Bez wątpienia w historii filozofii polityki istnieją pytania, które mają pozaczasowy charakter, jednym z nich jest pytanie o to, czym jest polityka. Nie oznacza to jednak, że filozofia polityki to jedna tradycja powiązanych ze sobą idei, która rozpoczęła się w starożytnej Grecji i trwa do dziś. Istnieją bowiem w jej ramach pytania związane z duchem czasów i określoną kulturą. Także odpowiedzi na odwieczne pytania zależą od problemów danej kultury i epoki, od tez nurtu filozoficznego, z którym identyfikuje się dany myśliciel (...) czy od ogólnego trendu filozoficznego panującego w danej epoce. Nie wszystkie są tak samo dobre dla określonego kontekstu historyczno-kulturowego. Niniejszy artykuł próbuje to wykazać, na trzech proponowanych współcześnie modelach polityki. Wybrani zostali autorzy, którzy są związani z odmiennymi szkołami filozofii polityki, którzy wskazali nowe drogi myślenia i badania, których można uznać za jednych z najczęściej komentowanych filozofów w drugiej połowie ubiegłego wieku, a także i obecnie, albowiem stali się punktami odniesienia, źródłem inspiracji czy krytycznej recepcji. (shrink)

From the theory of ‘deliberative democracy’ to the politics of the ‘third way’, the present Zeitgeist is characterized by attempts to deny what Chantal Mouffe contends is the inherently conflictual nature of democratic politics. Far from being signs of progress, such ideas constitute a serious threat to democratic institutions. Taking issue with John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas on one side, and the political tenets of Blair, Clinton and Schröder on the other, Mouffe brings to the fore the paradoxical (...) nature of modern liberal democracy in which the category of the ‘adversary’ plays a central role. She draws on the work of Wittgenstein, Derrida, and the provocative theses of Carl Schmitt, to propose a new understanding of democracy which acknowledges the ineradicability of antagonism in its workings. (shrink)

Chantal Mouffe herneemt de centrale gedachte van Carl Schmitt dat de antagonistische relatie tussen vriend en vijand constitutief is voor het politieke. Anders dan bij Schmitt leidt die idee bij haar tot een links en radicaal democratisch model voor een pluralistische samenleving. Een juiste appreciatie van de niet te elimineren politieke dimensie van strijd geeft aanleiding tot een kritische evaluatie van het politieke liberalisme van John Rawls en de deliberatieve democratie van Jürgen Habermas. Tegelijkertijd werpt Mouffe daarbij (...) een nieuw licht op enkele recente politieke fenomenen, zoals de opkomst van rechtse populistische partijen in Europa en de internationale ‘oorlog tegen het terrorisme’. (shrink)

This article brings to the fore the shortcomings of the type of pluralism advocated by John Rawls both in Political Liberalism and in The Law of Peoples. It is argued that by postulating that the discrimination between what is and what is not legitimate is dictated by rationality and morality, Rawls’s approach forecloses recognition of the properly political moment. Exclusions are presented as being justified by reason and the antagonistic dimension of politics is not acknowledged. This article also takes (...) issue with Rawls’s ‘realistic utopia’, asserting that despite the reference to ‘decent’ hierarchical societies, it amounts to a universalization of the western liberal model. (shrink)

Why should we read Carl Schmitt today? Does his friend-enemy conception of politics retain some pertinence in our “post-political” age? Do liberal democrats have something to learn from his critique of liberalism? Is his theory of sovereignty still relevant in a globalized word? These are some if the issue that Chantal Mouffe addresses in this article. The author considers that political theorists, in order to put forward a conception of a liberal-democratic society capable to win the active support (...) of its citizens, must be willing to engage with the arguments of those who have challenged the fundamental tenets of liberalism. This means confronting some disturbing questions, usually avoided by liberals and democrats alike. The intention of this article is to contribute to such a project by scrutinizing Carl Schmitts critique of liberal democracy. To bring to the fore the pertinence and actuality of Schmitt's questioning, the theme development is organized around two topics which are currently central in political theory: the boundaries of citizenship and the nature of liberal-democratic consensus. (shrink)

