Political Theory for Today – serie

Great statesmen and gentlemen, men of honor and rank, seem to be phenomena of a bygone Aristocratic era. Aristocracies, which emphasize rank, and value difference, quality, beauty, rootedness, continuity, stand in direct contrast to democracies, which value equality, autonomy, novelty, standardization, quantity, utility and mobility. Is there any place for aristocratic values and virtues in the modern democratic social and political order? This volume consists of essays by political theorists, historians, and literary theorists that explore this question in the works of aristocratic thinkers, both ancient and modern. The volume includes analyses of aristocratic virtues, interpretations of aristocratic assemblies and constitutions, both historic and contemporary, as well as critiques of liberal virtues and institutions. Essays on Tacitus, Hobbes, Burke, Tocqueville, Nietzsche, as well as some lesser known figures, such as Henri de Boulainvilliers, John Randolph of Roanoke, Louis de Bonald, Konstantin Leontiev, Jose Ortega y Gasset, Richard Weaver, and the Eighth Duke of Northumberland, explore ways of preserving and adapting the salutary aspects of the aristocratic ethos to the needs of modern liberal societies.

Recently, in the past thirty years, there has been an upsurge in serious treatment of Platonic mythoi, which were once thought to be only literary decoration and/or the simplistic presentation of philosophic conclusions for the demos (dummies in effect). Nevertheless, the dominant tendency in the exegesis of Platonic mythoi still is to subordinate them to philosophic logos (reason) and not to recognize that such mythoi are philosophic in themselves in the broad sense of “the love of wisdom”. There is something conversional about Plato’s philosophic mythos, reformulating and superseding traditional Greek mythos and then charting the drama of the human soul from Socratic aporia, up and out of the cave, and into the beyond, the Idea of the Good. The late Professor Eric Voegelin understood this existential drama, and his exegesis of Platonic mythos, from engendering pathos to symbols, is revelatory to say the least. My understanding is that logos (reason) is a fundamental and necessary check on mythos, but logos and mythos are complementary via medias; neither are dispensable nor reducible, one to the other. Also crucial to my study of Platonic mythoi is the “analogy of being,” that Voegelin only touches on, but Erich Przywara explores and develops. The relationship between the human and the divine is analogical (likenesses but also significant unlikenesses), and Plato certainly explored the play of opposites and affinities covering the difficult philosophical problems of becoming and being and the temporal and the eternal. Most philosophic commentators on Plato ignore the suffusive presence of the divine in Plato’s love of wisdom. Perhaps only Platonic mythos at its best offers the philosophic imagination the vision of transcendence.

In the first half of the twentieth century, the rationalist tide had reached its high mark in the arts, politics, and work. But the Holocaust, the Gulag, and other failures have dimmed the popularity of rationalism. However, the evidence of those practical failures would not have been as convincing as it was if not for the existence of a theoretical diagnosis of the malady. This book compares and contrasts the ideas of some of the leading twentieth-century critics of rationalism: Hans-Georg Gadamer, F.A. Hayek, Aurel Kolnai, Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Oakeshott, Michael Polanyi, Gilbert Ryle, Eric Voegelin, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. While each can be seen as a critic of rationalism, were they each attacking the same thing? In what senses did their analyses overlap, and in what senses did they differ? Clarifying these issues, this book will provide important insights into this major intellectual trend of the past century.By including these major thinkers, Tradition v. Rationalism, we see that that these thinkers believed that tradition should still have a place in the world as a repository of wisdom. As our lives becomes increasingly dominated by various forms of rationalisms—whether political, technological, economic, or cultural—we need to ask ourselves whether this is the type of world in which we want to live; and if not, how can we critique and propose an alternative to it? The thinkers in this book provide us a starting point on our journey towards thinking about how we can have a more hopeful, humane, and brighter future.

