Early-Career Research Workshop: History of Political Thought, Cambridge Contextualism and Political Theory: Judgment, Normativity, and Crisis
Saturday, January 24, 2 – 5 pm, University of Freiburg (Germany)
Call for Papers for Early-Career Research Workshop with Prof. John Dunn (Cambridge) and PD Dr. Martin Baesler (Freiburg)
The Cambridge School advances a hermeneutic, contextualist approach to the history of political thought: it resists anachronism, treats language as action, employs the “logic of question and answer,” and foregrounds the agonistic force of rhetoric. Crucially, it affirms the real agency of ideas while insisting that their meaning and effects are inseparable from discursive and historical contexts. At a time when political certainties are eroding, populist movements are gaining ground, and diagnoses of a wider “crisis of democracy” proliferate, insights from the Cambridge School offer guidance for cultivating sound political judgment. Rooted in the Enlightenment tradition, such judgment demands rational, self-reflective deliberation that resists affective pull and accepts responsibility. Informed by Cambridge contextualism, it gains a critical dimension: attuned to historical and discursive contexts, judgment can scrutinise persuasive strategies, rhetorical devices, and underlying intentions, distinguishing transient populist appeals from enduring democratic principles. This workshop asks: how can a contextual approach not only interpret these crises but also help to critique them and orient normative responses today?
Programme
| 14:00 – 14:15 | WELCOMING Welcome by Prof. John Dunn (University of Cambridge) and PD Dr. Martin Baesler (Universität Freiburg) |
| 14:15 – 15:00 | Matthew Haji-Michael (PhD-student at Central European University in Vienna): UNDERSTANDING AND TRANSLATION: TOWARDS A POST-CONTEXTUALIST HISTORY OF IDEAS |
| 15:00 – 15:15 | BREAK |
| 15:15- 16:00 | Andreas-Johan Sorger (Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Theory, London School of Economics and Political Science)I CONCEPTUAL GAIN AND CONCEPTUAL LOSS IN LANGUAGES OF POLITICAL THOUGHT |
| 16:00 – 16:15 | BREAK |
| 16:15 – 17:00 | Jitai Zhang (PhD-student at Freie Universität Berlin): CONTEXTUALIST REALISM: EVALUATING IMPLICIT CONTENT IN MORAL DISAGREEMENT |
| 17:00 – 17:15 | CONCLUDING REMARKS |
| 18:00 | DINNER AT LA PIAZZA, Rathausgasse 50, 79098 Freiburg |
Questions may include (but are not limited to):
- Can Cambridge contextualism provide a normative basis for defending democratic principles, beyond diagnosis and description?
- How broad must “context” be to remain explanatorily useful without collapsing into indeterminacy?
- How do performative speech acts interact with power and conflict, and what follows for democratic judgment?
- Which methodological checks (question-answer logic, intention, audience) best guard against retrojection and anachronism?
- Under what conditions can contextualism be developed into a critical theory of the present (disinformation, populism, crisis of democracy)?
Submissions
- Abstract: 300–500 words + 3–5 keywords
- Status: Work-in-progress or full paper (Presentations are 20 minutes)
- Bio: 100 words (institution, career stage)
- Format: PDF; anonymised for review + separate title page
- Language: English
The workshop will take place at the University of Freiburg (Germany) on Saturday, 24 January 2026, and will be followed by a conference on Monday–Tuesday, 26–27 January 2026. Please submit a 300–500-word abstract (with 3–5 keywords) and a short 100-word bio (institution, stage) for the workshop, as a single PDF (anonymised for review with a separate title page) to martin.baesler@politik.uni-freiburg.de by 10 December 2025. Notifications will be sent by around 20 December 2025. Unfortunately, funding is limited, so travel and accommodation cannot be covered.