This article argues that John Rawls' liberal philosophising is an inadequate means of facing today's varied social and political challenges, both domestic and international, because it is incapable of grasping the antagonistic dimension which is constitutive of the political. Focusing first on Rawls' conception of politics in a well-ordered liberal society, and thereafter on his arguments pertaining to the field of international politics, it is shown how Rawls forecloses the recognition of the properly political moment by postulating that the (...) discrimination between what is legitimate and what is not legitimate is dictated by morality and rationality. With exclusions presented as rationally justified and with the antagonistic dimension of politics whisked away, liberalism appears as the truly moral and rational solution to the problem of how to organise human coexistence, and its universalisation becomes the aim of all those who are moved by moral and rational considerations. Against this conception, it is suggested that a future, more peaceful world would be less a cosmopolitan and more a pluralist one. (shrink)

[Carl Schmitt and the paradox of liberal democracy].

This article argues that John Rawls' liberal philosophising is an inadequate means of facing today's varied social and political challenges, both domestic and international, because it is incapable of grasping the antagonistic dimension which is constitutive of the political. Focusing first on Rawls' conception of politics in a well-ordered liberal society, and thereafter on his arguments pertaining to the field of international politics, it is shown how Rawls forecloses the recognition of the properly political moment by postulating that the (...) discrimination between what is legitimate and what is not legitimate is dictated by morality and rationality. With exclusions presented as rationally justified and with the antagonistic dimension of politics whisked away, liberalism appears as the truly moral and rational solution to the problem of how to organise human coexistence, and its universalisation becomes the aim of all those who are moved by moral and rational considerations. Against this conception, it is suggested that a future, more peaceful world would be less a cosmopolitan and more a pluralist one. (shrink)

O artigo investiga a proposta de releitura da teoria da democracia e do conceito do político feita pela filosofia belga pós-marxista Chantal Mouffe. O objetivo é analisar os argumentos da autora e a reabilitação do tema do conflito como constitutivo da democracia. Após a virada consensualista, procedimentos e princípios racionais passaram a reger a instituição do politico através de concepções deliberativas acerca da democracia, marcadas pela neutralização do conflito e identificação entre política e moral. Na contramão desse movimento, Mouffe (...) promove um inusitado encontro entre marxismo pós-estruturalista e algumas teses centrais da teoria política schmittiana. Em contraposição à compreensão do político como antagonismo entre amigos/inimigos, Mouffe propõe um modelo de agonismo adversarial, que segundo ela pode assumir a forma de uma democracia liberal. Pretendemos examinar sua proposta e discutir se de fato ela supera a crítica ao liberalismo feito por Schmitt. (shrink)

A pensadora política Chantal Mouffe desenvolve sua teoria afirmando o antagonismo e o conflito como categorias centrais e essenciais do político, enfatizando deste modo a importância do dissenso como elemento fundamental da democracia. Mouffe nos direciona em suas obras à reflexão do que seria um modelo agonístico de democracia radical, onde o pluralismo político, a cidadania e o dissenso estabelecem os elementos essenciais para a constituição dessa sociedade. Os pensamentos de Chantal Mouffe se apoiam em sua leitura de (...) Carl Schmitt, desenvolvendo a partir deste uma crítica ao individualismo liberal e a uma perspectiva racionalista do político, para então enfatizar o caráter "agonístico" da disputa política e enunciar as razões pelas quais o consenso não pode ser o fim último de uma política democrática. (shrink)

In her more recent work, Chantal Mouffe enters into what she calls a 'dialogue' with Carl Schmitt on the political. So far, interpretations of this dialogue suggest that Mouffe attempts to revise Schmitt's friend/enemy-distinction and carve out a theory of agonistic pluralism. An interpretation on these grounds, this article argues, reduces the dialogue to its analytical dimension and cannot comfortably be upheld. Mouffe indeed appropriates Schmitt's friend/enemy-distinction, but she also gets inspired by the metatheoretical facet of his intellectual (...) heritage with the result that her theory becomes organically interwoven with a polemical dimension. Rather than aiming at a post-structuralist defanging of Schmitt's conception of the political, Mouffe recontextualizes and applies it to the current academic discourse, for this allows decontesting her radical pluralist cause by establishing a we/them opposition along a political/post-political divide. (shrink)

