A systematic treatment of Hume's conception of imagination in all the main topics of his philosophy.

Giovanni Sartori (1924-2017) was a founder and icon of contemporary political science. A number of his books and articles have become part of the theoretical and conceptual basis of the field, and of social science in general. This volume brings together selected essays that examine Sartori as a scholar, university professor and intellectual. It is unique in covering all three aspects of Sartori's academic work: comparative politics, social science methodology and political theory. General overviews of Sartori's contribution to (...) political science are complemented by chapters that focus on specific areas of his interest; and Sartori's theoretical and methodological contributions are examined alongside his extensive public appearances, which remain little known outside Italy. (shrink)

This book examines the Condorcet Jury Theorem and how its assumptions can be applicable to the real world. It will use the theorem to assess various familiar political practices and alternative institutional arrangements, revealing how best to take advantage of the truth-tracking potential of majoritarian democracy.

In this new book, Jon Mandle explores the meaning of global justice and provides students with an accessible introduction to the core concepts and debates in the field. Global justice, he explains, requires universal respect for basic human rights. These rights belong to each and every one of us, and they can be used to guide policy-making in areas such as humanitarian intervention, global poverty, and secession. Emphasizing the importance of legitimate political institutions for protecting basic rights and ensuring (...) self-determination, Mandle sets out concrete reforms which would protect core human rights internationally."--Jacket. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 107 Heft: 1 Seiten: 89-110.

Contents INTRODUCTION: PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO THE POLITICAL IN PATOČKA AND MERLEAU-PONTY 11 1. Memory and community 11 2. Patočka 18 3. Merleau-Ponty, Husserl and institution 22 4. The political context 28 5. Status of the current research 32 6. Overview of the chapters 34 CHAPTER 1: THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL EPOCHĒ AND THE POLITICAL 39 1. Introduction 39 2. Criticism of Husserl’s notion of the lifeworld 46 3. The a priori of the World 49 4. The subject and the (...) epochē 56 5. Epochē to polis 61 6. Two ways into the epochē: myth and “le bouc émissaire” 76 7. A “public/private” distinction in the performing of the epochē 84 CHAPTER 2: THE BODY AT THE FRONT: CORPOREITY AND COMMUNITY IN JAN PATOČKA’S HERETICAL ESSAYS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. 89 1. Introduction 89 2. The front 94 3. The double determination of life: Patočka and Foucault on “war” 98 4. Rooting 126 5. The body at the front 135 CHAPTER 3: LOOKING-IN ON EUROPE 145 1. Introduction 145 2. Post-Europe 147 3. Globalization as shaking 157 4. The idea of culture 162 5. Looking-in on Europe 164 6. The borders of Europe: towards a post-European democracy 175 a. Polemos and boundary 175 b. The skin and the soul 178 c. Europe and the boundary 190 CHAPTER 4: HUSSERL ON STIFTUNG AND STYLE 201 1. Introduction 201 2. Husserl’s concepts of retention institution and the possibility of an “institutional unconscious” 202 a. Retention 202 b. Husserl’s notion of institution in §50 of the Cartesian Meditations 210 c. Difficulties 220 d. Retention as unconscious 221 3. Husserl´s concept of style in Ideas II 236 a. Introduction 236 b. Institution and style 237 c. Style 243 d. Style and intersubjectivity 248 e. Style and politics in Merleau-Ponty 254 4. §15 of the Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: “Reflection on the method of our historical manner of investigation” 259 a. Stiftung as the task of history 259 b. Endstiftung 269 c. Endstiftung and Style 272 5. Community and surrounding world in section three of Ideas II 274 6. “The Origin of Geometry” 291 CHAPTER 5: STIFTUNG AND STYLE IN MERLEAU-PONTY 303 1. Introduction 303 2. Institution and Style 304 a. event/advent 304 b. The opening of a field 308 c. The relation to the past, or subterranean communication across time: Urstiftung—Nachstiftung—Endstiftung 310 d. Style 312 e. Latency 314 3. Three painters: Matisse, Cézanne, and Vermeer 319 a. Matisse 319 b. Cézanne 325 c. Vermeer 337 4. The historical field 344 a. The field of praxis 344 b. Symbolic matrices 355 c. Matrix institutions 361 CHAPTER 6: THE NOBLE MEMORY: SURVIVAL, DEMOCRACY AND RESISTANCE 371 1. Introduction 371 a. “Resistance” and “survival” 371 b. The plaque 372 c. “Inertia” and “movement” 378 d. Difficulties 383 e. Vulnerability 385 2. Institution and parliamentary democracy 391 a. Merleau-Ponty’s support for parliamentary democracy 391 b. An institution of institutions 396 c. “Regime” and “corps de l’État” 400 d. Survival 406 e. Institution and reparation 421 f. Institution and revolution 423 g. Democracy, epochē, and virtù 424 h. Concrete political action 429 3. Resistance 430 a. The “mythical” past and the “verbal-Wesen of society” 432 b. The generality of freedom and the unconscious 441 c. Endstiftung, Telos and Truth 442 CONCLUSIONS 451 BIBLIOGRAPHY 471. (shrink)

