19 found
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  1.  57
    Hope Abjuring Hope: On the Place of Utopia in Realist Political Theory.Mathias Thaler - 2018 - Political Theory 46 (5):671-697.
    This essay reconstructs the place of utopia in realist political theory, by examining the ways in which the literary genre of critical utopias can productively unsettle ongoing discussions about “how to do political theory.” I start by analyzing two prominent accounts of the relationship between realism and utopia: “real utopia” and “dystopic liberalism”. Elaborating on Raymond Geuss’s recent reflections, the essay then claims that an engagement with literature can shift the focus of these accounts. Utopian fiction, I maintain, is useful (...)
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  2.  85
    Democracy, critique and the ontological turn.Mihaela Mihai, Lois McNay, Oliver Marchart, Aletta Norval, Vassilios Paipais, Sergei Prozorov & Mathias Thaler - 2017 - Contemporary Political Theory 16 (4):501-531.
  3.  52
    Bleak dreams, not nightmares.Mathias Thaler - 2019 - Constellations 26 (4):607-622.
  4.  76
    The illusion of purity: Chantal Mouffe’s realist critique of cosmopolitanism.Mathias Thaler - 2010 - Philosophy and Social Criticism 36 (7):785-800.
    Over the last 20 years, cosmopolitan theories have been benefiting greatly from the dialogue between defenders and critics of world citizenship. Yet, the decidedly polemic aspect of this debate, while allowing for intellectual progress, is also responsible for overdrawn generalizations. Instead of entering into the debate directly, this article attempts to refute a specific anti-cosmopolitan claim raised by Chantal Mouffe. Her realist objection to cosmopolitanism, derived from the conceptual framework of agonistic pluralism, is mistaken at a crucial point: a firm (...)
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  5.  77
    Just pretending: political apologies for historical injustice and vice’s tribute to virtue.Mathias Thaler - 2012 - Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 15 (3):259-278.
    Should we be concerned with, or alarmed or outraged by, the insincerity and hypocrisy of politicians who apologize for historical injustice? This paper argues that the correct reply to this question is: sometimes, but not always. In order to establish what types of insincerity must be avoided, Judith Shklar?s hierarchy of ordinary vices is critically revisited. Against Shklar?s overly benign account of hypocrisy, the paper then tries to demonstrate that only institutional and harmful forms of hypocrisy must be rejected in (...)
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  6.  18
    Naming violence: a critical theory of genocide, torture, and terrorism.Mathias Thaler - 2018 - New York: Columbia University Press.
    Political theory between moralism and realism -- Telling stories : on art's role in dispelling genocide blindness -- How to do things with hypotheticals : assessing thought experiments about torture -- Genealogy as critique : problematizing definitions of terrorism -- The conceptual tapestry of political violence.
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  7.  60
    Deep Contextualism and Radical Criticism: The Argument for a Division of Labour in Contemporary Political Theory.Mathias Thaler - 2012 - In José Castro Caldas & Vítor Neves (eds.), Facts, Values and Objectivity in Economics. Routledge.
    This paper sheds light on the main issue of this book by affording a side look at a discipline other than economics, namely political theory. It is argued that the contemporary debate in political theory hinges on the question of 'realism'. Through a discussion of Raymond Geuss's work, the paper seeks to show that political theory remains caught between the conflicting requirements of deep contextual analysis and radically critical engagement with the world 'as it is'. Finally, the idea of a (...)
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  8.  63
    Political imagination and the crime of crimes: Coming to terms with ‘genocide’ and ‘genocide blindness’.Mathias Thaler - 2014 - Contemporary Political Theory 13 (4):358-379.
    This article deals critically with the process of coming to terms with ‘genocide’. It starts from the observation that conventional philosophical and legal approaches to capturing the essence of ‘genocide’ through an improved definition necessarily fail to adapt to the ever-changing nature of political violence. Faced with this challenge, the article suggests that the contemporary debate on genocide (and its denial) should be complemented with a focus on transforming the perceptive and interpretive frameworks through which acts of violence are discussed (...)
