(2002). 'Target Approval Delays Cost Air Force Key Hits': Law, Policy, Ethics and the Warfighter's Dilemma. Journal of Military Ethics: Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 113-124.

This article evaluates the legality of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the March 2003 attack on Iraq. The author rejects assertions that Security Council Resolution 1441 (2002), standing alone, contained a mandate to employ force; on the contrary, the Resolution was only adopted on the understanding that it did not. The law of self-defense, including its ?preemptive? variant, similarly provided no legal basis for the action because the degree of Iraqi support to terrorism was insufficient and the threat of use of weapons (...) of mass destruction was not imminent. With regard to humanitarian intervention, the suffering inflicted by the Saddam Hussein's regime did not rise to a level allowing intervention. Moreover, international law does not permit forceful regime change except when authorized by the Security Council. However, the author argues that material breach of the 1991 cease-fire in Security Council Resolution 687 released the US and UK from their obligation to refrain from hostilities, thereby reactivating the use of force authorization in Security Council Resolution 678 (1990). This latter justification was the sole official legal justification offered for Operation Iraqi Freedom. (shrink)

Intractability and optimality are two sides of one coin: Optimal models are often intractable, that is, they tend to be excessively complex, or NP-hard. We explain the meaning of NP-hardness in detail and discuss how modem computer science circumvents intractability by introducing heuristics and shortcuts to optimality, often replacing optimality by means of sufficient sub-optimality. Since the principles of decision theory dictate balancing the cost of computation against gain in accuracy, statistical inference is currently being reshaped by a vigorous new (...) trend: the science of simplicity. Simple models, as we show for specific cases, are not just tractable, they also tend to be robust. Robustness is the ability of a model to extract relevant information from data, disregarding noise.Recently, Gigerenzer, Todd and the ABC Research Group (1999) have put forward a collection of fast and frugal heuristics as simple, boundedly rational inference strategies used by the unaided mind in real world inference problems. This collection of heuristics has suggestively been called the adaptive toolbox. In this paper we will focus on a comparison task in order to illustrate the simplicity and robustness of some of the heuristics in the adaptive toolbox in contrast to the intractability and the fragility of optimal solutions. We will concentrate on three important classes of models for comparison-based inference and, in each of these classes, search for that to be used as benchmarks to evaluate the performance of fast and frugal heuristics: lexicographic trees, linear modes and Bayesian networks. Lexicographic trees are interesting because they are particularly simple models that have been used by humans throughout the centuries. Linear models have been traditionally used by cognitive psychologists as models for human inference, while Bayesian networks have only recently been introduced in statistics and computer science. Yet it is the Bayesian networks that are the best possible benchmarks for evaluating the fast and frugal heuristics, as we will show in this paper. (shrink)

Background: Treating medication-refractory freezing of gait in Parkinson’s disease remains challenging despite several trials reporting improvements in motor symptoms using subthalamic nucleus or globus pallidus internus deep brain stimulation. Pedunculopontine nucleus region DBS has been used for medication-refractory FoG, with mixed findings. FoG, as a paroxysmal phenomenon, provides an ideal framework for the possibility of closed-loop DBS.Methods: In this clinical trial, five subjects with medication-refractory FoG underwent bilateral GPi DBS implantation to address levodopa-responsive PD symptoms with open-loop stimulation. Additionally, PPN (...) DBS leads were implanted for CL-DBS to treat FoG. The primary outcome of the study was a 40% improvement in medication-refractory FoG in 60% of subjects at 6 months when “on” PPN CL-DBS. Secondary outcomes included device feasibility to gauge the recruitment potential of this four-lead DBS approach for a potentially larger clinical trial. Safety was judged based on adverse events and explantation rate.Findings: The feasibility of this approach was demonstrated as we recruited five subjects with both “on” and “off” medication freezing. The safety for this population of patients receiving four DBS leads was suboptimal and associated with a high explantation rate of 40%. The primary clinical outcome in three of the five subjects was achieved at 6 months. However, the group analysis of the primary clinical outcome did not reveal any benefit.Interpretation: This study of a human PPN CL-DBS trial in medication-refractory FoG showed feasibility in recruitment, suboptimal safety, and a heterogeneous clinical effect in FoG outcomes. (shrink)

Responding to volatile criticisms frequently leveled at Leo Strauss and those he influenced, the prominent contributors to this volume demonstrate the profound influence that Strauss and his students have exerted on American liberal democracy and contemporary political thought. By stressing the enduring vitality of classic books and by articulating the theoretical and practical flaws of relativism and historicism, the contributors argue that Strauss and the Straussians have identified fundamental crises of modernity and liberal democracy.

