Most overrated and underrated political philosophers?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'll start.

Overrated: People like John Locke and Robert Nozick are too-easy/MRDA answers for a maroon avatar (plus I don't think the quality of their thought is that bad, I just disagree with their conclusions), so instead I'll mention Theodor W. Adorno, who has some good insights but whose crass misogyny and bizarrely doctrinaire elitism have gotten a free pass in capital-L Leftist (or "Left"-as-an-adjective) circles for way too long.

Underrated: George P. Grant seems mostly forgotten today outside lefty Catholic/Anglican circles, which is a real shame because his arguments for "paternalistic" conservatism are some of the best defenses of that particular political tradition out there, and are often far more compelling than defenses of trendier conservative currents like three-legged-stool fusionism or muh right-wing #populism .

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Overrated: I agree with Locke but would easily place Novick in the latter category, not because I agree with his conclusions so much but because his work has been overshadowed by the likes of Rand and friends.  I would also add Camus (despite being a fan myself) and Nietzsche, who is widely misunderstood but also falls into the same angsty teenage boy circlejerk fest.  Foucault deserves a mention also for fueling the worst aspects of the New Left.  Adam Smith and Hayek might belong here too, simply because their visions for the role of the state go against a lot of what their most vocal supporters want.  Jordan Peterson.

Underrated: I would argue that Thomas Carlyle is one of the lesser-known influencers of (what would become) fascism.  Also, the rhetoric used by the early Church Fathers was far harsher on the rich than I think a lot of Christians care to acknowledge.

[afleitch]

Both: Adam Smith, simply because no one ever actually reads him and he is a weird ideologue for the right when, even when he was championed by the Whigs, maligned the fact he detested the entire structure of Britain's mercantile commercial system in which large companies held such a monopoly that not only were the masses forced to accept increasing prices for increasingly lower standards but that their employment was at the whims of these massive companies and their profit margin. He also hated commerce being an extension of a 'trading war' between nations rather than something involving more amity. He was not a fan of the state being that actor, of course (though a lot of market socialism lifts from his propositions) but the idea he's a weird champion of the entire shoddy neoliberal model is far from reality. He would have hated what was happening right now as the result of mass capitalist monopolies.

[Cassius]

Over: Immanuel Kant, Edmund bloody Burke.
Under: Robert Michels, Joseph de Maistre, Karl Polanyi, Mikhail Bakunin.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

so instead I'll mention Theodor W. Adorno, who has some good insights but whose crass misogyny and bizarrely doctrinaire elitism have gotten a free pass in capital-L Leftist (or "Left"-as-an-adjective) circles for way too long.

A wonderful anecdote of Richard Taruskin's, that may be relevant:

When I vented a rather vehement anti-Adornian position, somewhat along the lines of what will follow here, before a German audience in Berlin last year and encountered surprisingly little resistance, I asked one of my hosts about it and was told, "Oh my dear, Adorno is your problem now."

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Overrated: I cannot see how this can't be Marx. And I like Marx, as a historian at least. Which other political philosopher to this day has parties with parliamentary representation which treat their writings as holy texts? His crippling influence weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living left.
Underrated: Idk. I'm a Bernard Williams stan in everything so Bernard Williams I suppose, although I don't think he's underrated in his target audience of analytical academia. Generally sceptical of political philosophers as a whole though.

[John Dule]

Overrated:

- I'll have to agree with others here who said Locke. He has always struck me as an unforgivable hypocrite, and the writings of his that I've read are a real slog to get through. I read Locke immediately after having experienced the joy that is Thomas Hobbes, a philosopher who bases each and every one of his conclusions in rigorous definitions and realistic analyses of human motivations. To read Locke after that was truly disheartening, seeing as so much of his discourse is grounded in nothing more than personal opinion.

- Marx has had a debilitating effect on the left, as others here have said, because so many people these days spend their time attempting to defend every little claim he made rather than developing theory of their own. Look guys, the man wrote thousands upon thousands of pages of dense economic and social theorizing-- he was bound to make a few mistakes. The labor theory of value and surplus value are both absolutely wrong, and socialists these days would do well to detach themselves from these outdated theories from this sad old man who they've allowed to define their entire movement.

- Plato. Perhaps not overrated (it's impossible to overstate his influence on philosophy), but certainly under-critiqued.

- Camus. I read The Stranger but found myself pining for the prose of Ayn Rand the entire time. If you want to write fiction that has philosophical themes, at least make that philosophy interesting.