It is Chantal Mouffe’s contention that the central weakness of consensus-driven forms of liberalism, such as John Rawls’ political liberalism and Jurgen Habermas’ deliberative democracy, is that they refuse to acknowledge conflict and pluralism, especially at the level of the ontological. Their defence for doing so is that conflict and pluralism are the result of attempts to incorporate unreasonable and irrational claims into the public political sphere. In this context, unreasonable and irrational claims are those that cannot be (...) translated into universalizable terms. However, for Mouffe, it is this intentional exclusionary act itself that is detrimental to a well- functioning democratic polity. It is only through the inclusion of a diverse body of subject positions that a democratic polity can be said to be truly representative of the polity, and therefore constitute a functioning and inclusive democracy. -/- This paper will examine Mouffe’s account of agonistic pluralism. In doing so, it will demonstrate that instead of being a source of instability within the democratic discourse and therefore relegated into the private non-political sphere, passions and values that are constitutive of these subject positions ought to be incorporated into the public political sphere. Mouffe’s rationale for doing so is that it is precisely through their incorporation that citizens will retain their allegiance to the democratic polity. However, as part of this examination, this paper will also draw attention to an under-developed aspect of Mouffe’s account of agonistic democracy, specifically problems regarding both participation and exclusion. Whilst Mouffe does provide a robust counterpoint to both Rawls’ political liberalism and Habermas’ deliberative democracy, it is my contention that she fails to explain adequately what it is that persuades participants to act democratically and adhere to the requirements of agonal respect, nor what should happen when the ethico- political principles of liberty and equality are not accepted. (shrink)

Many scholars in the area of citizenship education take deliberative approaches to democracy, especially as put forward by John Rawls, as their point of departure. From there, they explore how students’ capacity for political and/or moral reasoning can be fostered. Recent work by political theorist Chantal Mouffe, however, questions some of the central tenets of deliberative conceptions of democracy. In the paper I first explain the central differences between Mouffe’s and Rawls’s conceptions of democracy and politics. To this (...) end I take Eamonn Callan’s Creating Citizens as an example of Rawlsian political education and focus on the role of conflict and disagreement in his account. I then address three areas in which political education would need to change if it were to accept Mouffe’s critiques of deliberative approaches to democracy and her proposal for an agonistic public sphere. The first area is the education of political emotions; the second is fostering an understanding of the difference between the moral and the political; the third is developing an awareness of the historical and contemporary political projects of the “left” and “right.” I propose that a radical democratic citizenship education would be an education of political adversaries. (shrink)

This is the first in-depth critical appraisal in English of the political, legal, and cultural writings of Carl Schmitt, perhaps this century's most brilliant critic of liberalism. It offers an assessment of this most sophisticated of fascist theorists without attempting either to apologise for or demonise him. Schmitt's Weimar writings confront the role of technology as it finds expression through the principles and practices of liberalism. Contemporary political conditions such as disaffection with liberalism and the rise of extremist political (...) organizations have rendered Schmitt's work both relevant and insightful. John McCormick examines why technology becomes a rallying cry for both right- and left-wing intellectuals at times when liberalism appears anachronistic, and shows the continuities between Weimar's ideological debates and those of our own age. (shrink)

This article examines whether Nietzschean agonistic democracy theory can be a plausible alternative to Chantal Mouffe’s model. Agonistic democracy theory has Carl Schmitt or Nietzsche as its philosophical source. In the case of Mouffe, she constructed her model based on Schmitt. However, her Schmitt-based model is vulnerable to four criticisms. First, the distinction between ‘worthy opponents’ and ‘enemy’ is ambiguous. Second, it is inconsistent to simultaneously claim ‘the ontological fundamentality of antagonism’ and ‘agonism without antagonism.’ Third, her agonism (...) can not capture the pluralistic world, since it is trapped in the telos of self-preservation. Fourth, there are no theoretical factors to maintain her agonism, and there is no explanation for the degree of conflict that can sustain her model. Unlike Mouffe, Nietzschean like Connolly and Owen provides agonistic democracy theories based on Nietzsche. After analyzing and reconstructing Nietzsche’s text and Nietzschean’s discussions, I will argue that the Nietzschean model can overcome some thresholds of Mouffe’s model. (shrink)

