Conserving Politics: Michael Oakeshott and Political Theory

1976 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 446-463
Author(s):  
Benjamin R. Barber
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
Karl Popper ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Logical Foundations ◽  
Michael Oakeshott ◽  
As If

THE CONVERSATION (AS MICHAEL OAKESHOTT WOULD CALL IT) THAT is political theory finds itself these days starved for interlocutors. There are talkers aplenty, but they do little listening and pursue their several idioms not for the pleasure of language but in order to urge positions and promote interests. Philosophers like Rawls and Nozick join the conversation in order to demonstrate, thanks to the irrefutable logical foundations they presume to discover for justice, how most effectively to conclude it. Liberal sce tics like Karl Popper trust talk no more than philosophy, and opt for straightforward problem-solving. For Marxists, conversation can only obscure or reveal action – and action is where (as Marxism's American roponents might put it) the action is. In each of these modes of discourse, the goal is advocacy, certainty, justification – a resolution of, not a conversation about political issues. Moreover, as if the ranks of conversationalists were not already decimated, death has, in the last year or two, silenced the voices of three giants: John Plamenatz, Leo Strauss and Hannah Arendt.

scholarly journals On thinking

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirkie Smit
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Martin Heidegger ◽  
Ludwig Wittgenstein ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Public Theology ◽  
Karl Popper ◽  
Theological Ethics ◽  
The Mind

The paper engages Wentzel van Huyssteen’s lifelong fascination and occupation with thinking, for him particularly thinking as problem-solving. Responding to Van Huyssteen’s own invitation, it brings Hannah Arendt’s thinking on thinking in conversation with his own thinking by considering five crucial characteristics of the ways in which she both described and practised thinking over decades. These characteristics include: her thinking as responsibility, thinking in dark times, thinking without banister, thinking in public and thinking as thanksgiving. In the process the paper revisits all her well-known books and essays on these themes, whilst also pointing to some of the roots of her thinking in the similarly classic thinking on thinking of her mentor Martin Heidegger. It concludes by pointing to the major conflict between philosophical traditions concerned with rational problem-solving and unravelling puzzles, respectively, exemplified by the reputedly shocking ‘poker’ encounter between Karl Popper and Ludwig Wittgenstein, and expresses hope for ongoing conversation about this seeming conflict over thinking with Van Huyssteen and his work.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: Thinking about thinking, the essay addresses methodological questions in public theology, in interdisciplinary conversation with philosophy and political theory. Distinguishing faculties of the mind – thinking, willing, judging – it challenges which kinds of questions belong to public theology, with particular implications for doctrinal theology, theological ethics and political theology.

Democracy in Ancient Greek Political Theory: 1906–2006

2006 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 350-367
Author(s):  
John R. Wallach
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
Karl Popper ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Ancient Athens ◽  
Politics And Culture ◽  
Critical Discourses ◽  
Political Realm

The notion of ‘democracy’ as found in ancient Athens and the work of ancient Greek political theorists has crucially functioned as a critical, distant mirror for major authors of twentieth-century political thought — starting importantly with Ernest Barker but continuing along diverse paths in the works of Karl Popper, Leo Strauss, Hannah Arendt in the wake ofWorld War II, as well as for recent theorists of democracy who have read Athenian practices and critical discourses against the grain of contemporary philosophy, politics, and culture. In all of them, images of ‘democracy’ in ancient Greek political theory operate simultaneously as historical discoveries, theoretical constructions, and rhetorical supplements for critical renditions of the political realm. As such, they evidence the slippery centrality of ideas of democracy in ancient Greek political thought for the necessary, problematic, and divergent efforts of recent political theorists to justify their ideas as historically rooted, philosophically true, and politically relevant.

scholarly journals POLITIK PEMUSNAHAN DAN PEMUSNAHAN POLITIK : Telaah Kritis Atas Konsep Hannah Arendt Tentang Totalitarisme

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 129
Author(s):  
Mathias Daven
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Concentration Camp ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
Total Domination ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Totalitarian Regime

If we wish to understand a totalitarian system as a whole, we need first to understand the central role of the concentration camp as a laboratorium to experiment in total domination. Arendt’s analysis of totalitarianism in the twentieth century shows how a totalitarian regime cannot survive without terror; and terror will not be effective without concentration camps. Experiments in concentration camps had as their purpose, apart from wiping out any freedom or spontaneity, the abolishing of space between human beings, abolishing space for politics. Thus, totalitarianism did not mirror only the politics of extinction, but also the extinction of politics. As a way forward, Arendt analyses political theory that forces the reader to understand power no longer under the rubric of domination or violence – although this avenue is open – but rather under the rubric of freedom. Arendt is convinced that the life of a destroyed nation can be restored by mutual forgiveness and mutual promises, two abilities rooted in action. Political action, as with other acts, is identical with the ability to commence something new. Keywords: Totalitarisme, antisemitisme, imperialisme, dominasi, teror, kebebasan, kedaulatan, kamp konsentrasi, politik, ideologi, tindakan

The Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt Edited by Dana Villa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 320p. $55.00 cloth, $20.00 paper.

