scholarly journals Political Theology and COVID-19: Agamben’s Critique of Science as a New “Pandemic Religion”

Open Theology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 501-513
Author(s):  
Guillermo Andrés Duque Silva ◽  
Cristina Del Prado Higuera
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Biopolitical Power ◽  
State Responses ◽  
New Religion

Abstract The philosopher Giorgio Agamben has reacted to the coronavirus crisis in a way that markedly contrasts with most other positions in contemporary political philosophy. His position has been described as irrational, politically incorrect, and unfair toward the victims of COVID-19. In this article, we delve into the foundations of this peculiar, pessimistic, and controversial reaction. From Agamben’s conceptual framework, we will explain how state responses to the COVID-19 crisis have turned science into a new religion from the dogmas of which various strategies have been developed in order for states to exercise biopolitical power under theological guises.

Global Justice in Lutheran Political Theology

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-58
Author(s):  
Carl-Henric Grenholm
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Equal Distribution ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Sharp Distinction ◽  
Main Thesis ◽  
Theories Of Justice ◽  
Influential Theory

The purpose of this article is to examine the contributions that might be given by Lutheran political theology to the discourse on global justice. The article offers a critical examination of three different theories of global justice within political philosophy. Contractarian theories are criticized, and a thesis is that it is plausible to argue that justice can be understood as liberation from oppression. From this perspective the article gives an analysis of an influential theory of justice within Lutheran ethics. According to this theory justice is not an equal distribution but an arrangement where the subordinate respect the authority of those in power. This theory is related to a sharp distinction between law and gospel. The main thesis of the article is that Lutheran political theology should take a different approach if it aims to give a constructive contribution to theories of justice. This means that Lutheran ethics should not be based on Creation and reason alone – it should also be based on Christology and Eschatology.

Leo Strauss and the Concrete Order of Law

Living Law ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 191-236
Author(s):  
Miguel Vatter
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Philosophical Foundation ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Mosaic Law

This chapter is dedicated to Leo Strauss’s attempt to recover the medieval Islamic and Jewish conceptions of the prophet as a political founder of the perfect legal order. The chapter situates Strauss’s political theology within the Weimar debate between proponents of legality and defenders of an extra-legal conception of legitimacy. It argues that Strauss turns back to the ancient conception of law as nomos in order to give a philosophical foundation to legality beyond Christian conceptions of legitimacy. Christian political theology has always pivoted around the polemical claim that Mosaic law was “tyrannical” in some way. Strauss’s contribution to Jewish political theology consists in examining Jewish and Islamic prophetology by formulating it in terms of the so-called tyrannical teaching of Platonic political philosophy. The chapter shows that Strauss ultimately held to the view of a profound compatibility and mutual need between the traditions of Greek philosophy and biblical prophecy.

scholarly journals HEINRICH MEIER E LA SFIDA DELLA TEOLOGIA POLITICA

Il Politico ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-116
Author(s):  
Marco Menon
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
The Political ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
The Core ◽  
Political Problem

This paper offers a short overview of Heinrich Meier’s books on Carl Schmitt’s political theology, namely Carl Schmitt und Leo Strauss, and Die Lehre Carl Schmitts. These writings, published respectively in 1988 and 1994, and recently translated into Italian by Cantagalli (Siena), have raised both enthusiastical appraisal and fierce criticism. The gist of Meier’s interpretation is the following: the core of Schmitt’s thought is his Christian faith. Schmitt’s political doctrine must be unterstood as political theology, that is, as a political doctrine which claims to be grounded on divine revelation. The fundamental attitude of the political theologian, therefore, is pious obedience to God’s unfathomable will. The hypothesis of the paper is that Meier’s reading, which from a historical point of view might appear as highly controversial, is essentially the attempt to articulate the fundamental alternative between political theology and political philosophy. Meier’s alleged stylization of Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss is a form of “platonism”, i.e., a theoretical purification aimed at a clear formulation of what he means by “the theologico-political problem”.

What Happens in Vegas: Hunter S. Thompson's Political Philosophy

2012 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-170
Author(s):  
JASON VREDENBURG
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Las Vegas ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Homo Sacer ◽  
Hardt And Negri ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Antonio Negri ◽  
The Relationship

In the forty years since its publication, Hunter S. Thompson's most famous work, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, has received relatively little attention from scholars, in spite of its continuing popularity and acknowledged influence. Because the narrative is so thoroughly rooted in what Thompson called “this foul year of Our Lord, 1971,” the novel is generally approached (when it is discussed at all) as a historical artifact, a gonzo first draft of history, with its fortunes rising and falling with the counterculture of the 1960s. This article argues that Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, far from being merely an epitaph for the 1960s, actually anticipates the more recent work of political theorists Giorgio Agamben, Michael Hardt, and Antonio Negri. Thompson's work, like Agamben's, concerns the emergence of the state of exception and the homo sacer as new paradigms for the relationship between citizen and state; and, like Hardt and Negri, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas attempts to formulate a response to the emergence of global empire.

scholarly journals Golem i Lewiatan. Judaistyczne źródła teologii politycznej Thomasa Hobbesa

Politeja ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2(59)) ◽  
pp. 207-232
Author(s):  
Tomasz Tulejski ◽  
Arnold Zawadzki
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Kingdom Of God ◽  
The State ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Church

Golem and Leviathan: Judaic Sources of Thomas Hobbes’s Political Theology In the article, the Authors point out that Hobbes’s political philosophy (and in fact theology) in the heterodox layer is inspired not only by Judeo-Christianity, but also by rabbinic Judaism. According to them, only adopting such a Judaic and in a sense syncretistic perspective enabled Hobbes to come to such radical conclusions, hostile towards the Catholic and Calvinist conceptions of the state and the Church. In their argument they focused on three elements that are most important for Hobbesian concept of sovereignty: the covenant between YHWH and the Chosen People, the concept of the Kingdom of God, salvation and the afterlife, and the concept of a messiah.

scholarly journals On the advent of the Reformation: COVID-19 pandemic as a predictor of social and value transformations

2021 ◽  
pp. 42-55
Author(s):  
Dmitrii Aleksandrovich Golovushkin
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
New World ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Value Shift ◽  
New Religion ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
New System

This article is dedicated to the problems and prospects of the expected/commenced social and value shift, which was stimulated and legitimized by the COVID-19 pandemic. For a long time and on different levels (universalism/particularism), the modern world has been seeking the new system of “individual – society – state”, as well as the corresponding value basis. Being simultaneously a global and individual challenge, the COVID-19 pandemic allows launching and testing the available “projects of the Reformation”, as well as laying the foundation for the future projects. This is the sort of “shimmering in the near distance”, version of the “disciplinary revolution”, which allows officially speaking of the “new world”. However, in order the “motivation” for the new social reality is “for conscience, rather than fear”, it requires the value revolution (“revolution in theology”), which would formulate and offer the new normative attitudes. In this regard, the use of the conceptual framework of the “Reformation” and its patterns leads towards the comprehension of importance of the value foundation of the expected / commenced social transformation. Even of greater importance is the understanding who forms this value foundation. The article does not provide specific answers to the questions which new system of “individual – society – state”, new ethos or “new religion” entails the COVID-19 pandemic. The consequences of such “revolutions” manifest later on and are rarely predictable. This article aims to be the “optics” that allows seeing the inner and the outer the context of the COVID-2019.

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