본 논문은 니체에 기반한 경합적 민주주의 모델이 샹탈 무페 모델의 합리적 대안이 될 수 있는지 검토한다. 경합적 민주주의 이론은 칼 슈미트 또는 니체를 사상적 원천으로 지닌다. 한국에서 자주 논의되는 무페가 슈미트의 철학에 기반하여 자신 고유의 경합적 민주주의 모델을 구성한다. 그러나 슈미트에 근거를 두는 그녀 모델은 다음 네 비판에 취약하다. 첫째, 정당한 상대방과 적에 대한 구분이 모호하다. 둘째, 적대의 존재론적 근본성과 적대 아닌 경합을 동시에 주장하는 것은 논리적으로 비일관적이다. 셋째, 그녀가 말하는 경합은 자기 보존이라는 텔로스에 갇혀 있어 실질적으로 다원적 세계를 포착하지 (...) 못한다. 넷째, 경합 유지 수단에 관한 이론적 요소가 없고, 경합을 유지할 수 있는 갈등의 정도에 대한 설명도 없다. 무페와 달리 코널리와 오웬을 비롯한 니체주의자들은 니체에 기반하여 경합적 민주주의 모델을 구축한다. 필자는 니체의 텍스트와 니체주의자들의 논의를 분석 및 재구성한 후, 니체주의적 모델이 앞서 언급한 무페 모델의 한계들을 다소간 극복할 수 있다고 주장할 것이다. (shrink)

Title: Political Theology Publisher: The MIT Press ISBN: 0262192446 Author: Carl Schmitt Title: The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy Publisher: The MIT Press ISBN: 0262691264 Author: Carl Schmitt.

This is the first in-depth critical appraisal in English of the political, legal, and cultural writings of Carl Schmitt, perhaps this century's most brilliant critic of liberalism. It offers an assessment of this most sophisticated of fascist theorists without attempting either to apologise for or demonise him. Schmitt's Weimar writings confront the role of technology as it finds expression through the principles and practices of liberalism. Contemporary political conditions such as disaffection with liberalism and the rise of extremist political (...) organizations have rendered Schmitt's work both relevant and insightful. John McCormick examines why technology becomes a rallying cry for both right- and left-wing intellectuals at times when liberalism appears anachronistic, and shows the continuities between Weimar's ideological debates and those of our own age. (shrink)

IntroductionThis essay is divided into two distinct parts.In the first I shall explore the complex way in which Carl Schmitt’s thought was split three ways: between a Catholic universalism that extends the “law of humanity” to the whole of the globe; a modern defense of the normativity of the absolutely sovereign nation-state; and finally a stress upon the primacy of a more limited civilizational landmass, smaller than that of the whole planet but larger than that of the state. In (...) this third case, it is actually “empire“ that is covertly to the fore and supremely the Western land-based empire that had once been Christendom. (shrink)

