The Origin of the Political

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto Esposito
Keyword(s):  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
Common Origin ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Simone Weil ◽  
Political Traditions ◽  
The Common ◽  
Point Of Departure

This book explores the conceptual trajectories of two of the twentieth century's most vital thinkers of the political: Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil. Taking Homer's Iliad as the common origin and point of departure for our understanding of Western philosophical and political traditions, the book examines the foundational relation between war and the political. Drawing actively and extensively on Arendt's and Weil's voluminous writings, but also sparring with thinkers from Marx to Heidegger, the book traverses the relation between polemos and polis, between Greece, Rome, God, force, technicity, evil, and the extension of the Christian imperial tradition, while at the same time delineating the conceptual and hermeneutic ground for the development of the notion and practice of “the impolitical.” Within the book, Arendt and Weil emerge “in the inverse of the other's thought, in the shadow of the other's light,” to “think what the thought of the other excludes not as something that is foreign, but rather as something that appears unthinkable and, for that very reason, remains to be thought.” Moving slowly toward their conceptualizations of love and heroism, the book unravels the West's illusory metaphysical dream of peace, obliging us to reevaluate ceaselessly what it means to be responsible in the wake of past and contemporary forms of war.

Partitions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto Esposito
Keyword(s):  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Social Sphere ◽  
The Social ◽  
Simone Weil ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter considers the relationship between Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil. It argues that each one thinks in the inverse of the other's thought, in the shadow of the other's light, in the silence of the other's voice, in the emptiness of the other's plenitude. To think what the thought of the other excludes not as something that is foreign, but rather as something that appears unthinkable and, for that very reason, remains to be thought. It is precisely this “remainder,” this “boundary,” this “partition” that divides while joining and separates while combining that is the object of the present analysis. The chapter then turns examines the question for which the two thinkers appear to be most distant: the relation between action and work, between praxis and poiesis, between the political sphere and the social sphere.

Towards the Socratic Mission: Imitatio Socratis

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-222
Author(s):  
Mathias G. Parding
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Climate ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Political Associations ◽  
The One ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
The Church

Abstract It is known that Kierkegaard’s relation to politics was problematic and marked by a somewhat reactionary stance. The nature of this problematic relation, however, will be shown to lie in the tension between his double skepticism of the order of establishment [det Bestående] on the one hand, and the political associations of his age on the other. In this tension he is immersed, trembling between Scylla and Charybdis. On the one hand Kierkegaard is hesitant to support the progressive political movements of the time due to his skepticism about the principle of association in the socio-psychological climate of leveling and envy. On the other hand, his dubious support of the order of the establishment, in particular the Church and Bishop Mynster, becomes increasingly problematic. The importance of 1848 is crucial in this regard since this year marks the decisive turn in Kierkegaard’s authorship. Using the letters to Kolderup-Rosenvinge in the wake of the cataclysmic events of 1848 as my point of departure, I wish to elucidate the pathway towards what Kierkegaard himself understands as his Socratic mission.

scholarly journals Promoting Hybridity: The Politics of the New Macau Identity

2010 ◽  
Vol 203 ◽  
pp. 656-674 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wai-man Lam
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Special Administrative Region ◽  
Administrative Region ◽  
Multiple Identity ◽  
Economic Significance ◽  
Prime Task ◽  
Political Traditions ◽  
Cultural Hybrid

AbstractThis article traces the unique process of reconstructing the identity of the Macau Special Administrative Region and its people after the political resumption to China in 1999, and the political and economic significance of the reconstruction. As in other postcolonial contexts, identity is an arena of political contest where various discourses that embody re-appropriation of political traditions and legacies criss-cross. In Macau, the post-handover identity comprises the local, the national and the international components, with Macau characterized as a historical, colonial/cultural hybrid and economic object. In fact, the Macau identity after 1999 represents a re-appropriation of the image of colonial Macau propagated by the Portuguese administration since the 1980s. Also, identity making has been a process of incorporating instead of repressing or eliminating the identities of “the other,” and building a stand-alone national identity is not the prime task in the reconstruction of an identity. Rather, multiple identity components are deliberately incorporated and promoted. The success of the process has fabricated Macau's relatively smooth reintegration with China and enhanced the legitimacy of its new government.

Collective Identity in National Anthems

2019 ◽  
pp. 45-64
Author(s):  
Hesham Mesbah
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Political System ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
National Symbols ◽  
The Common

This chapter explores how national anthems of African and non-African Arab nations reflect a collective national identity. The national anthems of 22 Arab countries were analyzed using the textual thematic analysis to identify the common attributes of national identity in these anthems and the variance in referring to political entities, national symbols, and natural artifacts according to the political system (republic vs. monarchy) in the country. The analysis shows five thematic components of the national identity presented by those anthems, with an emphasis on the themes of religion and local political leaders in the anthems of monarchies. On the other hand, republics base their identity on religion, history, and nation-related natural and national artifacts. The anthems of the republics show a higher level of complexity (thematic richness) and more tendency to use emotionally charged, forceful language, in contrast to the anthems of the monarchies.

