O kategorii „zasada” w narracji politologicznej

In the political space there are often references to the notion of „principle.” This category appears against the backdrop of various contexts, so that it seems to loose its semantic clarity. The lexicons and encyclopaedias of political science do not this concept precise in their narration. In view of a genetic and contextual analysis the paper seeks to show such an understanding of the notion of „principle” that is characteristic of political science. A typology of political principles and their relations have also been proposed. Starting from the concept of arche/principium, the author presents briefly the evolution of the category of „principle” in the political space. He shows the semantic relation between the principle and arche as to that which is basic and fundamental. Then he remarks that we should distinguish ontological and functional principles, with respect to the degree how essential the problem is for a political community to which the notion of „principle” refers. In respect with the types of political issues defined by the category of principle the author lists three types of political principles: normative, regulative, and postulative-critical. He also remarks that in the narration of political science the category of principle is sometimes discussed to define metapolitical principles, closely related to the political space, especially social principles that may become an inspiration for political principles. The last part of the paper is devoted to the relations between particular types of principles. Three kinds of such relations have been distinguished. Two of them (evolution and transposition of principles) deal with the relations that occur within political principles. The relation named as a borrowing deals with the relation between political and metapolitical principles.