Over the last decade there has been a veritable explosion of Anglo-American interest in the works of Weimar constitutional and political theorist, Carl Schmitt. There has been concurrently a revival in the treatment of technology as a subject worthy of social-philosophical inquiry. Yet the two scholarly movements have surprisingly passed each other by. Surprisingly because as I demonstrate the German critique of technology is crucial for understanding the works of Schmitt, especially his criticisms of liberalism, and vice versa, theoretical (...) confrontations with technology, often dismissed as excessively abstract, could benefit greatly by observing the way in which Schmitt incorporated theoretical engagements with technology into practical-political treatises. The conjuncture of the critiques of liberalism and technology in Schmitt's writings may shed fresh light on the perennial problem of "technocracy" in liberal democracies and the potential for authoritarianism latent within it. The context in which fascism first emerged in Europe was characterized by a structural transformation--a fusion--of the economy, society and politics as welfare state conditions eclipsed the nineteenth century's--supposedly separate--state/society configuration. As the perceived agent of this transformation technology consequently aroused exhilaration, awe and fear irrespective of whether it was perceived as beneficial or detrimental. The analyses on the part of the intellectuals who engaged technology in this context were sometimes hysterical but also sometimes quite perspicacious. Soviet Communism, fascism and liberal technocracy were all posed as solutions to this situation. Since the 1970s industrial societies have undergone another structural transformation as a Fordist welfare state configuration gives way to a globalized one. This process has brought down Soviet Communism, but fascism has reemerged and liberal technocracy transmutes itself in not necessarily progressive ways. The considerations on these political alternatives in the wake of this century's first technological transformation by fascism's most brilliant promoter and liberalism's most relentless critic may not provide facile answers in the midst of this century's second transformation. But we must properly understand the past to accurately assess the present and insure that the disastrous outcome that befell a fragile liberal democracy such as Weimar's does not occur again. (shrink)

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the recent debate about responsibility and distributive justice. It traces the recent philosophical focus on distributive justice to John Rawls and examines two arguments in his work which might be taken to contain the seeds of the focus on responsibility in later theories of distributive justice. It examines Ronald Dworkin's ‘equality of resources’, the ‘luck egalitarianism’ of Richard Arneson and G. A. Cohen, as well as the criticisms of their work put forward (...) by Elizabeth Anderson, Marc Fleurbaey, Susan Hurley, and Jonathan Wolff. Key concepts such as responsibility (individual and collective), luck (thin and thick; brute and option), control, desert, and equality of opportunity are delineated, and the implementation of responsibility-sensitive accounts of justice is considered. The chapters of this book are positioned in relation to the wider literature on responsibility and distributive justice, and a brief outline of the chapters is provided. (shrink)

In the context of the recent proliferation of nationalisms and enemy figures, this paper agrees with the desirability of retaining some of the explanatory and motivational potential of an agonistic account of politics, but gives reasons not to accept too much of Carl Schmitt's account of citizenship. The claim as to the necessarily antagonistic exclusion of concrete others can be supported neither on its own terms nor on Derridian grounds, as Chantal Mouffe, in particular, attempts to do. I (...) then indicate that différance may nonetheless account for strong (but not necessary) tendencies toward exclusion as well as for the intrinsic contradictions of liberal universalism. (shrink)

A large proportion of humankind today lives in avoidable poverty. This article examines whether affluent individuals and governments have moral duties to change this situation. It is maintained that an alternative to the familiar accounts of transdomestic distributive justice and personal ethics put forward by writers such as Peter Singer, John Rawls, and Thomas Pogge is required, since each of these accounts fails to reflect the full range of relevant considerations. A better account would give some weight to overall (...) utility, the condition of the worst off, and individual responsibility. This approach provides robust support to global poverty alleviation. (shrink)

How should we understand the familiar demand that journalists ‘be objective’? One possibility is that journalists are under an obligation to report only the facts of the matter. However, facts need to be interpreted, selected, and communicated. How can this be done objectively? This paper aims to explain the concept of journalistic objectivity in methodological terms. Specifically, I will argue that the ideal of journalistic objectivity should be recast as a commitment to John Rawls’s conception of public reason. Journalism (...) plays a vital role in the operation of all modern liberal democracies, functioning as the public watchdog, the fourth estate, or the conduit through which vital information flows to the citizenry. Journalism is, therefore, an institution that is best understood as part of the basic structure of society. In Political Liberalism, Rawls explicitly excludes media of any kind from the demands of public reason because he doesn’t think that they play a political role that is important enough to bring them under the official auspices of public reason. I will argue that overlooking the political significance of journalism is a mistake, but one that can be corrected while keeping within the spirit and most important elements of his theory. This revision will widen the scope for what counts as journalism beyond traditional outlets and forms of media but will impose the demands of public reason on anyone who intends to participate in the institution. (shrink)