Politics and Virtue: Radical Orthodoxy and Wisdom for the Common Good

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 317-331
Author(s):  
Scott Cowdell
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
The Political ◽  
Radical Orthodoxy ◽  
Global Capital ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Economic Liberalism ◽  
John Milbank ◽  
Secular Modernity ◽  
Political Traditions ◽  
The Common

Abstract This article reflects on political virtue in conversation with an influential manifesto from English Radical Orthodoxy: The Politics of Virtue, by John Milbank and Adrian Pabst. They see social and economic liberalism as destroying a sustaining metaphysics of communal abiding, with classical and Judaeo-Christian roots. They commend an ‘alternative modern’ version of this past, albeit through British and European political traditions and arrangements preserving elements of its ‘conservative socialism.’ Yet they undersell the spiritual capacities of secular modernity, also the political virtue of principled, non-ideological pragmatism. And they oversell the actual pacific character of that idealised past, since such closed worlds required the discrete use of violence to maintain order and boundaries. A more mainstream Christian account of political virtue today would see liberal autonomy augmented by a revived communitarianism, along with the civilizing of global capital.

scholarly journals Attacks on the Judiciary: Undercurrents of a Political versus Legal Constitutionalism Dilemma?

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Herbert Kawadza
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Space ◽  
Common Thread ◽  
The Common ◽  
Political Backlash

A number of landmark judicial review decisions and the resultant political backlash are arguably to supportive of the claim that political and legal constitutionalism are entrenched in South Africa. The common thread in the legislature and executive's reaction to judicial review decisions is that government supremacy is under threat from legal constitutionalism. More specifically, there is a perception that courts are meddling in the political space through judgments that are aimed at weakening the government's authority and power. Nonetheless, such decisions have had an effect of reinforcing the judiciary's legal constitutional role of reviewing the lawfulness of the other branches' activities. There is need for strategies to minimize this tension as the continued antagonism can have unintended consequences such as the delegitimisation of the judiciary    

scholarly journals Arendt, Koselleck, and Begreifen: Rethinking Politics and Concepts in Times of Crisis

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vlasta Jalušič
Keyword(s):  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Thinking ◽  
Political Tradition ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Common ◽  
Multiple Breaks ◽  
The One ◽  
Historical Periods

Reinhard Koselleck has long been regarded as a particularly eminent theorist of socio-political concepts, while Hannah Arendt had not been in focus as a conceptual author until recent times. This article explores the common thinking space between Arendt and Koselleck through their thesis about the gap, rupture, crisis, or break in the tradition of political thinking and historical periods and how this is linked to their notion of conceptuality, i.e. Begreifen (understanding). Despite the impression that each of them focused on the one main break between the past and the future, Arendt and Koselleck both studied multiple breaks and crises in the Western political tradition. The article attempts to show how their distinctive thinking and rethinking of political concepts (Begreifen) are related to these breaks through several direct and indirect encounters and how these are both close and apart at the same time. While they have different concepts of politics and the political, their understanding of the breaks in time and crises can be read as complementary, especially considering their concern with returning the responsibility for actions and concepts to the human sphere.

The common origin approach to comparing Indian and Greek philosophy

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Allen
Keyword(s):  
Common Origin ◽  
The Other ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
European Origin ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
The Two Cultures ◽  
Five Elements ◽  
The Common

This chapter focuses on two kinds of similarity between the two cultures that relate to their shared Indo-European origin. One is a series of correspondences between the journeys to the next world in the Odyssey and in the Kausitaki Upanishad. The other arises from a critique of the Indo-European 'trifunctional ideology' found by Dumézil in Greece and India. The total of three and category of socila function are both too restrictive for a worldview. Dumézil's triadic structure should be replaced with a pentadic one, in which the triad acquires at the bottom what is undesirable and at the top something transcendent. A pentadic structure is found in, for axample, the philosophy known as Samkhya and in the Greek set of five elements.

Hobbies and Hale on law, legislation and the Soverign

1972 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. E. C. Yale
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Scientist ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Positive Law ◽  
Important Exception ◽  
The Common ◽  
Modern Author ◽  
First Time

Many years after launching Leviathan and towards the end of his life Thomas Hobbes composed A Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England in which he set out his final thoughts on fundamental matters of law, legislation and sovereignty. This work was published for the first time in 1681, two years after the author's death, and though it represents Hobbes's final thoughts on these questions it has received but slight study compared with his other works. Leviathan and other earlier works must, no doubt, take first place in interest for the political scientist. The Dialogue, on the other hand, is a work of a jurisprudential slant and is as deserving of the attention of lawyers as it has been largely neglected by them. To this neglect there is one important exception. Sir Matthew Hale rejoined in argument to Hobbes's thesis. His argument remained unpublished till modern times, and even the enormous modern literature on Hobbes's writings has generally preserved a silence upon Hale's Reflections. One modern author indeed remarks briefly that “Hale's short treatise is the most brilliant contemporary reply to Hobbes's theory of positive law,” but the remark is not developed. The prevalent opinion may be represented by Holdsworth's view, and this supposes that Hale failed to grasp Hobbes's idea of sovereignty and that Hale's criticism therefore missed its mark. It seems timely to re-examine the received opinion (if Holdsworth's may be so called) for more than one reason.

Concepts of Solidarity in the Political Theory of Hannah Arendt

1992 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 723-736 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ken Reshaur
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Common Cause

AbstractThis article has two objectives: one is to distinguish and explicate four concepts of solidarity which are found in the writings of Hannah Arendt; the other is to show how Arendt's respect for facts and suspicion of sentiment publicly displayed are justified. The first concept of solidarity is exclusive solidarity. It is limited to those who are suffering from exploitation or oppression. The second conception of solidarity is inclusive: it includes those who suffer but can also accommodate those who make common cause with them. This is the only kind of solidarity that Arendt specifically analyzes. A third concept of solidarity is universal: its proximate constituent parts are the different “peoples” who collectively make up humankind. Finally, there is natural solidarity. This variety of solidarity, the author argues, is conceptually inadequate and confused. In the development and articulation of each of these four concepts, some attention is given to the relative contributions of emotion and cognition in determining one's understanding of solidarity.

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