It is not difficult to discern that America and the west in general is undergoing a moral and intellectual crisis. In 1955 Walter Lippman in his book the Public Philosophy, discerned that the natural law/rights tradition upon which American politcal institutions were founded was in a state of intellectual neglect. In The Constitution of Public Philosphy, Dr. Statham rightfully places the responsibility for that neglect on the discipline of political science. As Statham makes clear, the critique of modern political science by scholars such as Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin have sufficiently indicted the discipline.

Amazingly however, American politcal science prods on with so called scientific inquiry which does nothing to enlighten citizens and statesmen, and denies the existence of any self evident truths. Statham argues that while America's founding generation created a constitutional government to institutionally check the destructive effects of ambition, passion, and unreason they by in large took the cultivation of reason in society for granted. The cultivation of reason was what political science was originally concerned with in its classical Greek roots. (Socrates, Plato, & Aristotle)

It is true that Thomas Jefferson and George Washington called for public education and a national university to provide such a cultivation, but there is no denying that modern American political science denies the possibilty of such a cultivation. It explicitly refers to the natural rights expressed in the Declaration of Independence as normative subjective value prefrences. Hence, a nation founded on the Declaration cannot rightfully be judged to be any better than a tribe of cannibals. The Constitution of Public Philosphy calls us back to the belief that human reason can discern certain natural first principles. All serious students in American political science departments who sense the emptiness of their academic endeavors should stop what their doing and read this book.