Gnothi sauton - Erkenne dich selbst! Das Streben nach Erkenntnis und Selbsterkenntnis, das nach antiker Auffassung der Gott selbst in dieser Aufforderung dem Menschen ans Herz legt, bildet ein zentrales Moment von Arbogast Schmitts jahrzehntelanger Beschaftigung mit antiker Literatur und Philosophie, die zugleich immer auch eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit modernen Konzepten und Positionen darstellt. Die vorliegende Festschrift vereint zwolf neue Beitrage zur antiken Philosophie, Literatur und Literaturtheorie, in denen Schuler, Freunde und Weggefahrten Arbogast Schmitts dieses Erkenntnisstreben beantworten und fortsetzen. Mit (...) Beitragen von: Wolfgang Bernard, Stefan Buttner, Sabine Follinger, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Andreas Kablitz, Michael Krewet, Joachim Latacz, Thomas Leinkauf, Christian Pietsch, Ernst-Richard Schwinge, Rainer Thiel und Gregor Vogt-Spira. (shrink)

In Stability and Justification in Hume’s Treatise, Louis Loeb ascribes to Hume a naturalistic account of justified belief, one on which Hume is fundamentally concerned with the question whether stable belief can be achieved. Loeb’s interpretation is systematic, richly explanatory, and powerfully argued. He makes a compelling case that stability plays a central role in Hume’s epistemology. Loeb’s case is so compelling indeed that anyone who wants to defend an alternative interpretation will now have to assimilate or deflect the massive (...) textual evidence in favor of the stability interpretation. I will argue here that, for some passages Loeb cites in favor of the stability interpretation, a veritistic interpretation explains the text at least as well as the stability interpretation does. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that sportspersonship is a means of performing fundamental sociality; it is about the conversion of a foe (inimicus) into an enemy (hostis). Drawing on Carl Schmitt’s distinction between enemy and foe – inimicus and hostis – as well as his discussion of the ius publicum Europaeum, I suggest a model of sportspersonship that sees it as expressing the competitive relations between equals that undergird the most minimal form of sociality; relations that any deeper union (...) takes as its foundation. It is the performance of this fundamental sociality, I argue, that grounds the value of sport in general (though this does not mean that there cannot be other, contingent values in sport). (shrink)

Groundless existence is a unique examination of the implicit phenomenological and existential foundations of Schmitt's political philosophy.

