Nancy’s deconstruction of Christianity is presented as a critical project within a specific horizon, in which specific references are frequently made to the ancient Greek and Jewish roots of Western philosophy. For Nancy, this means that philosophy should come to terms with its Christian background. Yet ancient Rome and its political culture, which are also very important to an understanding of the birth and development of Christianity, remain marginal in Nancy’s deconstructive work. Understanding Christianity as an ‘autodépassement’ of the cultures (...) it is based on, this article explores the transformation of civitas into civiatas Dei, which is mentioned but little elaborated upon by Nancy. The exploration takes as an example Augustine’s treatment of Varro’s Antiquitates, a main source of his knowledge concerning Roman religion and politics. Varro’s texts are used and distorted by Augustine. The analysis in this article shows that the way in which is Christianity is deconstructed, changes by taking into account this other reference, particularly with regard to the way in which politics is conceptualised. (shrink)

The mise en scène of resistance against a global society. An analysis of (a)symmetrical distinctions The concept of oikophobia is often used as an answer and rebuttal to the accusation of xenophobia that is often raised against nationalist groups. Oikophobia denounces the image of nationalists as people who first and foremost hate what is foreign or the foreigner. They describe themselves, on the contrary, as having a strong attachment to their own culture and their opponents as having a fear of (...) or aversion to their origin or (cultural) home. This game of asymmetrical descriptions is the subject of this contribution, which focuses on the logic of distinctions that lies behind this resistance to (hostile) images. What then also lights up is that the global polarization we see between nationalist and cosmopolitan movements also concerns the status of asymmetrical distinctions themselves. The nationalist resistance to world society can be interpreted as a resistance to the becoming symmetrical of existential distinctions, i.e. distinctions that create identity and belonging. (shrink)

In the late seventies of the 20th century, Jacob Taubes, a philosopher of religion and a scholar in Jewish thought, visited Carl Schmitt in his home. Schmitt was a scholar in constitutional and international law who joined the Hitler regime in 1933. Both were fascinated by the apocalyptic tradition, albeit it in opposite ways. They had a conversation about the apostle Paul, especially about his ‘Letter to the Romans’. Their discussion focused on the passage in which Paul speaks of the (...) Jews as 'enemies of God'. Against the background of history’s violent anti-Semitism, this exceptional conversation deconstructs Paul’s texts, traditionally conceived as constitutive of orthodox Christianity, and opens them up for a more subversive, heterodox reading. By Taubes, Paul is portrayed as an heretic Jew who joined the ‘Jesus movement’. He remained loyal to his tradition, while at the same time searching for new forms of spiritual community, avoiding direct political actions, as well as Gnostic interiorization, and establishing a new Law. (shrink)

Overzicht van de fundamentele vraagstukken van de politieke filosofie, een overzicht van het betreffende gedachtegoed van grote denkers en van actuele vraagstukken op dit terrein.