America, it is often argued, emerged from the Enlightenment. It follows that the prevailing elements of politics in the United States are echoes of struggles among what is here referred to as the moderate Enlightenment, the conservative Enlightenment, and the radical Enlightenment. These lead to conflicting political doctrines which variously address the fundamental questions of who should rule, and why, and how. The outcome is a confusing mélange of a tri-partite civil war among those who claim the Enlightenment as their own.This is accompanied by a long history of resistance, to the Enlightenment itself, a phenomenon which leads to deeper concerns. Sometimes referred to as the Counter-Enlightenment, this has been largely expressed by the Romantic contentions of an authoritarian nationalism. Indeed, its most dramatic manifestations have been realized in fascism and Nazism. In this manner, they constitute a step back into the historical mist, comprising a major attack on both reason and empiricism as the foundation of a scientific approach.Out of this combination of limitation and possibility emanate the essential power configurations of the epoch, yielding policies that are often perceived to be “democratic,” either as threat or achievement. Accordingly, the book explores the actual substance of the democratic argument. On this basis, it contends that a progressive position necessitates a search for the material foundation of a more egalitarian pluralism as the only rational surrogate for majorities within a nation of enormous size, population, and the complexities of concentration that are beyond the reach of democracy in any literal sense.This work is rooted in one of the major traditions that emerged from the Western world of the late eighteenth century. Thus it is informed by the doctrinal contentions of people like Thomas Paine, Samuel Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. As such, it largely opposes a tradition that flows from the writings of Adam Smith, John Adams, and James Madison, and even more so to that associated with Edmund Burke, Alexander Hamilton, and John Marshall. Its focus is on how these ideas play out in a world wherein a generic fascism is also a major theme always looming

This book examines key twentieth-century philosophers, theologians, and social scientists who began their careers with commitments to the political left only later to reappraise or reject them. Their reevaluation of their own previous positions reveals not only the change in their own thought but also the societal changes in the culture, economics, and politics to which they were reacting. By exploring the evolution of the political thought of these philosophers, this book draws connections among these thinkers and schools and discovers the general trajectory of twentieth-century political thinking in the West.

This book analyzes Eric Voegelin’s scholarly works from the 1950s and early 1960s and examines the ways in which these works are relevant to the twenty-first century political environment. The collection of essays evaluated in this book cover a wide array of topics that were of great curiosity sixty years ago and still relevant in today’s society. The authors in this volume demonstrate that Voegelin’s erudition on topics such as revolutionary change, ideological fervor, industrialization, globalism, and the place for reason and how it may be cultivated in complex times remains as meaningful today as it was then.

The rise of Asia in global affairs has forced western thinkers to rethink their assumptions, theories, and conclusions about the region. Eric Voegelin’s Asian Political Thought brings together a mixture of established and rising scholars from both Asia and the West to reflect upon the political philosopher’s thought about China, Japan, Korea, Central Asia, and India. From Voegelin’s writings, readers will not only understand how Voegelin’s approach can illuminate the fundamental principles and issues about Asia but also what are the challenges and possibilities that Asia offers in the twentieth-first century. For those who want to move past the superficial commentary and clichés about Asia, Eric Voegelin’s Asian Political Thought is the book for you.

The purpose of this volume is to discuss the concept of citizenship—in terms of its origins, its meanings, and its contemporary place and relevance in American democracy, and within a global context. The authors in this collection wrestle with the connection of citizenship to major tensions between liberty and equality, dynamism and stability, and civic disagreement and social cohesion. The essays also raise fundamental questions about the relationship between citizenship and leadership, and invite further reflection on the features of citizenship and civic leadership under the American Constitution. Finally, this collection offers various suggestions about how to revitalize citizenship and civic leadership through an education that is conducive to a renewal of American civic practices and institutions.

The purpose of this volume is to discuss the concept of citizenship—in terms of its origins, its meanings, and its contemporary place and relevance in American democracy, and within a global context. The authors in this collection wrestle with the connection of citizenship to major tensions between liberty and equality, dynamism and stability, and civic disagreement and social cohesion. The essays also raise fundamental questions about the relationship between citizenship and leadership, and invite further reflection on the features of citizenship and civic leadership under the American Constitution. Finally, this collection offers various suggestions about how to revitalize citizenship and civic leadership through an education that is conducive to a renewal of American civic practices and institutions.