Abstract:This essay seeks to defend the claim that political philosophy ought to be appropriately guided by the phenomenon of politics that it seeks to both offer a theory of and, especially in its normative guise, offer a theory for. It does this primarily through the question of political values. It begins by arguing that for any value to qualify as a value for the political domain, it must be intelligible in relation to the constitutive features of politics (...) as a human activity. It then examines the extent to which the preconditions for the realization of values in practice ought to figure in our considerations as to whether they are values that fit or belong to our social world. We can understand these parts of the essay as responding to two related questions, respectively: (i) Is this a political value at all? — which is to ask, is it a value that is appropriate for the political realm?; and then (ii) Is this a political value for us? The final section responds to the often-made complaint that political philosophy ought not to make any concessions to the actual world of politics as it really is, arguing that attending to the realities of politics, and in particular the constitutive conditions of political activity, gives meaning to the enterprise as the theorization of politics (and not something else). Furthermore those same conditions provide the limits of intelligibility beyond which ideals and values can no longer be, in any meaningful sense, ideals and values for the political sphere. (shrink)

Presents the Nicomachean Ethics as a work of political philosophy, emphasizing the interplay between its practical political concerns and its underlying philosophic perspective and arguing that it is rhetorical in the precise Aristotelian meaning of the term.

At a time when many institutions of higher learning are reflecting on their past complicity with chattel slavery, either in terms of the sources of their funding or their use of slave labor, philosophy as an academic discipline has been largely silent about its own complicity. Questions surrounding the legitimacy and practice of slavery were a regular part of moral philosophy courses at universities from the sixteenth century until its abolition. However, the discussions of slavery found in the dominant textbooks (...) tended to be deeply conservative judged even by the standards of those times. This partly explains why after emancipation the many moral questions posed by slavery are barely mentioned in survey histories of ethics or of political philosophy today: this is a context in which academic philosophy does not show itself to its best advantage. The present article explores what academic philosophers need to do to redress the discipline's past failures, including its virtual silence about slavery since the Civil War. Given today's political environment, academic philosophers need to reflect on how the discipline in its institutional form functions within a system governed by the legacy of slavery and its aftermath. (shrink)

This essay is part of a symposium on Cheyney Ryan’s The Chickenhawk Syndrome: War, Sacrifice, and Personal Responsibility . Ryan’s reply to his critics can be found on pp. 181-89 in Radical Philosophy Review, Volume 13, Issue 2, 2010.

The importance of education: In conversation with Martin Heidegger and Hannah Arendt. The text is a lecture delivered in German at Augsburg University in 2018. Its aim was to share with German colleagues from the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences the research whose effect was the publication of Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger. Philosophy, modernity and education. The thesis of this lecture is that Arendt’s answer to Heidegger’s philosophy, intelligible only within the wide context of both thinkers’ struggles with (...) the philosophical tradition of the West, also opens up a new horizon of conceptualizing the relationship between philosophy and education. This enterprise begins with a critical reconstruction of concepts that traditionally connected education to philosophy. Thereafter, it is a development of Arendt’s thesis of the broken thread of tradition, situated in the wider context of Heideggerian philosophy and his entanglement with Nazism, and consequently, it questions the traditional relationship between philosophy and education. In the final parts of this book returns the problem of dialogue between philosophy, thinking, and university education in times whose political and ethical framework is no longer determined by the continuity of tradition, but the caesura of 20th‑century totalitarianism. (shrink)

Robert Nozick has shown in which ways the theory of natural law (in John Locke, for instance) can be invoked to defend a libertarian theory of State. This paper suggests that Nozick does not prove that invoking natural rights may be a proof against the consequentionalist challenge. An overview of no..

