IT HAS become common, of late, for American professors of politics to write and teach about contemporary thinkers-philosophers, psychologists, literary critics-whose work seems unrelated to politics as conventionally understood. Over the past few years a good deal has been written about the political dimension of Wittgenstein’s writings; technical debates within academic philosophy of science have been covered quite extensively in political science journals and books; and the great attention focused on the French deconstructionists and post-structuralists has even spilled over into politics departments. What are we to make of all this?