Underrated:

- Freud. Most people know him as "That guy who was obsessed with penises," but he actually wrote several great pieces on political and social psychology that have seriously shaped my worldview. "Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego" in particular is a masterful study of crowd dynamics. He draws a series of deep connections between democratic impulses and mob mentality that only become more relevant every year these days. My favorite quote: "By the mere fact that he forms part of an organized group, a man descends several rungs in the ladder of civilization."

- Thomas Hobbes had a mind capable of nearly unimpeachable logic. Regardless of his conclusions, the way he went about searching for the truth speaks to me on a profound level. I think far too many people dismiss him due to his endorsement of absolute monarchy, and in doing so, they unknowingly lose the opportunity to experience philosophical inquiry at its most objective and unbiased.

- Gustave le Bon: "The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim."

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

I'm not well-read enough on paid thinkers to opine here.

Underrated: George P. Grant seems mostly forgotten today outside lefty Catholic/Anglican circles, which is a real shame because his arguments for "paternalistic" conservatism are some of the best defenses of that particular political tradition out there, and are often far more compelling than defenses of trendier conservative currents like three-legged-stool fusionism or muh right-wing #populism .

Mr. Grant's Wikipedia page did not really spell out much of what you meant by "'paternalistic' conservatism", but my scorching hot take (based on Wikipedia skimming and my own assumptions) is that populist conservatism is what happens when you divorce paternalistic conservatism from its original class basis and/or bring the masses into politics and/or try to plant non-liberal conservatism in an overtly liberal soil. You get "muh fiscally maybe centrist and socially more conservative" but with vastly different flavors and results.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

- Camus. I read The Stranger but found myself pining for the prose of Ayn Rand the entire time. If you want to write fiction that has philosophical themes, at least make that philosophy interesting.

Ugh, The Stranger is the absolute worst way to get a fair read on Camus. The Plague or bust.

[Mr. Smith]

Overrated: Jacques Rosseau

Underrated: Bertrand Russell

[Wikipedia delenda est]

Overrated: Edmund Burke. Basically just a standard Whiggish classical liberal who is worshiped by a lot of modern conservatives for saying some bad things about the French Revolution.

Underrated: Lord Bolingbroke. Had a massive influence on both the American Patriots and George III via his writings against political corruption, most notably in The Patriot King. His deism was also important in shaping the young Voltaire's ideas on religion. Ironically, Burke's quote about Bolingbroke shows just how underrated he is: "Who now reads Bolingbroke, who ever read him through?"

[Brother Jonathan]

Overrated: I think Marx, more than anyone else. He is important, of course, but in academia at least he is treated with an almost sickening amount of reverence. Same goes for Foucault, who again is important but way too overrated by scholars of political philosophy.

Underrated: He's been ranked as overrated, but I think Burke usually gets the rough end of the stick when it comes to discussions of political philosophy. Generally, I have found he is at best treated as an unserious simpleton, and at worst a manipulative opportunist. He was shades of both, from time to time, but it doesn't warrant the hostility towards him outside of the conservative intellectual tradition. He's unarguably been as influential as Foucault in actual politics, but gets much less academic study. I think lack of serious academic discussion of conservatism is a growing problem. 

Underrated: George P. Grant seems mostly forgotten today outside lefty Catholic/Anglican circles, which is a real shame because his arguments for "paternalistic" conservatism are some of the best defenses of that particular political tradition out there, and are often far more compelling than defenses of trendier conservative currents like three-legged-stool fusionism or muh right-wing #populism .

I, personally, am fascinated by George P. Grant and am quite the fan. It's a shame he has largely been neglected, but his brand of Toryism actually had an immense influence on me. In the same vein, John Farthing is interesting, though I wouldn't say he is underrated like Grant is. "Red Toryism" in general is somewhat forgotten now, regrettably. 

[John Dule]

Overrated: Jacques Rosseau

Yes. I considered including him but I felt sick to my stomach at the prospect of writing anything substantial about this lunatic.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I can't believe I forgot about Foucault when I was doing the OP for this thread. He did have some good insights, but the fact that the Most Cited Scholar In The Humanities is someone who wanted to legalize pedophilia and supported the Ayatollah Khomeini is an embarrassment.