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Hope for Common Ground: Mediating the Personal and the Political in a Divided Church by Julie Hanlon RubioBrian StiltnerHope for Common Ground: Mediating the Personal and the Political in a Divided Church Julie Hanlon Rubio washington, dc: georgetown university press, 2016. 264 pp. $89.95 / $29.95Julie Hanlon Rubio wrote Hope for Common Ground to address divisions over ethical and political issues within the Catholic Church. (...) Rubio writes in a spirit of hope, affirming that it is possible for Catholics to find common ground by drawing on resources within their tradition and within themselves. She proposes that "the potential for seeing and developing common ground is particularly strong if we focus on what can be done in the 'local' sphere—that is, in the space between" the personal and the political (xvii). Localized focus is recommended by the Catholic principle of subsidiarity, which means working on social problems from the bottom up through the small- and medium-sized [End Page 195] groups that matter greatly for people's well-being, such as families, churches, and neighborhoods.Rubio's project is vital because civic spaces have become so fraught. Although this book was published early in 2016, these words are even more apt in 2017: "In both popular and academic Catholic circles, politics has become a very uncomfortable space. … Catholics are more divided than at any point in their history, and in this they mirror society rather than providing an alternative to it" (xiv–xv). If Catholic Christians, claiming a common life and common Lord, are as divided as society itself, they testify poorly to their values. By contrast, if they redirect some of their energies from the personal and the political to the local, then "instead of fighting each other, Catholics can participate more, agree on more, and, consequently, build up more" (229).Part 1 of the book draws on Church tradition and ethics texts to articulate a vision of what it means to be a faithful citizen. Divisions within the Catholic community are shaped in part by interpretations of Church teaching that discourage Catholics from thinking they should cooperate with others who think differently. In recent years, the American bishops have pushed Catholic citizens to consider some political issues, such as abortion and gay marriage, as more important than others. Rubio aims to right such imbalances by showing that Catholic teaching supports pluralism, appreciates the pragmatic side of politics, and holds a nuanced account of how people can act conscientiously in an imperfect world. She offers "a social ethic for ordinary Christians" (58), equally focused on faithfulness and effectiveness.The payoff in part 2 of the book is excellent. Rubio enters the culture-war debates over the family, poverty, abortion, and end-of-life care; elsewhere she briefly but insightfully examines white privilege, sweatshop clothing, and police violence. In each of these cases, Rubio describes the current divide, provides background analysis that cuts through misconceptions and slanted data, and suggests ways that Catholics can find common ground and build up the common good in church and society. Here is one small example of the kind of applications she makes: "A Catholic Charities center in my city included a conversation on advance directives in the agenda for a weekly meeting of mothers in a poor neighborhood. Though the instruction was quite simple, it gave the women a chance to talk about their faith, experiences, fears, and hopes in relation to death and dying. … These women are now better equipped than many for the tough conversations that are surely ahead" (218).Rubio practices what she preaches, exhibiting a conversational tone and capacious vision throughout. While focused on Catholic sources and issues, Hope for Common Ground is by no means narrow. Not only other Christians but also all [End Page 196] people have to face the social issues discussed here, and it matters to all citizens how religious communities are addressing them. Therefore, this book is a great launching point for honest conversations in college courses, while scholars in the field will do well to engage with Rubio's theory of local action. The book deserves a wide readership within and outside Catholic circles.Brian StiltnerSacred... (shrink)

Applied analytical political philosophy has not been a thriving enterprise in the United States in recent years. Certainly it has made little discernible impact on public culture. Political philosophers absorb topics and ideas from the Zeitgeist, but it shows little inclination to return the favor. After the publication of his monumental work A Theory of Justice back in 1971, John Rawls became a deservedly famous intellectual, but who has ever heard political critics or commentators refer to the (...) difference principle or fair equality of opportunity in discussions aimed at a wide audience? Writing philosophically astute and beautifully accessible prose, often in not strictly academic journals of opinion, Ronald Dworkin has been in some ways the very model of a public intellectual, but the only reference to his opinions that I have seen in any newspaper occurred in a New York Times review of a restaurant near London along the Thames (as I recall, Dworkin was quoted as saying it was at the very least the best restaurant in the northern hemisphere). You might chalk up the situation to the fact that political philosophers tend to be liberal and the public political culture in the United States has been growing decidedly conservative, but that mismatch can hardly be the whole story. Right-wing libertarianism is a popular doctrine, but Robert Nozick’s classical and never superseded 1974 exploration of that view in his brilliant Anarchy, State, and Utopia is not cited. Nor is there a significant literature that seeks to derive practical policy recommendations from Nozick’s theory and relevant factual claims. Moreover, the isolation of political philosophy stands in marked contrast to the wide influence of theory in some disciplines. For example, consider the enormous germinating impact of Richard Posner’s ideas on law and economics over the past thirty years on academic and extra-academic American legal culture. (shrink)