MEDIEVAL LOGICS LAMBERT MARIE DE RIJK (ed.), Die mittelalterlichen Traktate De mod0 opponendiet respondendi, Einleitung und Ausgabe der einschlagigen Texte. (Beitrage zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, Neue Folge Band 17.) Miinster: Aschendorff, 1980. 379 pp. No price stated. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY MARTA FATTORI, Lessico del Novum Organum di Francesco Bacone. Rome: Edizioni dell'Ateneo 1980. Two volumes, il + 543, 520 pp. Lire 65.000. VIVIAN SALMON, The study of language in 17th century England. (Amsterdam Studies in the Theory (...) and History of Linguistic Science, Series 111: Studies in theHistory of Linguistics, Volume 17.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins B.V., 1979.x + 218 pp. Dfl. 65. Theoria cum Praxi. Zum Verhaltnis von Theorie und Praxis im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert. (Akten des 111. Internationalen Leibnizkongress, Hannover, 12. bis 17.November 1977, Band 111: Logik, Erkenntnistheorie, Wissenschaftstheorie, Metaphysik, Theologie.) Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1980. vii + 269 pp. DM 48. CLASSICAL AND NON-CLASSICAL LOGICS MICHAEL CLARK, The place of syllogistic in logical theory. Nottingham: University of Nottingham Press, 1980. ix + 151 pp. £3.00. A.F. PARKER-RHODES, The theory of indistinguishables. Dordrecht, Boston and London: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1981. xvii + 216 pp. Dfl.90.00/$39.50. NICHOLAS RESCHER and ROBERT BRANDOM, The logic of inconsistency. Oxford:Basil Blackwell, 1980. x + 174 pp. f 11.50. MISCELLANEOUS J. ZELENY, The logic of Marx. Translated from the German by T. Carver. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980. xcii + 247 pp. £12.50. FELIX KAUFMANN, The infinite in mathematics. Edited by Brian McGuinness. Introduction by E. Nagel. Translation from the German by Paul Foulkes. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1978. xvii + 235 pp. Dfl 85/$39.50 (cloth); Dfl 45/$19.95 (paper). PAMELA MCCORDUCK, Machines who think. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1979. xiv + 275 pp. $14.95. J. MITTELSTRASS (ed.), Enzyklopadie Philosophie und Wissenschaftstheorie Bd. 1 : A-G. Mannheim, Wien, Ziirich: Bibliographisches Institut, 1980. 835 pp. DM 128. (shrink)

Leo Strauss and his alleged political influence regarding the Iraq War have in recent years been the subject of significant media attention, including stories in the _Wall Street Journal _and _New York Times._ _Time_ magazine even called him “one of the most influential men in American politics.” With _The Truth about Leo Strauss_, Michael and Catherine Zuckert challenged the many claims and speculations about this notoriously complex thinker. Now, with _Leo Strauss and the Problem of Political Philosophy_, they turn (...) their attention to a searching and more comprehensive interpretation of Strauss’s thought as a whole, using the many manifestations of the “problem of political philosophy” as their touchstone. For Strauss, political philosophy presented a “problem” to which there have been a variety of solutions proposed over the course of Western history. Strauss’s work, they show, revolved around recovering—and restoring—political philosophy to its original Socratic form. Since positivism and historicism represented two intellectual currents that undermined the possibility of a Socratic political philosophy, the first part of the book is devoted to Strauss’s critique of these two positions. Then, the authors explore Strauss’s interpretation of the history of philosophy and both ancient and modern canonical political philosophers, including Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Locke. Strauss’s often-unconventional readings of these philosophers, they argue, pointed to solutions to the problem of political philosophy. Finally, the authors examine Strauss’s thought in the context of the twentieth century, when his chief interlocutors were Schmitt, Husserl, Heidegger, and Nietzsche. The most penetrating and capacious treatment of the political philosophy of this complex and often misunderstood thinker, from his early years to his last works, _Leo Strauss and the Problem of Political Philosophy_ reveals Strauss’s writings as an attempt to show that the distinctive characteristics of ancient and modern thought derive from different modes of solving the problem of political philosophy and reveal why he considered the ancient solution both philosophically and politically superior. (shrink)

Disentangling Complexio OppositorumCarl Schmitt's Roman Catholicism and Political Form (1923) features a term, the importance of which political philosophy has yet to fathom. This notion is complexio oppositorum, describing Catholicism as “a complex of opposites”: “There appears to be no antithesis it [Roman Catholicism] does not embrace. It has long and proudly claimed to have united within itself all forms of state and government.…But this complexio oppositorum also holds sway over everything theological.”1 The striking depth and breadth of the (...) complex are already evident in this brief passage. Broadly speaking, its elastic form—and more needs to be said on…. (shrink)

Carl Schmitt, an increasingly influential German law professor, developed a provocative and historically oriented model of “political theology” with specific relevance to legal scholarship and the authorship of constitutional texts. His “political theology” is best understood neither as an expressly theological discourse within constitutional law, nor as a uniquely legal discourse shaped by a hidden theological agenda. Instead, it addresses the possibility of the continual resurfacing of theological ideas and beliefs within legal discourses of, for instance, sovereignty, the force (...) of law and states of emergency (or “exception”) that present themselves as relentlessly secular, even—in the case of Kelsenian jurisprudence—”scientific”. This article illustrates and then critically evaluates Schmitt’s theory in terms of the authorship of constitutional texts in particular. It includes two case studies—genocidal colonial land appropriation and Kelsenian positivism in order to illustrate aspects of his political theology. Whilst Schmitt is defended against reductionist interpretations, I show that there remains considerable unfinished business before a Schmittian approach to legal theory merits full acceptance. (shrink)

