Alexandre Koj_ve offers a systematic discussion of key themes such as right, justice, law, equality, and autonomy in which he presages our contemporary world of economic globalization and international law. Edited and translated by Bryan-Paul Frost, this is the authoritative English language edition of a monumental work in political philosophy.

Revised and updated, this long-awaited second edition provides a comprehensive introduction to the most important American statesmen, activists, and writers regardless of the historical era or political persuasion.

How are we to understand Cato the Younger? To be sure, this question implies that there is something important we can learn by studying the life of Cato the Younger, that we can garner fundamental political insights by understanding his actions and thoughts. Although this essay will be a modest attempt to articulate some of these insights by presenting a paradigm with which Cato's life can be understood, the very fact that Cato commands the attention of a diverse number of (...) diplomats, philosophers and poets should make us as political scientists and historians at least somewhat interested in his life as a whole. (shrink)

Examines the political dimensions of Aristophanes’ comic poetry. This original and wide-ranging collection of essays offers, for the first time, a comprehensive examination of the political dimensions of that madcap comic poet Aristophanes. Rejecting the claim that Aristophanes is little more than a mere comedian, the contributors to this fascinating volume demonstrate that Aristophanes deserves to be placed in the ranks of the greatest Greek political thinkers. As these essays reveal, all of Aristophanes’ plays treat issues of fundamental political importance, (...) from war and peace, poverty and wealth, the relation between the sexes, demagoguery and democracy to the role of philosophy and poetry in political society. Accessible to students as well as scholars, The Political Theory of Aristophanes can be utilized easily in the classroom, but at the same time serve as a valuable source for those conducting more advanced research. Whether the field is political philosophy, classical studies, history, or literary criticism, this work will make it necessary to reconceptualize how we understand this great Athenian poet and force us to recognize the political ramifications and underpinnings of his uproarious comedies. Jeremy J. Mhire is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Louisiana Tech University. Bryan-Paul Frost is James A. and Kaye L. Crocker Endowed Professor of Political Science at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and the coeditor (with Jeffrey Sikkenga) of History of American Political Thought. (shrink)

SINCE ITS PUBLICATION IN 1981, Alexandre Kojève’s Esquisse d’une phénoménologie du droit has received scant scholarly attention. Except for a brief note on the book by Michael S. Roth, and some scattered references here and there, the Esquisse has been eclipsed by Kojève’s Introduction à la lecture de Hegel and by his debate and longstanding correspondence with Leo Strauss in the latter’s On Tyranny. Despite the renown of these two books, the Esquisse is an indispensable work in Kojève’s corpus as (...) a whole. As the Esquisse was written after the Introduction, Kojève clarifies and elaborates upon many of the themes he raises there; and as the Esquisse was written before his response to Strauss’s On Tyranny, it helps to set the stage for this important philosophic debate. Furthermore, the Esquisse is clearly Kojève’s most political work, by which I mean that he most fully articulates his understanding of right, justice, and the universal and homogeneous empire. The Esquisse is his only book that is not an interpretation of the history of philosophy and political thought, and this means that Kojève’s own voice can be heard with an unrivalled clarity: the oft asked question whether Kojève is sincerely attempting to interpret another philosopher or is masking his own thoughts behind that interpretation simply does not apply in this case. Although the title of the book states that it is a provisional exposition, the Esquisse is certainly more unified or systematic than the Introduction, and Kojève declared that he was satisfied with it. Lastly, the Esquisse is also a highly accessible work, not being as abstract as some of his other epistemological writings. All in all, it is extremely puzzling why political scientists have not paid more attention to the Esquisse. (shrink)

These comments, which take the form of criticism and response, were the basis of a zoom conversation at the Eastern APA, January 2021. Josh is putting them up on philpapers (with permission from all involved) in case they are helpful to people interested in the themes of this book.

