] Of Further Interest

• Skepticism, Individuality, and Freedom: The Reluctant Liberalism of Richard Flathman, edited by Bonnie Honig and David R. Mapel (2002)
• William Lund, "Fatal Attraction: 'Willful Liberalism' and the Denial of Public Transparency" Political Research Quarterly 53 (2000): 305-326
• Peter Busch, "From Hobbes to Nietzsche: Richard E. Flathman's Search for a More Vigorous Liberalism"