Introduction : up against Carl Schmitt -- An afterlife for Carl Schmitt? -- On politics, law and ideology -- Mobilising direct political action: Sorel, myths and counter-myths -- Myths of parliamentarism -- Leviathan : a political myth misfired? -- Hamlet as an instructive prototype of a political myth? -- Political myths underpinning democracy.

This article revises Foucault's account of biopolitics in the light of the impact of the molecular and digital revolutions on `the politics of life itself'. The confluence of the molecular and digital revolutions informationalizes life, providing an account of what it is to be a living thing in terms of complex adaptive and continuously emergent, informationally constituted, systems. Also revisiting Foucault's The Order of Things and its interrogation of the modern analytics of finitude, the article argues that our contemporary politics (...) of life is therefore distinguished by the quasi-transcendentals that now distinguish informationalized life: circulation, connectivity and complexity. Here, too, the article argues, the figure of Man, which once united the quasi-transcendentals of life, labour and language, is replaced by the contingency that now unites circulation, connectivity and complexity. Observing that a life of continuous emergence is also one in which production is continuously allied with destruction, such a life is lived as the continuous emergency of its own emergence. This account of contemporary biopolitics, together with its emergency of emergence, contrasts, in particular, with that offered by Agamben in his appropriation of Schmitt. (shrink)

This article addresses, from a Frankfurt School perspective on law identified with Franz Neumann and more recently Habermas, the attack upon the principles of war criminality formulated at the Nuremberg trials by the increasingly influential legal and political theory of Carl Schmitt. It also considers the contradictions within certain of the defence arguments that Schmitt himself resorted to when interrogated as a possible war crimes defendant at Nuremberg. The overall argument is that a distinctly internal, or “immanent”, form (...) of critique is required of Schmitt's position, in which its is found wanting even on its own terms. In principle, the application of this dialectical mode of critique can allow a genuine debate to emerge between those seeking to continue both the Schmittian and critical theory traditions, whilst safeguarding the latter from the dangers of formulating polemical interventions that are, in effect, counterproductive to their own intentions. (shrink)

Der Verfassungsrechtler und Rechtsphilosoph Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) ist ohne Zweifel ein faszinierender Autor. Die von ihm ausgehende Suggestion basiert auf der Virtuosität seines polemischen Stils, der oft vergessen macht, welch sachliche Kritik von Zeitgenossen an seinen Theorien geübt wurde. Erstmals liegt nun eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit den wichtigsten Aspekten seines Werkes vor, die die Nähe seines konservativen Denkens zum Nationalsozialismus systematisch aufzeigt. Gegenüber der vorherrschenden biografischen Behandlung dieses Verhältnisses lassen sich damit auch aktuelle politische Theoreme und Positionen sehr viel (...) deutlicher verorten. Ziel des Buches ist es, dem Leser sowohl die Komplexität dieses außergewöhnlichen Denkens als auch dessen Konsequenzen vor Augen zu führen. (shrink)

Este artículo teoriza la transición del régimen global geopolítico (es decir, la política de la tierra) a régimen piropolítico, o la política del fuego. En base a filosofía política de Carl Schmitt, la tesis es que la certidumbre, estabilidad y orden arraigados en la tierra están desplazados por la anomia del fuego, como un símbolo y dominio concreto de lo político hoy.