This dissertation interprets and begins to assess critically the political philosophy of Alexandre Kojeve. Kojeve's political philosophy is perhaps the fullest expression of some of the central goals and aspirations of modernity, and a sustained examination of his thought allows one the opportunity to begin to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of modernity as such, of modern rationalism and historicism. This dissertation is unique in that it attempts to bring into focus Kojeve's political philosophy by looking at his corpus as (...) a whole, something which has only recently become possible given the fact that many of his most important works were published posthumously in the last 15 years. In analyzing Kojeve's political philosophy, I begin and take my bearings from the debate between Kojeve and Leo Strauss in the latter's On Tyranny. This is probably the single best contemporary debate which succinctly crystallizes the fundamental differences between the ancients and moderns or their respective understandings of the nature of philosophy and politics, and the relation between the two. In many ways, the dissertation is a modest attempt to respond to the objections that Strauss raised against Kojeve's position but which Kojeve himself never directly addressed. ;The first chapter of the dissertation discusses Kojeve's philosophy of history, and in particular his understanding of Hegel's master-slave dialectic. The second chapter examines the Esquisse d'une phenonmenologie du droit, where Kojeve most fully articulates the character of the justice of the universal and homogenous state, the state that is to be realized at the end of our historical evolution. Chapter three looks at Kojeve's understanding of the nature and purpose of political philosophy, and I pay particular attention to Kojeve's own motivations for writing the many works that he did. The fourth chapter discusses the character of Kojevean satisfaction, as well as what our economic and spiritual life is going to be like at the end of history. In the final section of chapter four, I briefly suggest that one further area of investigation would be to examine in more detail Kojeve's understanding of classical political philosophy. (shrink)

Demands for absolute or near certainty are a common way for those with a political agenda to undermine science and to delay action. Through our combined experience in science, philosophy and cultural theory, we are acquainted with these attempts to undermine science. We want to help readers figure out how to evaluate their merits or lack thereof.

A little over one hundred years after his birth, and not quite twenty-five years since his death, interest in the French political philosopher and sociologist Raymond Aron continues to grow. Aron is now widely recognized as one of the most significant intellectual figures of the postwar period, whose wide-ranging reflections played a key part in preserving liberal democracy in Europe and abroad. His sober analyses of modern society, his trenchant critique of ideological politics and every form of totalitarianism, and his (...) philosophical reflections on politics and history have given powerful support to democratic liberalism throughout the western world. Aron's work combines passion and observation, disinterested reflection and love of liberty in a way that is an imitable model for humane and balanced political reflection. In this stimulating collection of essays, inspired by the centennial of Aron's birth, a distinguished group of North American and European scholars—including Pierre Manent, Stanley Hoffmann, Irving Louis Horowitz, Liah Greenfeld, Claude Lefort, and Aurelian Craiutu—examine four key aspects of Aron's thought and work: his educative legacy; his reflections on other philosophers and intellectuals; his distinctive approach to international relations; and the unique character of his own political reflection. The result is a masterful engagement with Aron's intellectual legacy and a thoughtful coming to terms with the political and intellectual substance of the twentieth century. (shrink)

This volume explores the role of some of the most prominent twentieth-century philosophers and political thinkers as teachers. It examines what obstacles they confronted as teachers and how they overcame them in conveying truth to their students in an age dominated by ideological thinking.

Human cooperation is highly unusual. We live in large groups composed mostly of non-relatives. Evolutionists have proposed a number of explanations for this pattern, including cultural group selection and extensions of more general processes such as reciprocity, kin selection, and multi-level selection acting on genes. Evolutionary processes are consilient; they affect several different empirical domains, such as patterns of behavior and the proximal drivers of that behavior. In this target article, we sketch the evidence from five domains that bear on (...) the explanatory adequacy of cultural group selection and competing hypotheses to explain human cooperation. Does cultural transmission constitute an inheritance system that can evolve in a Darwinian fashion? Are the norms that underpin institutions among the cultural traits so transmitted? Do we observe sufficient variation at the level of groups of considerable size for group selection to be a plausible process? Do human groups compete, and do success and failure in competition depend upon cultural variation? Do we observe adaptations for cooperation in humans that most plausibly arose by cultural group selection? If the answer to one of these questions is “no,” then we must look to other hypotheses. We present evidence, including quantitative evidence, that the answer to all of the questions is “yes” and argue that we must take the cultural group selection hypothesis seriously. If culturally transmitted systems of rules (institutions) that limit individual deviance organize cooperation in human societies, then it is not clear that any extant alternative to cultural group selection can be a complete explanation. (shrink)

This book is a collection of secondary essays on America's most important philosophic thinkers—statesmen, judges, writers, educators, and activists—from the colonial period to the present. Each essay is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of a noted American on the fundamental meaning of the American regime.