The essays in Free Speech and Intellectual Diversity in Higher Education reflect diverse perspectives on one of the most pressing issues in higher education--the controversies over freedom of speech and its relation to intellectual diversity. Does the First Amendment apply on campuses and do its principles clarify or obscure the issues surrounding campus speech? What, after all, is the basis for those principles, and how do they relate to the purposes of the university? Is free speech truly effective without a diversity of perspectives, and to what extent is such diversity found at universities today? Does free speech discourage the inclusion of minorities or previously excluded groups? Are there specific policies that can address the issue of free speech on campuses today in ways that are fair to all parties and to the interests at stake?

The essays in Free Speech and Intellectual Diversity in Higher Education reflect diverse perspectives on one of the most pressing issues in higher education--the controversies over freedom of speech and its relation to intellectual diversity. Does the First Amendment apply on campuses and do its principles clarify or obscure the issues surrounding campus speech? What, after all, is the basis for those principles, and how do they relate to the purposes of the university? Is free speech truly effective without a diversity of perspectives, and to what extent is such diversity found at universities today? Does free speech discourage the inclusion of minorities or previously excluded groups? Are there specific policies that can address the issue of free speech on campuses today in ways that are fair to all parties and to the interests at stake?

Rethinking Utopia is a collection that discusses utopian thinking in relation to different philosophical themes. It seeks utopianism in political theory (particularly in Kant and Derrida), populism, Turkish Islamism, international law, and it fleshes out themes of modernism and classless society in the selected utopian examples. By discussing and showing the relationship between utopia and these topics, the book shows that the range of subjects related to utopias is wider than the current literature suggests. The book attempts to bring together academic fields, which are not cross-fertilized in the existing debates on utopia, by building bridges between actual politics and futuristic visions. On the one hand, it looks at utopia as a means to think about and reconfigure contemporary politics (as in the case of international law and populist politics); on the other hand, it investigates how different philosophical/literary texts, from widely-known More and Le Guin to lesser-known Turkish Islamists Kisakürek, Karakoç and Özel, imagine their distinct utopian vision where a new form of anarchist, classless or Islamist society could be possible.

What is an American? Bruce P. Frohnen and Ted V. McAllister argue that we are, in fact, a distinct people with our own common character that transcends race, gender, ethnicity, and class. They find in our current political conflicts a crisis of identity that stems from changes, not just in our political, economic, and technological environment, but in our ability to evaluate—and to value—the personalities that shaped our way of life. The history of the American character is filled with triumph as well as tragedy, and with virtue as well as vice. It is a story of cooperation and conflict among an unruly people, who from earliest days questioned authority even as they worked to establish communities of faith, family, and local freedom under extreme circumstances.

What is an American? Bruce P. Frohnen and Ted V. McAllister argue that we are, in fact, a distinct people with our own common character that transcends race, gender, ethnicity, and class. They find in our current political conflicts a crisis of identity that stems from changes, not just in our political, economic, and technological environment, but in our ability to evaluate—and to value—the personalities that shaped our way of life. The history of the American character is filled with triumph as well as tragedy, and with virtue as well as vice. It is a story of cooperation and conflict among an unruly people, who from earliest days questioned authority even as they worked to establish communities of faith, family, and local freedom under extreme circumstances.

In Memory and the Political Art in Plato’s Statesman, Catherine Craig provides an original reading of Plato’s Statesman by bringing memory to the foreground. The dialogue itself explores various components of political memory, such as common speech, myths, and laws, and argues that these create a framework in which we live our political lives. Each of these aspects of political memory serves as an image to move the individual to rational inquiry. In this way, the dialogue suggests that political memory can serve as a starting point for philosophic recollection, allowing for a move from knowledge of the rational soul to first principles. Craig shows how Plato weaves together the personal, political, and philosophic dimensions of memory, providing a richer understanding of the significance of memory for political life. Beyond providing an analysis of the Statesman, this book helps readers consider the challenges of political memory in contemporary political life, while also arguing that memory mediates between universal, rational principles and the particular ends and circumstances of human life.