Carl Schmitt’s Roman Catholicism and Political Form (1923) features a term, the importance of which political philosophy is yet to fathom. This notion is complexio oppositorum, describing Catholicism as “a complex of opposites”. Upon theorizing the complex as a non-dialectical, non-synthetical unity, I will graft its structure onto the concept of culture and its recent political incarnation, multiculturalism. I will argue that in order to remain a viable political concept, multiculturalism has to preserve an antagonistic composition, which will allow (...) for 1) a concretion of the Schmittian understanding of culture as a plurality and 2) a non-consensusbased process of negotiating cultural co-existence. (shrink)

Dieser Band prasentiert eine kritische Analyse der avancierten politischen Theorie der Gegenwart. Zum einen geht es hier um jungere Diskussionen im Anschluss an Niklas Luhmanns Systemtheorie, die eine sozialwissenschaftliche Entzauberung des Staatsbegriffs betreiben. Zum anderen nimmt der Autor neuere politische Philosophien aus Frankreich in den Blick, die eine zeitgenossische Theorie "des Politischen" im Unterschied zu "der Politik" entwickeln. Die Arbeit legt die gemeinsame theoretische Basis der scheinbar weit auseinanderliegenden Argumentationsformen frei und beschreibt sie als zwei Seiten einer Entpolitisierung der Politik: (...) politische Technokratie einerseits, politische Ontologie auf der anderen Seite. Die Studie zeigt, in welcher Weise heute wichtige Theorien zentrale Aspekte von den autoritaren Staatslehren Hegels und Carl Schmitts ubernehmen. Dem stellt der Autor einen scharf begrenzten Politikbegriff in der Tradition Kants entgegen. (shrink)

Freedom, value, power, justice, government, legitimacy are major themes of the present inquiry. It explores the ontological structure of human beings associating with one another, the basic phenomenon of society. We human beings strive to become who we are in an ongoing power interplay with each other. Thinkers called as witnesses include Plato, Aristotle, Anaximander, Protagoras, Hobbes, Locke, Adam Smith, Hegel, Marx, Schopenhauer, Heidegger, Schumpeter, Hayek, Schmitt, Ernst Jünger, et al.

Dans cet article Michael Stolleis s’intéresse au devenir de la science du droit constitutionnel sous le régime national-socialiste. L’intérêt de la question dépasse la simple curiosité historique, car elle concerne une discipline de la science juridique centrale à tout État démocratique. Partant des attaques contre le positivisme juridique qui émergent au cours de la République de Weimar, l’article s’ouvre sur une typologie des groupes qui constituent l’Union des professeurs de droit public. Stolleis montre l’affaiblissement progressif des « positivistes » (...) à la faveur des groupes à l’idéologie plus autoritaire et antidémocratique. Cette première typologie des forces en présence permet ensuite d’analyser plus finement les différentes attitudes face à la mise en place du régime national-socialiste – allant de l’émigration (extérieure ou intérieure) à la collaboration, en passant par le retrait vers des domaines de la pensée juridique moins directement exposés politiquement. S’intéressant au destin de la discipline plutôt qu’aux devenirs individuels, Stolleis constate l’effacement progressif du droit constitutionnel face à un pouvoir n’acceptant aucune contrainte, aucune restriction. Au point que le silence des représentants de cette discipline semble total après 1938. Enfin, l’article se conclut sur un appel à l’étude historique de la période, d’autant plus nécessaire que l’immédiat après-guerre fut marqué par l’occultation des faits et la volonté de laisser le passé être le passé. (shrink)

Is Leo Strauss truly an intellectual forebear of neoconservatism and a powerful force in shaping Bush administration foreign policy? _The Truth about Leo Strauss_ puts this question to rest, revealing for the first time how the popular media came to perpetuate such an oversimplified view of such a complex and wide-ranging philosopher. More important, it corrects our perception of Strauss, providing the best general introduction available to the political thought of this misunderstood figure. Catherine and Michael Zuckert—both former students (...) of Strauss—guide readers here to a nuanced understanding of how Strauss’s political thought fits into his broader philosophy. Challenging the ideas that Strauss was an inflexible conservative who followed in the footsteps of Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Carl Schmitt, the Zuckerts contend that Strauss’s signature idea was the need for a return to the ancients. This idea, they show, stemmed from Strauss’s belief that modern thought, with its relativism and nihilism, undermines healthy politics and even the possibility of real philosophy. Identifying this view as one of Strauss’s three core propositions—America is modern, modernity is bad, and America is good—they conclude that Strauss was a sober defender of liberal democracy, aware of both its strengths and its weaknesses. The Zuckerts finish, appropriately, by examining the varied work of Strauss’s numerous students and followers, revealing the origins—rooted in the tensions within his own thought—oftheir split into opposing camps. Balanced and accessible, _The Truth about Leo Strauss_ is a must-read for anyone who wants to more fully comprehend this enigmatic philosopher and his much-disputed legacy. (shrink)