Recovering Reason: Essays in Honor of Thomas L. Pangle is a collection of essays composed by students and friends of Thomas L. Pangle to honor his seminal work and outstanding guidance in the study of political philosophy. These essays examine both Socrates' and modern political philosophers' attempts to answer the question of the right life for human beings, as those attempts are introduced and elaborated in the work of thinkers from Homer and Thucydides to Nietzsche and Charles Taylor.

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

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 train has stopped in the night. It is the end of winter, 1920; it is very cold, about 25 degress below zero, some hundred kilometers west of Irkutsk. Along the train soldiers mount guard; ahead, a party of the detachment is clearing the track. Many of the soldiers have makeshift bandages around their wrists and feet: the Siberian frost has taken its toll. There is no question, however, of withdrawing the guard or stopping the work. This train is (...) the most precious treasure of the Soviet. Republic, transporting the greater part of the State gold reserves: 355 m. tons. Previously housed in the vaults of the Kazan Bank in Tartary by the Tsarist government, it was removed in 1918 by admiral Kolchak; the greatest coup in history! Not that it brought the admiral any good luck: in Siberia, at the height of the civil war, the richest man in the world was only able to get a few shipments of gold through to Vladivostok, to pay his debts to the Americans and buy arms from them. And then Kolchak died: he was shot on February 7th, the gold now returning to Kazan. (shrink)

Alexandre Koj_ve offers a systematic discussion of key themes such as right, justice, law, equality, and autonomy in which he presages our contemporary world of economic globalization and international law. Edited and translated by Bryan-Paul Frost, this is the authoritative English language edition of a monumental work in political philosophy.

As much a doubter as a believer, Emily Dickinson often expressed views about God in general—and God with respect to suffering in particular. In many of her poems, she contemplates the question posed by countless theologians and poets before her: how can one reconcile a benevolent deity with evil in the world? Examining Dickinson’s perspectives on the role played by a supposedly omnipotent and all-loving God in a world marked by violence and pain, Patrick Keane initially focuses on her poem (...) “Apparently with no surprise,” in which frost, a “blonde Assassin,” beheads a “happy Flower,” a spectacle presided over by “an Approving God.” This tiny lyric,Keane shows, epitomizes the poet’s embattled relationship with the deity of her Calvinist tradition. Although the problem of sufferingis usually couched in terms of natural disasters or human injustice, Dickinson found new ways of considering it. By choosing a flower as her innocent “victim,” she bypassed standard “answers” to the dilemma in order to focus on the problem in its purest symbolic form. Keane goes on toprovide close readings of many of Dickinson’s poems and letters engaging God, showing how she addressed the challenges posed—by her own experience and by an innate skepticism reinforced by a nascent Darwinism—to the argument from design and the concept of a benevolent deity. More than a dissection of a single poem, Keane’s book is a sweeping personal reflection on literature and religion, faith and skepticism, theology and science. He traces the evolving history of the Problem of Suffering from the Hebrew Scriptures, through the writings of Paul, Augustine, and Aquinas, to the most recent theological and philosophical studies of the problem. Keane is interested in _how_ readers today respond to Emily Dickinson’s often combative poems about God; at the same time, she is located as a poet whose creative life coincided with the momentous changes and challenges to religious faith associated with Darwin andNietzsche.Keane also considers Dickinson’s poems and letters in the context of the great Romantic tradition, as it runs fromMilton throughWordsworth, demonstrating how thework of these poets helps illuminate Dickinson’s poetry and thought. Because Dickinson the poet was also Emily the gardener, her love of flowers was an appropriate vehicle for her observations on mortality and her expressions of doubt. _Emily Dickinson’s Approving God _is a graceful study that reveals not only the audacity of Dickinson’s thought but also its relevance to modern readers. In light of ongoing confrontations between Darwinism and design, science and literal conceptions of a divine Creator, it is an equally provocative read for students of literature and students of life. (shrink)