This anthology provides detailed examinations of the major themes and perspectives of the paleoconservatives as political thinkers and activists. A long forgotten and persistently disregarded group within the American Right, but their ideas show a remarkable staying power. Paleoconservatives, as this anthology undertakes to show, have been among the most original and insightful representatives of the Right over the last thirty years but because of internal quarrels and their conspicuous defiance of the conservative establishment, they have become isolated voices. Almost everything about the paleoconservatives should be of interest to historians of political movements, including the process by which they became a marginalized force on the intellectual right and their periodic attempts to build bridges across the political spectrum.

This anthology provides detailed examinations of the major themes and perspectives of the paleoconservatives as political thinkers and activists. A long forgotten and persistently disregarded group within the American Right, but their ideas show a remarkable staying power. Paleoconservatives, as this anthology undertakes to show, have been among the most original and insightful representatives of the Right over the last thirty years but because of internal quarrels and their conspicuous defiance of the conservative establishment, they have become isolated voices. Almost everything about the paleoconservatives should be of interest to historians of political movements, including the process by which they became a marginalized force on the intellectual right and their periodic attempts to build bridges across the political spectrum.

Eric Voegelin on China and Universal Humanity: A Study of Voegelin’s Hermeneutic Empirical Paradigm aims to speak to comparative political theorists, philosophers, historians, sinologists, and anyone interested in understanding our current disorders and exploring a culturally non-specific paradigm for understanding equivalent practices and patterns in the global age, especially China and the West. Specifically, this book looks at Eric Voegelin’s (1901–1985) Theory of Order. It focuses on Voegelin’s interpretation of order/disorder, his penetration of the Tianxia (the Chinese Ecumene), and his comparison of two representative heterogenous Ecumenes in the ancient West and East. In doing so, the book explores the issue of universal humankind and the nature of order-searching.

Renewing America’s Civic Compact addresses the chief challenges and principal tensions in the operation of our civil society in order to consider possible paths forward. The meritocracy, multiculturalism, issues of race, technology, and populist nationalism in American democracy today are some of the issues that have created more tensions to American public life. Chapters address the condition of civil conversation within the university and across American society. This collection then engages debates over the continued relevance and durability of liberal ideas and institutions; whether we have accessible means and resources to channel digital technology more fruitfully for the sake of human achievement and well-being; and how some have endeavored to revitalize the American civic vocation through both scholarly and practical education. Finally, the volume closes with a call to restore civic friendship, properly understood, as the foundation for renewing America’s civic compact.

In the 21st century, political debates appear to center on fundamental conflicts between “the people” and “elites.” Most of these discussions emphasize strategies to protect and empower the oppressed masses against a predatory ruling class. Much of classical political thought, however, was written from an aristocratic point of view: that is, it ascribed paramount importance to the question of elite formation. Assuming inequality as a permanent feature of human associations, what virtues would elites need to have, what institutions and traditions would cultivate the best qualities in members of the ruling class, and curb their extravagances. Aristocratic Voices: Forgotten Arguments about Virtue, Authority, and Inequality consists of essays by political theorists who explore these questions in the works of aristocratic thinkers, both ancient and modern. The volume includes analyses of aristocratic virtues, interpretations of aristocratic assemblies and constitutions, both historic and contemporary, as well as critiques of liberal virtues and institutions. Essays on Plutarch, Nicholas of Cusa, Marsilius of Padua, Sir Thomas Elyot, John Henry Newman, Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl, Henry Adams, Friedrich Nietzsche, Irving Babbitt, Oswald Spengler, Julius Evola, and Robert Nisbet explore ways of preserving and adapting the valuable aspects of the aristocratic ethos to the needs of modern societies.