[Kleine Scheiße]

Overrated: Karl Popper, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Giles Deleuze, B. F. Skinner, Mikhail Bakunin, Milton Friedman, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Noam Chomsky, Bertrand Russell

Underrated: Irakli Tsereteli, Sri Aurobindo, Bayard Rustin, Georges Sorel (whose name has been understandably yet tragically tarnished), Marcia Lacerda de Moura, Max Stirner, Joan Wallach Scott

[Georg Ebner]

"Overrated" are those philosophers, who are lectured in the pseudoscience of "politology" because they have written explicitely on politics.
"Underrated" are those philosophers, who are ignored by "politologists" because they have not written explicitely on the political implications of their systems.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

"Overrated" are those philosophers, who are lectured in the pseudoscience of "politology" because they have written explicitely on politics.
"Underrated" are those philosophers, who are ignored by "politologists" because they have not written explicitely on the political implications of their systems.

Dude, don't you like Nicolás Gómez Dávila?  He was many things, but "somebody who didn't write explicitly on politics" was not one of them.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

I can't believe I forgot about Foucault when I was doing the OP for this thread. He did have some good insights, but the fact that the Most Cited Scholar In The Humanities is someone who wanted to legalize pedophilia and supported the Ayatollah Khomeini is an embarrassment.

Well sure, but should academics have not cited Foucault on power or what have you because he wrote a positive article about the Islamic Revolution? This kind of charge is like saying Kant is a discredited philosopher because he was a biological racist (and people have argued this).

Far more problematic about Foucault is that the actual history he wrote is basically crap.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I can't believe I forgot about Foucault when I was doing the OP for this thread. He did have some good insights, but the fact that the Most Cited Scholar In The Humanities is someone who wanted to legalize pedophilia and supported the Ayatollah Khomeini is an embarrassment.

Well sure, but should academics have not cited Foucault on power or what have you because he wrote a positive article about the Islamic Revolution? This kind of charge is like saying Kant is a discredited philosopher because he was a biological racist (and people have argued this).

Far more problematic about Foucault is that the actual history he wrote is basically crap.

Foucault is cited on issues related to Islam and (extensively) to human sexuality as well. The problem is treating him as some sort of GOAT political philosopher/political historian--thus, "overrated"--not the fact that he's cited at all. If Kant were cited so extensively and oftentimes so uncritically that people actually were treating him as some sort of authority on race, then yes, I'd say that that constituted Kant being overrated.

[afleitch]

I can't believe I forgot about Foucault when I was doing the OP for this thread. He did have some good insights, but the fact that the Most Cited Scholar In The Humanities is someone who wanted to legalize pedophilia and supported the Ayatollah Khomeini is an embarrassment.

Well sure, but should academics have not cited Foucault on power or what have you because he wrote a positive article about the Islamic Revolution? This kind of charge is like saying Kant is a discredited philosopher because he was a biological racist (and people have argued this).

Far more problematic about Foucault is that the actual history he wrote is basically crap.

Worth noting that Foucault was not alone in the left in misjudging the Islamic Revolution (and contemporaneously, Mugabe); his utter silence in the years after suggests he knew this. But he was not one for ever admonishing himself.

As for the critique on his views on history I agree, but I find it really hard to shorthand why. There was a great thread on r/askhistorians about this a few years ago I need to find which I thought was really good.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Foucault was a lunatic with extremely distasteful politics and moral attitudes, but his strange, addled brain did produce on occasion some very important insights that, most probably, would not have occurred to anyone else. Where a lot of academics go wrong is to try to use him as a substitute for the fallen Marx; as a man who created and propagated a total system of thought that can be usefully applied to any possible scholarly problem.

[afleitch]

Speaking of Marxism, a shout out to the underrated Raya Dunayevskaya for her contributions to Marxist Humanism and Antoinette Konikow for her contributions to early 20th century feminism.

[Devout Centrist]

I'd argue Norman Thomas is underappreciated.

[Zinneke]

Foucault was a lunatic with extremely distasteful politics and moral attitudes, but his strange, addled brain did produce on occasion some very important insights that, most probably, would not have occurred to anyone else. Where a lot of academics go wrong is to try to use him as a substitute for the fallen Marx; as a man who created and propagated a total system of thought that can be usefully applied to any possible scholarly problem.

Just out of curiosity, how does applying Foucaultvian thought to any scholarly problem work?

[Senator Incitatus]

- Camus. I read The Stranger but found myself pining for the prose of Ayn Rand the entire time. If you want to write fiction that has philosophical themes, at least make that philosophy interesting.

Ugh, The Stranger is the absolute worst way to get a fair read on Camus. The Plague or bust.

The Rebel.