Robert Faulkner in the classroom
Robert Faulkner leading a class discussion in 2013. (Lee Pellegrini)

Essays in political philosophy

New book of his writings brings into focus the legacy of the late political science professor Robert Faulkner

Boston College Professor of Political Science Robert Faulkner (1934-2023) was a universally respected scholar of modern political philosophy and American political and legal thought who earned praise from BC colleagues and students alike, and from across academia. Ìę

Now, a recently published book of his writings has brought Faulkner’s legacy into focus.

cover of the book featuring portraits of historical figures in philosophy and US politics

Politics, Progress, and the Constitution: Essays in Political Philosophy consists of 17 studies spanning his career, and his interest in great thinkers like Aristotle, Machiavelli, Plato, Francis Bacon, Xenophon, John Locke, John Marshall, and Alexander Bickel. These essays examine the theory and practice of constitutional government, the philosophical foundations of modern republicanism, and the principles of great statesmanship as embodied by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln, among others.

“Robert Faulkner was, of course, a professor of political science, and he was interested in both parts of that subject: the political and the scientific,” said Behrakis Professor of Hellenic Political Studies Robert Bartlett, the book’s editor.

“Put another way, he had a keen and lifelong interest in the everyday workings of politics, but he was also interested in science broadly understood: What is it that we can know about ourselves and the world? I think his studies were informed by Aristotle’s famous dicta that a human being is by nature a political animal and a rational animal. But how—how well—does our potential rationality sit with our political nature? To what extent can our politics really be rational?”

Faulkner, who joined the BC faculty in 1968 and continued to work as a research professor following his retirement in 2014, was attuned to the foundational, classical, and historical aspects of political science. He dealt with such topics as Lincoln’s prescriptions for liberal democracy; the differences between Xenophon’s and Herodotus’s biographies of Cyrus the Great; Aristotle’s doubts about executive power; Locke’s republicanism and critique of religion; and Bacon’s scientific method and use of the essay as a literary form.

His books included The Case for Greatness: Honorable Ambition and Its Critics, proposing “a reasonable understanding of excellence” associated with the quality of ambition—which, he argued, had come to be regarded as a negative trait for leaders; and Francis Bacon and the Project of Progress, in which he cast Bacon as a key architect of the Enlightenment and one of the seminal founders of modernity.

Robert Bartlett

Behrakis Professor in Hellenic Political Studies Robert C. Bartlett (Peter Julian)


“In putting the book together, I read most all of Bob’s writings, the articles especially,” said Bartlett. “I selected from these many writings those that I thought were representative of the stages of his research and interest and that didn’t overlap so much with his books. I have also included in the book a complete bibliography of his writings.”

Bartlett notes that he had the fortune to have been both a student of Faulkner—who sat on Bartlett’s doctoral dissertation committee—and later, a colleague. “I thought it would be a worthwhile service to others and—I hope—a fitting tribute to him to put together a representative sample of his scholarship. So the book is partly a ‘thank you’ to a mentor and friend, partly also a gift to others.”

Faulkner’s studies broadened and deepened over time, according to Bartlett: first concentrating on early modern political philosophy and the roots of the American republic—particularly focusing on Locke—and then transitioning to an extensive investigation of Bacon, a less-explored figure in political science circles.

Faulkner saw that modernity was a carefully thought-out project to bring philosophy—now known as science—to bear on everyday life, “making it easier, safer, longer,” said Bartlett, with technology as the change agent. The central architect for this endeavor was Bacon, and Faulkner “was instrumental in bringing Bacon’s thought to the attention of political science and political theory especially,” according to Bartlett.

“Bob appreciated Bacon’s jaw-dropping ambition to remake the world, even as he had some reservations about its late fruits.”

Bartlett sums up Faulkner as “a wonderful teacher, a fine scholar, and a thoroughly decent human being.

“He had a clear sense of what really mattered, in politics and in life, and he devoted himself to serious things—all the while maintaining a great sense of humor that enlivened his conversation and made his company a real pleasure. He could be pugnacious in print, but he was always a gentleman in person.”

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