Regimes of Terror and Memory: Beyond the Uniqueness of the Holocaust illustrates how convenient it has become in r not recognizing other regimes of terror in recent history. Manfred Henningsen compares the memory of Nazi Germany’s macro criminal record with the remembrances of Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s China, the Japanese Empire, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Sukarno’s Indonesia . He discusses the cultural reasons for these memory distortions in the West and in the societies that have experienced these macro crimes of genocidal violence. Henningsen has embedded his search in an autobiographical context that begins with his birth, upbringing and education in Germany from 1938 to 1969, continues after his move to Hawaii in 1970 in the American political culture and becomes more realized through extensive traveling in Europe, Asia, and Africa.

The noted professor David Walsh has called for a new "personalist language of persons," with vast implications in a variety of academic fields. Moving away from a language that refers to persons as ‘things’, and seeks to find connections and relations within all of us. In Personalism for the Twenty-First Century: Essays in Honor of David Walsh, a diverse group of scholars apply and extend Walsh's unique personalist approach to political theory, theology, and current events. It is a collection of refreshingly original essays for those interested in exploring the potential of a renewed personalist thought for addressing the crises of our afflicted age.

Ever since Plato made the case for the primacy of ideas over names, philosophy has tended to elevate the primacy of its ideas over the more common understanding and insights that are circulated in the names drawn upon by the community. Commencing with a critique of Plato’s original philosophical decision, Cristaudo takes up the argument put forward by Thomas Reid that modern philosophy has generally continued along the ‘way of ideas’ to its own detriment. His argument identifies the major paradigmatic developments in modern philosophy commencing from the new metaphysics pioneered by Descartes up until the analytic tradition and the anti-domination philosophies which now dominate social and political thought. Along the way he argues that the paradigmatic shifts and break-downs that have occurred in modern philosophy are due to being beholden to an inadequate sovereign idea, or small cluster of ideas, which contribute to the occlusion of important philosophical questions. In addition to chapters on Descartes, and the analytic tradition and anti-domination philosophies, his critical history of modern philosophy explores the core ideas of Locke, Berkeley, Malebranche, Locke, Hume, Reid, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, Marx, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Husserl and Heidegger. The common thread uniting these disparate philosophies is what Cristaudo calls ‘ideaism’ (sic.). Rather than expanding our reasoning capacity, ‘ideaism’ contributes to philosophers imposing dictatorial principles or models that ultimately occlude and distort our understanding of our participative role within reality. Drawing upon thinkers such as Pascal, Vico, Hamann, Herder, Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber and Eugen Rosensock-Huessy Cristaudo advances his argument by drawing upon the importance of encounter, dialogue, and a more philosophical anthropological and open approach to philosophy.

Ever since Plato made the case for the primacy of ideas over names, philosophy has tended to elevate the primacy of its ideas over the more common understanding and insights that are circulated in the names drawn upon by the community. Commencing with a critique of Plato’s original philosophical decision, Cristaudo takes up the argument put forward by Thomas Reid that modern philosophy has generally continued along the ‘way of ideas’ to its own detriment. His argument identifies the major paradigmatic developments in modern philosophy commencing from the new metaphysics pioneered by Descartes up until the analytic tradition and the anti-domination philosophies which now dominate social and political thought. Along the way he argues that the paradigmatic shifts and break-downs that have occurred in modern philosophy are due to being beholden to an inadequate sovereign idea, or small cluster of ideas, which contribute to the occlusion of important philosophical questions. In addition to chapters on Descartes, and the analytic tradition and anti-domination philosophies, his critical history of modern philosophy explores the core ideas of Locke, Berkeley, Malebranche, Locke, Hume, Reid, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, Marx, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Husserl and Heidegger. The common thread uniting these disparate philosophies is what Cristaudo calls ‘ideaism’ (sic.). Rather than expanding our reasoning capacity, ‘ideaism’ contributes to philosophers imposing dictatorial principles or models that ultimately occlude and distort our understanding of our participative role within reality. Drawing upon thinkers such as Pascal, Vico, Hamann, Herder, Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber and Eugen Rosensock-Huessy Cristaudo advances his argument by drawing upon the importance of encounter, dialogue, and a more philosophical anthropological and open approach to philosophy.