2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 627-628
Author(s):  
Jeffrey C. Isaac
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
The Political ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Cambridge University

This is an excellent collection of essays about the political thought of Hannah Arendt. Its editor, Dana Villa, has assembled a first-rate group of scholars, many of whom are already well known for their contributions to Arendt studies. The volume is distinguished by the high quality of its contributions and by the effort of so many of its contributors to go beyond standard lines of exegesis to raise interesting questions and to press the boundaries of Arendt commentary. Arendt's work has received a great deal of attention from political theorists in recent years. The Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt makes clear the richness of her thinking, the range of her concerns, and the ability of her writings to inspire creative commentary and constructive political theory.

Schreiben im Exil

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Bormuth
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
Franz Kafka ◽  
Thomas Mann ◽  
Karl Popper ◽  
Gottfried Benn ◽  
Stefan Zweig

Schreiben im Exil ist im »Jahrhundert der Extreme« ein Politikum, das in Deutschland auch die »Innere Emigration« betrifft. Dies zeigen Porträts von Gottfried Benn bis Stefan Zweig, von Hannah Arendt bis Tony Judt. Schreiben im Exil ist im »Jahrhundert der Extreme« ein Politikum. Die Essays blicken auf deutsche wie europäische Intellektuelle in politisch ganz verschiedenen Lebenssituationen. Gottfried Benn und Felix Hartlaub schrieben innerhalb Deutschlands für die Schublade, während Hans Scholl intellektuellen Widerstand leistete. Thomas Mann blickte weithin zornig auf die »Innere Emigration« und kehrte aus dem Exil nur kurz in beide Teile Deutschlands zurück. Erich Auerbach skizzierte seit 1942 in Istanbul das Passionsmotiv in der Weltliteratur. Für Stefan Zweig endet das in Brasilien mit seinem Freitod. Die philosophischen Vorformen des totalitären Denkens untersuchte Karl Popper in Neuseeland seit 1945. Seine politischen Auswirkungen nach der Oktoberrevolution und im Kalten Krieg demonstrieren jeweils anders die Lebenswerke von Ossip Mandelstam und Gustaw Herling. Anfang des 21. Jahrhunderts bilanzieren Tony Judt und Adam Zagajewski in Ideengeschichte und Poesie das kosmopolitische Exil, das Hannah Arendt im Namen des jüdischen Paria Franz Kafka in New York schon während des Holocaust umrissen hatte.

: Visions of Freedom

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noël O’Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Method ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Karl Popper ◽  
Michael Oakeshott ◽  
Genuine Knowledge ◽  
The Human Condition

This chapter considers four of the most influential visions that characterized the response to totalitarianism, and in particular the various concepts of limit they provide, since those are the basis of the opposition which each vision sought to oppose to the totalitarian ideal. The first vision is the positivist one of Karl Popper, for whom the logic of scientific method offers the only genuine knowledge of man and society. The second great vision is that of Berlin, who abandons positivism and instead presents the human condition in tragic terms, on the grounds that it is intrinsically characterized by a plurality of incommensurable and conflicting values. A third vision situates positivism in a naturalistic portrait of the human condition. Finally, there is the ‘civil’ vision of Michael Oakeshott, which is ultimately grounded in a radical, anti-reductionist conception of human freedom.

Jacques Rancière

In the Street ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 121-150
Author(s):  
Çiğdem Çidam
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Theory Of Education ◽  
Democratic Action ◽  
Action Taking ◽  
As If

This chapter demonstrates that Rancière’s journey to democratic theory started in the aftermath of May 1968 with his efforts to overcome the problematic transformation of political theory into “a theory of education.” For Rancière, unpredictability is integral to democratic politics. Thus, in an anti-Rousseauian move, he emphasizes the theatrical aspect of democratic action: taking on a role other than who they are, acting as if they are a part in a given social order in which they have no part, political actors stage their equality, disrupting the existing distribution of the sensible. Rancière’s focus on the moments of disruption, however, opens him to the charge of reducing democratic politics to immediate acts of negation. Insofar as he erases the role of intermediating practices in the stagings of equality, Rancière imposes on his accounts a kind of purity that his own work, with its emphasis on broken, polemical voices, cautions against.

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