Luck egalitarianism is a family of egalitarian theories of distributive justice that give a special place to luck, choice, and responsibility. These theories can be understood as responding to perceived weaknesses in influential earlier theories of both the left – in particular Rawls’ liberal egalitarianism (1971) – and the right – Nozick’s libertarianism (1974) stands out here. Rawls put great emphasis on the continuity of his theory with the great social contract theories of modern political thought, particularly emphasising its Kantian (...) character, while Nozick overtly develops his theory as an elaboration of John Locke’s account of property. By contrast, how luck egalitarianism is related to the history of political thought or philosophy more generally has been left unexplored by its proponents. Perhaps this is because they see luck egalitarianism, with its focus on individual choice and association with such contemporary concerns as equality of opportunity, as without significant predecessors in the canon. My purpose in this chapter is to make the tentative first steps towards identifying some historical antecedents of luck egalitarianism among the main works of Western political thought, in particular Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Locke. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the respect-for- persons theory implicit in John Rawls's A Theory of Justice. It merits evaluation not only as a contemporary contribution to the respect-for-persons literature, but because it provides an essential premise in one of his arguments from publicity for his principles of justice.In sections I and II I discuss the meaning and justification of his respect principle. As it stands it seems unjustifiable. In section III I argue that since it (...) is unjustifiable, it renders one argument from publicity unsound. More generally, it seems that Rawls has misconceived the relationships between justice, respect, and self-respect. Perhaps respect and self-respect should be defined in terms of justice, not conversely. (shrink)

Este documento analiza cómo se presenta la deshumanización en los conflictos armados e intenta demostrar que, en la mayoría de los casos, lo ‘discursivo’ y lo ‘violento’ coexisten de modo que el ‘otro’ es una construcción difusa que cambia según el contexto. Como consecuencia, no puede establecerse una división clara entre ‘enemigo’ y ‘adversario’, por lo que debe aceptarse que dicha relación es mucho más compleja. Para esto, se revisa la historia del conflicto armado colombiano desde mediados del siglo XX, (...) usando la teoría posestructuralista del discurso de Chantal Mouffe y Ernesto Laclau, y el concepto de lo ‘político’ de Carl Schmitt. (shrink)

It is striking that one of the most consequential representatives of [the] abstract scientific orientation of the seventeenth century [Thomas Hobbes] became so personalistic. This is because as a juristic thinker he wanted to grasp the reality of societal life just as much as he, as a philosopher and a natural scientist, wanted to grasp the reality of nature.... [J]uristic thought in those days had not yet become so overpowered by the natural sciences that he, in the intensity of his (...) scientific approach, should unsuspectingly have overlooked the specific reality of legal life. Carl Schmitt, Political Theology (1922)In the light of Hobbes's natural science, man and his works become a mere phantasmagoria. Through Hobbes's natural science, “the native hue” of his political science “is sicklied o'er with the pale cast” of something which is reminiscent of death but utterly lacks the majesty of death—of something which foreshadows the positivism of our day. It seems then that if we want to do justice to the life which vibrates in Hobbes's political teaching, we must understand that teaching by itself, and not in the light of his natural science. Can this be done?² Leo Strauss, “On the Basis ofHobbes's Political Philosophy” (1959). (shrink)

This essay reevaluates the Weimar writings of Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss, specifically, their intellectual efforts to replace the political authority of Kantian liberalism with, respectively, a ‘political theology’ and ‘Biblical atheism’ derived from the thought of early-modern state theorists like Hobbes and Spinoza. Schmitt and Strauss each insisted that post-Kantian Enlightenment rationality was unraveling into a way of thinking that violently rejected ‘form’ of any kind, fixated myopically on material things and lacked any conception of the external constraints (...) that invariably condition the possibilities of philosophy, morality and politics. They considered Kantian reason and liberal politics to pose serious threats to ‘genuine’ expressions of rationality and as dangerous obfuscations of the necessity of political order—of the brute fact that human beings stand in need of ‘being ruled,’ as such. (shrink)

New to this edition: 4 new readings Stuart Hall The rediscovery of 'ideology': return of the repressed in media studies Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe Post ...

