The Spirit of the Laws—Montesquieu’s huge, complex, and enormously influential work—is considered one of the central texts of the Enlightenment, laying the foundation for the liberally democratic political regimes that were to embody its values. In his penetrating analysis, Thomas L. Pangle brilliantly argues that the inherently theological project of Enlightenment liberalism is made more clearly—and more consequentially— in Spirit than in any other work.
In a probing and careful reading, Pangle shows how Montesquieu believed that rationalism, through the influence of liberal institutions and the spread of commercial culture, would secularize human affairs. At the same time, Pangle uncovers Montesquieu’s views about the origins of humanity’s religious impulse and his confidence that political and economic security would make people less likely to sacrifice worldly well-being for otherworldly hopes. With the interest in the theological aspects of political theory and practice showing no signs of diminishing, this book is a timely and insightful contribution to one of the key achievements of Enlightenment thought.
This first of two volumes of Voegelin's miscellaneous papers brings together crucial writings, published for the first time, from the early, formative period of this scholar's thought. The book begins with Voegelin's dissertation on sociological method, completed under the direction of Othmar Spann and Hans Kelsen at the University of Vienna in 1922. It reveals an intimate knowledge of the writings of Georg Simmel and a skillful use of insights gained from Edmund Husserl's Logical Investigations and Ideas.
The dissertation, and other smaller pieces written at this time, addresses problems that remained of great importance to Voegelin throughout his life: the relation of insight to language, the structure of the human being, and the human's spiritual center. They disclose both Voegelin's theoretical reference points during these early years, including the thought of Henri Bergson, Othmar Spann, Georg Simmel, and Edmund Husserl, as well the young scholar's remarkably independent approach to theoretical problems.
Moreover, this volume includes a work that is fundamental to an understanding of Voegelin's theoretical development: his extended study on the "theory of governance," written between 1930 and 1932. It follows the issues that confront political society to their roots in the soul and in the soul's relationship to the ground of being.
The Theory of Governance and Other Miscellaneous Papers presents a meditative-exegetic study of texts from Augustine, Descartes, and Husserl, early examples of the meditations that became central to Voegelin's later work. Other essays included in this volume such as "Theory of Law" and "Political Theory as Human Science" develop these theoretical insights and refine Voegelin's methodological tools. This volume will be of interest to all scholars of the work of Eric Voegelin and of the refoundation of political philosophy in the twentieth century in general.
“Fascinating and instructive…King’s philosophy, speaking to us through the written word, may turn out to constitute his most enduring legacy.”
—Annette Gordon-Reed, New York Review of Books
Martin Luther King, Jr., is one of America’s most revered figures, yet despite his mythic stature, the significance of his political thought remains underappreciated. In this indispensable reappraisal, leading scholars—including Cornel West, Martha Nussbaum, and Danielle Allen—consider the substance of his lesser known writings on racism, economic inequality, virtue ethics, just-war theory, reparations, voting rights, civil disobedience, and social justice and find in them an array of compelling challenges to some of the most pressing political dilemmas of our time.
“King was not simply a compelling speaker, but a deeply philosophical intellectual…We still have much to learn from him.”
—Quartz
“A compelling work of philosophy, all the more so because it treats King seriously without inoculating him from the kind of critique important to both his theory and practice.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books
Talk is of central importance to politics of almost every kind—it’s no accident that when the ancient Greeks first attempted to examine politics systematically, they developed the study of rhetoric. In Tropes of Politics, John Nelson applies rhetorical analysis first to political theory, and then to politics in practice. He offers a full and deep critical examination of political science and political theory as fields of study, and then undertakes a series of creative examinations of political rhetoric, including a deconstruction of deliberation and debate by the U.S. Senate prior to the Gulf War.
Using the neglected arts of argument refined by the rhetoric of inquiry, Nelson traces how everyday words like consent and debate construct politics in much the same way that poets such as Mamet and Shakespeare construct plays, and he shows how we are remaking our politics even as we speak. Tropes of Politics explores how politicians take stands and political scientists probe representation, how experts become informed even as citizens become authorities, how students actually reinvent government while professors merely model politics, how senators wage war yet keep comity among themselves.
The action, Nelson shows, is in the tropes: these figures of speech and images of deed can persuade us to turn from ideologies like liberalism toward spectacles about democracy or movements into environmentalism and feminism. His argument is that inventive attention to tropes can mean better participation in politics. And the argument is in the tropes—evidence itself as sights or citations, governments as machines or men, politics as hardball or softball, deliberations as freedoms or constraints, borders as fringes or friends.
Stanley Fish is an equal opportunity antagonist. A theorist who has taken on theorists, an academician who has riled the academy, a legal scholar and political pundit who has ruffled feathers left and right, Fish here turns with customary gusto to the trouble with principle. Specifically, Fish has a quarrel with neutral principles. The trouble? They operate by sacrificing everything people care about to their own purity. And they are deployed with equal highmindedness and equally absurd results by liberals and conservatives alike.
In this bracing book, Fish argues that there is no realm of higher order impartiality--no neutral or fair territory on which to stake a claim--and that those who invoke one are always making a rhetorical and political gesture. In the end, it is history and context, the very substance against which a purportedly abstract principle defines itself, that determines a principle's content and power. In the course of making this argument, Fish takes up questions about academic freedom and hate speech, affirmative action and multiculturalism, the boundaries between church and state, and much more. Sparing no one, he shows how our notions of intellectual and religious liberty--cherished by those at both ends of the political spectrum--are artifacts of the very partisan politics they supposedly transcend. The Trouble with Principle offers a provocative challenge to the debates of our day that no intellectually honest citizen can afford to ignore.
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.
Twenty Theses on Politics is inspired by recent political transformations in Latin America. As Dussel writes in Thesis 15, regarding the liberation praxis of social and political movements, “The winds that arrive from the South—from Nestor Kirchner, Tabaré Vásquez, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Evo Morales, Hugo Chávez, Fidel Castro, and so many others—show us that things can be changed. The people must reclaim sovereignty!” Throughout the twenty theses Dussel engages with Latin American thinkers and activists and with radical political projects such as the World Social Forum. He is also in dialogue with the ideas of Marx, Hegel, Habermas, Rawls, and Negri, offering insights into the applications and limits of their thinking in light of recent Latin American political thought and practice.
The relationships between philosophy and aesthetics and between philosophy and politics are especially pressing issues today. Those who explore these themes will applaud the publication—for the first time in English—of this important collection, one that reveals the scope and force of Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe’s reflections on mimesis, subjectivity, and representation in philosophical thought.
This coherent and rigorous body of work reflects the author’s complex and subtle treatment of mimesis in the history of philosophy from Plato to Heidegger. It contains close critical analyses of works by Plato, Diderot, Hölderlin, Reik, Girard, and Heidegger, and moves through topics such as music, autobiography, tragedy, and the problem of historical and political self-definition.
Because Lacoue-Labarthe deals with issues that cross disciplinary lines, his work will appeal to readers interested in philosophy as it relates to politics, history, and aesthetics, especially literature. By showing that the concept of mimesis is an integral part of philosophical reasoning, he provides a challenging approach to many of Heidegger’s ideas, and contributes to the poststructuralist (or postmodem) attempt to rethink the notions of reference and representation. This approach challenges readers to redefine their understanding of history and politics.
One of the most gifted and active of the younger French philosophers, Lacoue-Labarthe is a respected peer of Jacques Derrida, who has provided an extensive introduction to the book especially for American readers. Those who are familiar with Derrida’s writings will appreciate the opportunity to see his questions approached in an entirely different style by Lacoue-Labarthe, resulting in productive new insights.
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