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Acknowledgments In the course of completing this project, we have accumulated many debts that can never be repaid but can only be acknowledged joyfully and with our unreserved gratitude. This book was first conceived in conversations that took place in Princeton, New Jersey, during the summer of 2009. The setting for these conversations was that year’s Lehrman American Studies Institute, which brought together senior scholars and young academics to discuss statesmanship and the principles of Western political thought. We would like to express our gratitude to the institute and its organizers for this opportunity for intellectual fellowship, from which emerged so many friendships and opportunities to collaborate. Our friend and colleague Joe Fornieri was an integral part of those initial conversations, and without his valuable input this book would not have taken its present form and might not have even gotten underway. We were also helped immensely by the early and continuing support, encouragement, and wise counsel of J. Budziszewski, Rob Koons, and Nick Wolterstorff. Finally, we owe a special word of thanks to Robyn DeHart, Paul’s wife, whose unfailing belief in the project encouraged Paul to see it to its conclusion, but who also provided important help in the formatting of the chapters as they were prepared for submission to the Press. This brings us to Northern Illinois University Press, to which we are grateful for its willingness to publish the present volume. We owe special thanks to our editor, Amy Farranto, for her early support for the project and the sure hand she applied in guiding us through the various stages of bringing it to completion. In addition, we wish to thank Christopher Tollefsen and Phillip Muñoz for their careful attention to the manuscript and their sage suggestions for how it might be improved. We must also express our thanks to the Agora Institute (www.agorainstitute. org) for its generous financial support for this project, support that was essential to bringing this book to publication. We hope that the volume will contribute to the x A c knowledg ment s kind of reasoned dialogue that the Agora Institute seeks to foster, a dialogue that deepens our understanding of the Western tradition of reflection on the good and on the requirements of civic virtue. We are grateful to R. J. Snell, one of the Agora Institute’s research directors, and Kelly Hanlon, its executive director, for their encouragement and for their help in arranging the institute’s support. Paul DeHart would like to thank Carson Holloway, Nick Wolterstorff, Justin Dyer, and Micah Watson for helpful comments on his chapter. He would also like to acknowledge the work of Al Plantinga and Nick Wolterstorff in epistemology and philosophy of religion. The quality of their work and their courage has led to a sea change in the discipline of philosophy, and Paul hopes that the present volume may contribute, in some small way, to a similar change in political theory. Paul has also been inspired by the work of Glenn Tinder, Jean Elshtain, and J. Budziszewski within political theory. To him they are shining examples of first-rate scholars for whom the claims of faith play an essential role in theorizing about politics. While an undergraduate at Houghton College, Paul once heard Ron Oakerson, protégé of the late Vincent Ostrom, say that he could not be a rational choice theorist all the way down. Thoroughgoing rational choice theory ruled out free will (at least on any meaningful account of free will). His Christian faith, however, compelled him to affirm human free agency over and against thoroughgoing rational choice theory. Thus, while he thought there were a number of things that such an approach to the study of politics got right, the claims of faith and their attendant anthropology of the human person remained more fundamental for him than his graduate training. These words have remained with Paul as a guide to his own scholarly efforts. Finally (and most importantly) Paul would like to acknowledge the support, help, and encouragement of his family, and especially of his wife, Robyn. Her love and support breathes life into all of his undertakings. They adopted their children, Mina and Zoe, more than two years ago. They have been the very best of distractions . Together with Robyn, they constantly remind him that life is not for the sake of politics but politics for the sake of life: for the sake of ordinary pleasures, playing tag or catch on a warm summer afternoon...

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