POLITIKA EGY TÖKÉLETLEN VILÁGBAN A politikai realizmus elméleti előfeltevéseiről

To providing a comprehensive picture of political realism, the paper discusses the major constitutive elements (or “topoi”) of the realist theory including epistemological issues, ontology, anthropological questions as these topoi emerge in the classics of political realism (Thukydides, Machiavelli, Guicciardini, Hobbes, etc.) and in the modern authors (Weber, Morgenthau, Schabert, Williams, etc.). This approach reveals some unconventional insights into realism. For example, political realism is not so much about power politics than about the confl icting nature of human societies. Additionally, a comprehensive depiction of political realism confronts us with the question whether it would be possible or desirable to create a coherent theory of realism or it should remain in its present form as a set of ideas that are more or less interconnected with each other.