The concept of justice, a cornerstone in Aristotle's political philosophy, holds intrinsic significance in both historical and contemporary contexts. This article embarks on an intricate exploration of the primacy of global justice within Aristotle's philosophical framework and its far-reaching implications in addressing contemporary challenges. Drawing from Aristotle's perspective on justice within the polis, the article navigates the terrain of his ideas, extending them beyond conventional boundaries and examining their pertinence in the global arena. Aristotle's nuanced definitions of justice lay (...) the foundation for dissecting its role within the community. The dichotomy of distributive and corrective justice adds depth to the discussion, setting the stage for the exploration of justice on a global scale. Indications within Aristotle's writings hint at a broader consideration of justice, encompassing global concerns that transcend political boundaries. The resonance between Aristotle's principles and contemporary global issues, including poverty, environmental degradation, and human rights violations, is brought to light through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This alignment underscores the enduring relevance of Aristotle's philosophy and its potential to inform contemporary ethical paradigms. Furthermore, the article contemplates the influence of Aristotle's justice-centred ideas on international relations, envisioning its impact on diplomacy, cooperation, and conflict resolution. Acknowledging critiques and counterarguments that question the adaptability of Aristotle's theories to modern complexities, the article upholds the enduring applicability of his principles. Aristotle's emphasis on equilibrium and rectification offers a portal for addressing multifaceted global injustices, even in the intricate web of contemporary interdependence. The article culminates in the assertion that the primacy of global justice within Aristotle's political philosophy reverberates profoundly in the present day. The convergence of his principles with contemporary ethical frameworks, the potential implications on international diplomacy, and the adaptability to intricate global challenges substantiate the perpetual wisdom encapsulated in Aristotle's ideas. Embracing the essence of his philosophy, humanity is poised to forge a path toward a more just, harmonious, and equitable world. (shrink)

This book explores how the figure of the slave has been used to construct ideas of freedom in Western political and legal philosophy. The figure of the slave has supported philosophical and legal defences of colonialism, coloniality and the supremacy of the white subject. Yet for Giorgio Agamben, the slave stands (almost counterintuitively) as an exemplar of a potential form of future positive political existence. Developing this line of thought, the book reads key thinkers Agamben engages with in (...) his thought and writings - including Aristotle, Saint Paul and G W F Hegel - and draws on decolonial theory to argue that the lives of people who were enslaved and unfree, and their actions and gestures, can point towards a paradigmatic form of political belonging. By reading Agamben in a decolonial direction, we can imagine alternative forms of agency, recognition and subjectivity, which can challenge the necropolitical world of racial capitalism in which we live. This study will appeal to scholars, researchers and graduate students with an interest in the thought of Giorgio Agamben, radical politics, legal and political philosophy and decolonial theory. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to apply the methodology of minimal ontological commitments to moral and political philosophy. As minimal metaphysics in the philosophy of science endorses scientific realism, so we subscribe to moral realism, arguing that the presumption of liberty is the fundamental assumption defining a person. What needs to be justified then are restrictions to liberty and, in particular, the application of coercion upon persons. In examining knowledge claims about normative facts going beyond the presumption of (...) liberty, such as, for instance, facts about a common good, we show that an ontological commitment to such normative facts is at odds with minimal metaphysics. We thus show how minimal metaphysics vindicates a Kantian deontological stance in moral and political philosophy: moral realism is limited to the obligations that follow from extending the presumption of liberty to all human beings in virtue of them being rational animals, hence to respect every person as an end in itself. (shrink)

One important line of questioning for philosophers is to ask what the point of certain principles, concepts, values or practices is. This line of questioning helps us to work out whether something of putative importance is fundamentally important or only important insofar as it serves some other requirement. This, in turn, helps us to do a number of other important tasks, including evaluating the validity of the tasks we pursue and the validity of our approach to it. When we know (...) what the point of something is we better understand how and whether to approach it. Just as fishing for fun and fishing for a living should be carried out differently, if the point of an ideal like equality is to preserve a certain kind of social relationship, and not some pattern of distribution, then we have reasons to reconsider the things we do in the name of equality, what policies an appeal to equality can support and whether we really care about equality or something else. In this paper I explore, rather than challenge, the point of political philosophy and I show how this affects how political philosophers ought to approach, what I take to be, their central pre-occupation: defending and objecting to certain principles. (shrink)