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  9.  36
    Warning through Extrapolation: On the Practical Aims of Dystopia.Mathias Thaler - 2022 - Utopian Studies 33 (1):90-106.
    ABSTRACT This article contributes to a better understanding of dystopia’s practical aims by offering a critical defense of what Gregory Claeys calls the “Atwood Principle.” Derived from the writings of Canadian author Margaret Atwood, it establishes a yardstick for separating speculative fiction from science fiction. I argue that, rather than elevating it to the status of a genre definer, the Atwood Principle should be vindicated in terms of a heuristic device for contextually identifying the central mechanism underpinning dystopias: warning through (...)
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  10.  63
    Staged: Show trials, political theater, and the aesthetics of judgment.Mathias Thaler - 2020 - Contemporary Political Theory 19 (2):134-137.
  11.  34
    Political violence and the imagination: an introduction.Mihaela Mihai & Mathias Thaler - 2019 - Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 22 (5):497-503.
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  12. The Uses and Abuses of Apology.Mihaela Mihai & Mathias Thaler (eds.) - 2014 - Palgrave MacMillan.
    "Recent decades have witnessed a sharp rise in the number of state apologies for historical and more recent injustices, ranging from enslavement to displacement and from violations of treaties to war crimes, all providing the backdrop to displays of official regret. Featuring a host of leading authors in the field, this book seeks to contribute to the growing literature on official apologies by effectively combining philosophical reflection and empirical analysis. It achieves two interrelated goals: it enriches the theoretical debates on (...)
     
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  13.  30
    A dialectical view of Prague.Mathias Thaler - 2017 - Philosophy and Social Criticism 43 (3):343-344.
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  14.  43
    Comment on Wilfried Hinsch: Ideal Justice and Rational Dissent: A Critique of Amartya Sen's Idea of Justice.Mathias Thaler - 2011 - Analyse & Kritik 33 (2):387–393.
  15. From Public Reason to Reasonable Accommodation: Negotiating the Place of Religion in the Public Sphere.Mathias Thaler - 2009 - Diacrítica. Revista Do Centro de Estudos Humanísticos da Universidade de Minho 23 (2):249-270.
    In recent years, debates about the legitimate place of religion in the public sphere have gained prominence in political theory. Departing from Rawls’s view of public reason, it has lately been argued that liberal regimes should not only be compatible with, but endorsing of, arguments originating in religious belief systems. Moreover, it has been maintained that the principle of political autonomy obliges every democratic order to enable all its citizens, be they secular or religious, to become the authors of the (...)
     
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  16.  46
    How (not What) Shall We Think about Human Rights and Religious Arguments: Public Reasoning and Beyond.Mathias Thaler - 2010 - E-Cadernos CES (9):115–133.
    This paper addresses the question of how (not what) we should think about human rights and religious arguments. Thinking about this relationship is today particularly important, because conflicts over human rights in practice often turn around their theoretical problems. Should religious arguments be used to justify human rights? Or do we want human rights to be free from any partisan endorsement so as to avoid divisive interpretations of universal principles? Underlying these hard questions is the issue of justification in view (...)
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  17.  9
    Moralische Politik oder politische Moral? Eine Analyse aktueller Debatten zur internationalen Gerechtigkeit.Mathias Thaler - 2008 - New York: Campus.
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  18. Political Judgment beyond Paralysis and Heroism.Mathias Thaler - 2011 - European Journal of Political Theory 10 (2):225–253.
    This paper seeks to contribute to the literature on political judgment by proposing that the faculty of judgment is essential for responsibly coping with the undeniable fact of distant suffering and the controversial duty of humanitarian intervention. To achieve this end, Mahmood Mamdani’s text ‘The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency’ will be mobilized for a constructive dialogue about which specific conception of political judgment is at stake when we debate a situation like Darfur today. The main claim is (...)
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  19.  31
    Book Review: The Democratic Horizon: Hyperpluralism and the Renewal of Political Liberalism, by Alessandro Ferrara. [REVIEW]Mathias Thaler - 2016 - Political Theory 44 (3):431-437.