Is Leo Strauss truly an intellectual forebear of neoconservatism and a powerful force in shaping Bush administration foreign policy? _The Truth about Leo Strauss_ puts this question to rest, revealing for the first time how the popular media came to perpetuate an oversimplified view of a complex and wide-ranging philosopher. In doing so, it corrects our perception of Strauss, providing the best general introduction available to the political thought of this misunderstood figure. Catherine and Michael Zuckert—both former students of (...) Strauss—guide readers here to a nuanced understanding of how Strauss’s political thought fits into his broader philosophy. Challenging the ideas that Strauss was an inflexible conservative who followed in the footsteps of Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Carl Schmitt, the Zuckerts contend that Strauss’s signature idea was the need for a return to the ancients. Through their work, they conclude that Strauss was a sober defender of liberal democracy, aware of both its strengths and its weaknesses. Balanced and accessible, _The Truth about Leo Strauss_ is a must-read for anyone who wants to more fully comprehend this enigmatic philosopher and his much-disputed legacy. “_The Truth about Leo Strauss_ is the most balanced and insightful book yet written about Strauss’s thought, students, and political influence. It dispels myths promulgated by both friends and foes and persuasively traces the conflicting paths that American thinkers indebted to Strauss have taken.”—William Galston, Brookings Institution. (shrink)

This volume presents a practical demonstration of the relevance of Carl Schmitt's thought to parapolitical studies, arguing that his constitutional theory is the one best suited to investing the 'deep state' with intellectual and doctrinal coherence. At the same time, the book also doubles as a thoroughgoing critique of Schmitt's intellectual legacy from a parapolitical perspective; namely, that the pluralistic, heterogeneous, and fragmentary nature of the parapolitical national security complex operates to subvert the total and monist notion of (...) the State and of sovereignty that are central to Schmitt's constitutional enterprise. (shrink)

Slavoj Žižek's fascinating and complex attempt at an appropriation of the authentic legacy of Christianity for a revivified politics of universality is traced in the light of certain affinities to concepts of Carl Schmitt's political theology. It is argued that these two thinkers not only share a similar canon of thinkers, but also an emphasis on the necessity of maintaining and/or reintroducing a distinction between friend and enemy for a properly political thought. Moreover, particular attention is paid to the (...) way the relationship between Judaism and Christianity is enacted in several of Žižek's texts. (shrink)

Emerging from the disruption of the First World War, surrealism confronted the resulting ‘crisis of consciousness’ in a way that was arguably more profound than any other cultural movement of the time._ _The past few decades have seen an expansion of interest in surrealist writers, whose contribution to the history of ideas in the twentieth-century is only now being recognised._ Surrealism: Key Concepts_ is the first book in English to present an overview of surrealism through the central ideas motivating the (...) popular movement. An international team of contributors provide an accessible examination of the key concepts, emphasising their relevance to current debates in social and cultural theory. This book will be an invaluable guide for students studying a range of disciplines, including Philosophy, Anthropology, Sociology and Cultural Studies, and anyone who wishes to engage critically with surrealism for the first time. _Contributors:_ Dawn Ades, Joyce Cheng, Jonathan P. Eburne, Krzysztof Fijalkowski, Guy Girard, Raihan Kadri, Michael Löwy, Jean-Michel Rabaté, Michael Richardson, Donna Roberts, Bertrand Schmitt, Georges Sebbag, Raymond Spiteri, and Michael Stone-Richards. (shrink)