In a wide-ranging study of unusual interest, Paul Weiss, Sterling Professor of Philosophy at Yale University, applies the principles and methods of philosophy to athletics. Every culture, he notes, has games of some kind; few activities seem to interest both children and young men as much as sports do; and few attract so many spectators, rich and poor. Yet none of the great philosophers, claiming to take all knowledge and being as their province, have made more than a passing (...) reference to sport, in part, Professor Weiss suggests, because they thought that what pleased the vulgar was not worth sustained study by the leisured. This seminal book breaks new ground and explores new paths: psychological and sociological forms of human behavior exhibited in games; the physiology of athletics, and the efforts of training and conditioning; and the motivation of athletics—the rhythm and aims of contests and games, and the meaning of team play. More importantly, however, Professor Weiss’s unique contributions lie in his discussions of the distinct contributions that sport makes to civilization. Professor Weiss discusses at length such topics as the Olympic Games and men and women as amateur and pro­fessional athletes—and their sacrifices, defeats, and humilia­tions. And he delineates the stages the athlete must go through in his progress toward self-completion. (shrink)

The value of biodiversity is usually confused with the value of biological resources, both actual and potential. A sharp distinction between biological resources and biodiversity offers a clearer insight into the value of biodiversity itself and therefore the need to preserve it. Biodiversity can be defined abstractly as the differences among biological entities. Using this definition, biodiversity can be seen more appropriately as: (a) a necessary precondition for the long term maintenance of biological resources, and therefore, (b) an essential environmental (...) condition. Three values of biodiversity are identified and arranged in a hierarchy: (1) the self-augmenting phenomenon of biodiversity maintains (2) the conditions necessary for the adaptive evolution of species and higher taxa, which in turn is necessary for providing humans with (3) a range of biological resources in the long term. Two broad policy implications emerge: increments of biodiversity should not be traded off against biological resources as if they were the same, and the conservation of biodiversity should be a constraint on the public interest, not a goal in service of the public interest. (shrink)

The ‚Naturforschende Gesellschaft’︁, founded in 1793, proved instrumental for the development of science at the University of Jena around 1800. Its library can be considered as one of its most important facilities provided for research and for the education of students. Since this library has been preserved almost without losses, we can ask whether this library served the purpose of a research library in the newly established field of ‚science’︁. In consequence, the role of scientific societies and the genesis of (...) specialised libraries in the area of science can be investigated in an exemplary case, with implications for the concept of scientific research around 1800. (shrink)

The notion of a μέσον, formally defined as the «middle term« in a syllogism, plays a pivotal role in Aristotle's theory of scientific demonstrations in his Analytica Posteriora. It is via the μέσον that the distinctive traits of a demonstration – the employment of causal notions and of statements concerning the essence of things – enter into demonstrative syllogisms. This, however, raises problems with respect to the provability of statements concerning the essence of things that Aristotle seems to accept in (...) certain passages of the Analytica Posteriora, as opposed to well-known passages in the Metaphysics. It is shown in which sense essences are in fact demonstrated by their being employed – via the μέσον – in a demonstration, without, however, being mentioned in the conclusion of such a demonstration. The importance Aristotle ascribes to the μέσον in Analytica Posteriora suggests a more flexible, less formalistic understanding of Aristotle's view of science, while still being based on an analysis of the formal structure of the syllogism. (shrink)

[ Philosophy against the natural sciences: “Dogmatism” in the dispute about “scientific monism” after 1900].

Schelling und Hegel benutzen in ihren philosophischen Texten mathematische und naturwissenschaftliche Modelle wie Unendlichkeit oder Gleichgewicht. Die Strukturen dieser Begriffe liefern einen Massstab fur den Vergleich der Positionen Schellings und Hegels, der fur Schellings Identitatsphilosophie und Hegels erste Jenaer Schriften durchgefuhrt wird. Als wichtigstes Resultat kann eine grundlegende Differenz zwischen beiden Positionen bereits um 1801 nachgewiesen und gezeigt werden, dass diese auf einer unterschiedlichen Auffassung der Rolle des Absoluten beruht.

Carl Friedrich Lehmann-Haupt: Ein Forscherleben zwischen Orient und Okzident. Edited by Sebastian Fink; Klaus Eisterer; Robert Rollinger; and Dirk Rupnow. Classica et Orientalia, vol. 11. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2015. Pp. vi + 217, illus. €48.