This book examines the conceptual contributions of constituent representatives in Spain during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Spanish Parliament has been the stage for the political modernisation of the country. Constitutional debates have historically led to the gradual acknowledgement and broadening – usually unevenly – of citizens’ rights. At the same time, constitutional debates have created opportunities to design institutions and settle legal mechanisms to enforce rights and distribute state resources. The book identifies and analyses rhetorical and conceptual (...) innovations produced in such debates from a historical perspective. (shrink)

G. A. Cohen was one of the most gifted, influential, and progressive voices in contemporary political philosophy. At the time of his death in 2009, he had plans to bring together a number of his most significant papers. This is the first of three volumes to realize those plans. Drawing on three decades of work, it contains previously uncollected articles that have shaped many of the central debates in political philosophy, as well as papers published here for the (...) first time. In these pieces, Cohen asks what egalitarians have most reason to equalize, he considers the relationship between freedom and property, and he reflects upon ideal theory and political practice.Included here are classic essays such as "Equality of What?" and "Capitalism, Freedom, and the Proletariat," along with more recent contributions such as "Fairness and Legitimacy in Justice," "Freedom and Money," and the previously unpublished "How to Do Political Philosophy." On ample display throughout are the clarity, rigor, conviction, and wit for which Cohen was renowned. Together, these essays demonstrate how his work provides a powerful account of liberty and equality to the left of Ronald Dworkin, John Rawls, Amartya Sen, and Isaiah Berlin. (shrink)

A critique of Rorty's own provocative political philosophy, as well as an in-depth look at both the issues concerning the relationship between the public and the private, and arguments on the role of reason in liberal political discourse generally.

Rich with historical and cultural value, these works are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

John Locke is widely perceived as a foundational figure within the liberal tradition. This book investigates the competing purposes that informed Locke's political philosophy, not all of which resulted in outcomes consistent with what we today understand as "liberal" ideals. Locke himself was unaware that he belonged to a "liberal" tradition. Traditions only acquire meaning in retrospect. But many have perceived the development of Locke's political philosophy as involving a smooth evolution from "authoritarian" origins to "liberal" conclusions, beginning (...) with Locke's Two Tracts on Government (1660-62) and culminating in his later political works, the Two Treatises of Government (1689) and A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689). This book advances an interpretation of this development which reveals how, by the time of his mature political writings, Locke sought to advance three competing imperatives within his political philosophy, only two of which were consistent with ideals of individual liberty. The other imperative sustained purposes much more aligned with the "authoritarianism" with which Locke's political philosophy began. The result is a much more complex and variegated understanding of Locke's political philosophy, focusing on its competing purposes. Liberty, Governance and Resistance will be of interest to researchers studying Locke, liberalism, and the history of ideas. (shrink)

This unusual introduction to political philosophy draws on its history and main theories_classic liberal, democratic, socialist, radical_with an eye to how each sees the place of the individual in the political order.

The Renaissance, known primarily for the art and literature that it produced, was also a period in which philosophical thought flourished. This two-volume anthology, which was originally published in 1997, contains forty translations of important works on moral and political philosophy written during the Renaissance and hitherto unavailable in English. The anthology is designed to be used in conjunction with The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, in which all of these texts are discussed. The works, originally written in Latin, (...) Italian, French, Spanish and Greek, cover such topics as: concepts of man, Aristotelian, Platonic, Stoic, and Epicurean ethics, scholastic political philosophy, theories of princely and republican government in Italy and northern European political thought. Each text is supplied with an introduction and a guide to further reading. (shrink)

We can define all political theories pertinent in contemporary modern societies using a model based on only two variables. The first variable can be characterized as a spectrum between economic right and left wing theories. The spectrum can be easily defined by a strictly economic tradeoff of the desired level of taxation juxtaposed to the desired level of social services. The second variable can be defined as a distinction between liberal-individualisticand communitarian conception of persons.This leads to four positions, the (...) four pillars of contemporary political philosophy: left wing liberalism (popular liberalism), right win liberalism (popular libertarianism), left wing communitarianism (popular socialist communitarianism) and right wing communitarianism (thetraditionalist stripe of conservatism). The problem is that the last of those positions has not been well presented in philosophical literature. (shrink)