_Rogues_, published in France under the title _Voyous_, comprises two major lectures that Derrida delivered in 2002 investigating the foundations of the sovereignty of the nation-state. The term "_État voyou_" is the French equivalent of "rogue state," and it is this outlaw designation of certain countries by the leading global powers that Derrida rigorously and exhaustively examines. Derrida examines the history of the concept of sovereignty, engaging with the work of Bodin, Hobbes, Rousseau, Schmitt, and others. Against this background, (...) he delineates his understanding of "democracy to come," which he distinguishes clearly from any kind of regulating ideal or teleological horizon. The idea that democracy will always remain in the future is not a temporal notion. Rather, the phrase would name the coming of the unforeseeable other, the structure of an event beyond calculation and program. Derrida thus aligns this understanding of democracy with the logic he has worked out elsewhere. But it is not just political philosophy that is brought under deconstructive scrutiny here: Derrida provides unflinching and hard-hitting assessments of current political realities, and these essays are highly engaged with events of the post-9/11 world. (shrink)

In this volume, Heinrich Meier sets out to present what is “of lasting importance in [Schmitt’s] political theology”. The four chapters seek to develop the theme of the radical “eitheror” that faces human beings in Schmitt’s thought. Meier argues the distinction between political theology and philosophy rests on their fundamental causes—faith in revelation and human wisdom. Schmitt’s political theology and the choice he sees forced on mankind derives from the eschatological view of history found in revelation, in (...) particular the final battle with the anti-Christ. There is a fundamental existential alternative between God and the anti-Christ that has an attendant choice between political theology and political philosophy. Coupled with this treatment of the existential necessities of being human is a presentation of Schmitt’s critique of the modern liberal state and a report on his analysis of Hobbes’s Leviathan. The book concludes with a chapter entitled “History, or the Christian Epimetheus” that considers the ethical ramifications of Schmitt’s view of history and examines his thought in light of his endorsement of National Socialism and his anti-Semitism. (shrink)

Toward a New Socialism offers a critical analysis of capitalism's failings and the imminent need for socialism as an alternative form of government. Dr. Richard Schmitt joins with Dr. Anatole Anton to compile a volume of essays exploring the benefits and consequences of a socialist system as an avenue of increased human solidarity and ethical principle.

Michael Oakeshott and Carl Schmitt are two of the most prominent critics of rationalism in politics. They also both draw heavily on the work of Thomas Hobbes. This paper connects these themes and indicates that Oakeshott's and Schmitt's concerns about rationalism are reflected in their writings on Hobbes, especially in their use of the idea of myth. Notwithstanding certain connections between their understanding of, and concerns about, modern rationalism, comparing Oakeshott and Schmitt through their readings of (...) Hobbes helps to elucidate the more important differences between their political theories as a whole. Using Oakeshott's own terminology, this paper suggests that the differences between the two theorists can be understood as a difference between a ‘politics of faith’ and a ‘political of scepticism’. Where Schmitt turned to Hobbes to find a political theology to combat the forces of liberal scepticism and ground the practice of modern authority, Oakeshott drew from Hobbes the idea — often associated with liberalism — that authority arises from a scepticism about the possibility of finding such a foundation. The paper concludes with the observation that the risks attending the politics of faith, as Schmitt's experience attests, are more severe than those of scepticism. (shrink)

Michael Oakeshott and Carl Schmitt are two of the most prominent critics of rationalism in politics. They also both draw heavily on the work of Thomas Hobbes. This paper connects these themes and indicates that Oakeshott's and Schmitt's concerns about rationalism are reflected in their writings on Hobbes, especially in their use of the idea of myth. Notwithstanding certain connections between their understanding of, and concerns about, modern rationalism, comparing Oakeshott and Schmitt through their readings of (...) Hobbes helps to elucidate the more important differences between their political theories as a whole. Using Oakeshott's own terminology, this paper suggests that the differences between the two theorists can be understood as a difference between a ‘politics of faith’ and a ‘political of scepticism’ . Where Schmitt turned to Hobbes to find a political theology to combat the forces of liberal scepticism and ground the practice of modern authority, Oakeshott drew from Hobbes the idea — often associated with liberalism — that authority arises from a scepticism about the possibility of finding such a foundation. The paper concludes with the observation that the risks attending the politics of faith, as Schmitt's experience attests, are more severe than those of scepticism. (shrink)