Carl Schmitt's critique of liberalism portrays liberalism as a supple political ideology, one which moves constantly between the horns of several connected dilemmas. In particular, liberalism cannot decide whether it is based on substantive political values or is neutral or substanceless. John Rawls's 'political liberalism' is argued to exemplify-and to fall prey to-Schmitt's critique. Rawls tries to find a shallow justification for liberalism, one which claims no truth for itself and is thus neutral between many different ideologies. But (...) his justification, as he is forced to admit, presupposes the substantive commitments he wants to avoid. Hence, liberalism has to move beyond Rawls and accept its place within democracy. (shrink)

Everyday our vision travels across time and space. We see images in the media about atrocities, disruptions, crises, famine, and wars. And in each case our sense of injustice is awakened. We feel outrage and indignation based upon our ideals and value systems which were formed through our traditions and religions. But in this age where the power of media and information is so powerful, what we see is often manufactured to appeal to our values. While these values circulate among (...) the images we see in cyberspace, these manipulations are rooted in certain realities: geography, natural resources, and power relationships. Our values are managed to serve the control of resources and territory. They serve the deeper reality of geography and geopolitics. How then are these ideals and values created, manipulated, and opposed across various pivots or boundaries, between East and West, between the individual and the collective? Through English geographer Sir Halford Mackinder’s concepts of “pivot” and “heartland”; German philosopher Carl Schmitt’s importance of “nomos”; and French writer Victor Segalen’s reflections on the loss of cultural diversity, we outline this priority of geography. By examining these writers, we can begin to ask if our ideals and values have any real moral or theological significance, or if they are merely effects of the competition between powers. Can ideals and values lead to real change and development, or are they merely leashes to guide us based on the aims of power? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.3 (2003) 419-420 [Access article in PDF] Martin Mulsow. Moderne aus dem Untergrund: Radikale Frühaufklärung in Deutschland, 1680-1720. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2002. Pp. x + 514. Paper, € 58.00.This is a marvelous, detailed, textured study of a large number of minor works and minor figures that developed and transmitted many of the elements of modern philosophy in early modern Germany. Many of (...) the texts were written in Latin, and only some were published. One should not teach the philosophy of the Enlightenment from Hazard or Cassirer without attention to these figures, whom they did not know. Now we know where our heroes like Lessing, Hume, and Kant got many of their fundamental ideas.Martin Mulsow ends this book with ten theses. The first holds that most of the authors discussed were radicalized in a multi-layered process, not simply from the reading of Hobbes, Spinoza, Bayle, or Toland. For example, one could take the role of an opponent in an academic disputation, and bit by bit begin to believe one's unorthodox role. Or one could be provoked by ultra-orthodox opponents to explore the opposite of what they believed. Some authors evolved into and out of radical positions over the course of their lives.Further theses contend that small, trusted circles of friends were often the enabling condition in which unorthodox views were first expressed and then hammered out. Irony, satire, humor, paradox, and ambivalence played key roles. It is often difficult to tell whether some of these texts were serious or intended as jokes, and perhaps the authors did not always know themselves. Some radical ideas were spread simply by curious erudites who assembled collections and bibliographies of radical manuscripts and texts without believing them.Mulsow shows how people wrote on controversial topics in coded scholarly language. Spinozism was discussed under the rubrics of Platonism and Stoicism; the sovereignty of the people was considered in terms of the lex regia; and Biblical criticism became code for the physicians' rejection of the materiality of the soul. Thus philosophical discourse can be found where one might least expect it in legal, philological, historical, and scientific debates. The numerous case studies that the author assembles amount to philosophical microhistory.Substantial chapters deal with various aspects of the intellectual stew that emerged from the bubbling pot of Jews and Socinians and other Christian sects that were semi-tolerated in the Netherlands. Unlike any construction of moderate and radical positions as opposed and at odds, Mulsow shows how they were often intertwined. The destruction of Christian Platonism, the paradoxical development of Enlightenment ideas out of anti-humanism, and the uses of so-called eclecticism in philosophy made possible the assembly of modern philosophical positions.In yet another paradox, many of these writers belong to what has been called the "conservative Enlightenment," intending only to temporize and draw the teeth of the political and philosophical radicals, and yet their writings systematized and transmitted the ideas of the radicals, opening the way to further radicality. It is a perennial weakness of the skeptics and proto-liberals like Gundling that they defended freedom of thought and libertas philosophandi even where it would undermine the ideas and institutions in which they believed.Most of the philosophically radical positions began as critiques of theological positions, and this is one reason why it is ever more apparent that one cannot understand the rise of modern philosophy without a close acquaintance with early modern theology. None of the early modern philosophers we are trying to understand was ignorant of the many levels of theological debate. There are numerous connections to later times: for example, a seventeenth-century debate over political theology anticipated Carl Schmitt's twentieth-century rediscovery of this topos.Mulsow places the Enlightened ideas of Locke and Newton in the context of their basis in the theology of anti-Trinitarian Socinians and Arians such as Samuel Crell. This was as important to many who radicalized it as the Spinozism credited with spawning the radical... (shrink)

