Introduction

Richard E. Flathman has been called “the most authentic Hobbesian of our time” and “the most idiosyncratic and the least classifiable” of contemporary theorists (Tuck 2002: 228; Levy 2006: 23). For many years, he was best known for his numerous book-length treatments of central concepts in political philosophy. In that body of work, he “played what is perhaps the dominant role in introducing what was once called ‘analytic political philosophy’ into political theory” (Wertheimer 1990: 181). His later work carves out a view of liberalism that is less state-centric, more sympathetic to pluralism and less dependent on conceptions of the reasonable and the rational. In addition, he has come to be known as a proponent of self-enacted individuality that celebrates the sometimes opaque and opalescent character of the individual. Flathman argues that we sometimes cannot fathom one another, but we also possess a kaleidoscopic, many-hued interiority that can, on occasion, be comprehended by ourselves and others. Both of these attributes are important sources of individuality and pluralism. Flathman has shown himself to be a keen analyst of political ideas, a prominent therapist of philosophical conundrums, a skeptic of state institutions and authority, and a fierce defender of individuality and freedom. This introduction will highlight three innovations of Flathman’s work. The first involves his contribution to understanding the meaning of key political ideas, as well as the limits of meaningful understanding. As a theorist of meaning and of the limits of meaning (or what he sometimes calls “unmeaning”), Flathman presents an account of how to engage in political theory and be responsive to others. A second innovation carves out a place for the “willful” in a theoretical world that tends to be dominated by the rational and the reasonable. This theoretical contribution undergirds a liberalism that differs from liberalisms that rest on the rational and the reasonable. A third innovation involves Flathman’s understanding and defense of individuality. His approach to individuality expresses an anti-perfectionist perfectionism that he argues is central to the liberal ideal. What makes it an anti-perfectionism is that his position does not endorse some kind of substantive specification for the shape of that enacted self (Flathman 2006). It is not a position that sees a natural or identifiable goal toward which all human being are or should be drawn. Yet, it is still a perfectionism insofar as it endorses a distinction between an attained and unattained

self: between what we are and what we could make ourselves into. This third innovation draws liberalism into literatures and questions that it has sought to evade and avoid, moving it beyond its traditional state-centric focus. The following takes up each of these innovations in turn.