Cosmopolitanism is one of the most venerable intellectual traditions in the history of political philosophy. From the ancient Greek Diogenes’ claim to be “a citizen of the world” through to Kant’s Enlightenment vision of a world government and even into our own time, the idea of cosmopolitanism has stirred the moral imagination of many throughout history. Arguably the Brexit referendum result and the election of Donald Trump in 2016 marked the first major public repudiation of the transnational, globalizing cosmopolitan ideals that have arguably dominated politics in the liberal democratic West since the end of the Cold War. This volume reconsiders cosmopolitanism and its discontents in the age of Brexit and Trump by bringing together the great thinkers in the history of political philosophy and contemporary reflections on the problems and possibilities of international relations, human rights, multiculturalism, and regnant theories of democracy and the state.

Friedland presents the Laws, Plato's longest dialogue, as a drama that must be interpreted with close and sustained attention to each of its three characters. He argues that Megillos, seen by most commentators as the most obtuse character in the dialogue, is in fact a man of few words but of surprising capacity for reflection. This capacity, and the crisis to which it brings him, is key to understanding the Laws' exploration of human nature, permanently drawn both to what is beyond and beneath it. The political project outlined in the dialogue, with its almost programmatic focus on the mundane, is a genuinely philosophical opportunity to consider the relationship between competing demands for human beings - between divine and animal nature, and also including the always tense but necessary antagonisms and affinities between politics and human sexuality.

Friedland presents the Laws, Plato's longest dialogue, as a drama that must be interpreted with close and sustained attention to each of its three characters. He argues that Megillos, seen by most commentators as the most obtuse character in the dialogue, is in fact a man of few words but of surprising capacity for reflection. This capacity, and the crisis to which it brings him, is key to understanding the Laws' exploration of human nature, permanently drawn both to what is beyond and beneath it. The political project outlined in the dialogue, with its almost programmatic focus on the mundane, is a genuinely philosophical opportunity to consider the relationship between competing demands for human beings - between divine and animal nature, and also including the always tense but necessary antagonisms and affinities between politics and human sexuality.

The Political Philosophy of the European City is a courageous and wide-ranging panorama of the political life and thought of the European city. Its novel hypothesis is that modern Western political thought, since the time of Hobbes and Locke, underestimated the political significance and value of the community of urban citizens, called ‘civitas’, united by local customs, or even a formal or informal urban constitution at a certain location, which had a recognizable countenance, with natural and man-made, architectural marks, called ‘urbs’. Recalling the golden age of the European city in ancient Greece and Rome, and offering a detailed description of its turbulent life in the Renaissance Italian city-states, it makes a case for the city not only as a hotbed of modern democracy, but also as a remedy for some of the distortions of political life in the alienated contemporary, centralized, Weberian bureaucratic state. Overcoming the north-south divide, or the core and periphery partition, the book’s material is particularly rich in Central European case studies. All in all, it is an enjoyable read which offers sound arguments to revisit the offer of the small and middle-sized European town, in search of a more sustainable future for Europe.

The Political Philosophy of the European City is a courageous and wide-ranging panorama of the political life and thought of the European city. Its novel hypothesis is that modern Western political thought, since the time of Hobbes and Locke, underestimated the political significance and value of the community of urban citizens, called ‘civitas’, united by local customs, or even a formal or informal urban constitution at a certain location, which had a recognizable countenance, with natural and man-made, architectural marks, called ‘urbs’. Recalling the golden age of the European city in ancient Greece and Rome, and offering a detailed description of its turbulent life in the Renaissance Italian city-states, it makes a case for the city not only as a hotbed of modern democracy, but also as a remedy for some of the distortions of political life in the alienated contemporary, centralized, Weberian bureaucratic state. Overcoming the north-south divide, or the core and periphery partition, the book’s material is particularly rich in Central European case studies. All in all, it is an enjoyable read which offers sound arguments to revisit the offer of the small and middle-sized European town, in search of a more sustainable future for Europe.