The twenty-first century so far has seen the global rise of authoritarian populism, systematic racism, and dogmatic metaphysics. Even though these events demonstrate the growth of an age of 'unreason', in this original and compelling book John Roberts resists the assumption that such thinking displays an unthinking irrationality or loss of reason; instead he asserts that an important feature of modern reactionary politics is that it offers a supposedly convincing integration of the particular and the universal. This move is (...) defined by what Roberts calls the 'reasoning of unreason' and has deep roots in the history of Western thought and politics. Tracing the dark history of enlightenment-disenlightenment, John Roberts explores 'the reasoning of unreason' across centuries from Aquinas, William of Ockham, the most important treatise on witchcraft Malleus Maleficarum, Locke, Kant, and Count Arthur de Gobineau, to Social Darwinism, Nazism, Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss, and Friedrich von Hayek. Roberts provides a new set of philosophical-political tools to understand the formation and denigration of the rational subject and the current reinvestment in various forms of political unreason globally. The Reasoning of Unreason is the first book to draw on the philosophy of reason, political philosophy, political theory and political history, in order to produce a dialectical account of the 'making of reason' internal to the forces of unreason and the limits of reason. (shrink)

The contributors to _The Anomie of the Earth_ explore the convergences and resonances between Autonomist Marxism and decolonial thinking. In discussing and rejecting Carl Schmitt's formulation of the nomos—a conceptualization of world order based on the Western tenets of law and property—the authors question the assumption of universal political subjects and look towards politics of the commons divorced from European notions of sovereignty. They contrast European Autonomism with North and South American decolonial and indigenous conceptions of autonomy, discuss the (...) legacies of each, and examine social movements in the Americas and Europe. Beyond orthodox Marxism, their transatlantic exchanges point to the emerging categories disclosed by the collapse of the colonial and capitalist frameworks of Western modernity. Contributors. Joost de Bloois, Jodi A. Byrd, Gustavo Esteva, Silvia Federici, Wilson Kaiser, Mara Kaufman, Frans-Willem Korsten, Federico Luisetti, Sandro Mezzadra, Walter D. Mignolo, Benjamin Noys, John Pickles, Alvaro Reyes, Catherine Walsh, Gareth Williams, Zac Zimmer. (shrink)

ExcerptGather three readers of Telos together in a room to speak about a controversial issue, and you’re likely to hear six opinions, each one forcefully expressed. After all, the journal has made a point of addressing the social and political challenges of modernity by cultivating the intellectual resources of discrete, often overlooked communities and traditions. This has placed the clash of divergent viewpoints, or “intellectual diversity,” at the core of its identity. Want to hear an anarchist argue with a liberal (...) about a Catholic conservative’s reading of the implications of Carl Schmitt for the neo-Confucian view of culture, nationhood, and globalization? A Telos conference is the place for you. Welcome—sit for a while and have some coffee (it’s Italian). (shrink)