Abstract
73.6025 ABBINNETT, Ross —
The article explores the relationship between André Gorz’s account of the possibility of a deproletarianised regime of labour and Bernard Stiegler’s theory of the Neganthropocene. Gorz’s formulation of the impact of computer and robotic systems on the turnover of capital was, I will argue, a turning point in the way critical theory conceived the social implications of technology. His account of the supervenience of work and culture over the sphere of production forms the basis of the fundamental questions about life, creativity, and freedom that have emerged in the digital age. The paper will show that it is this notion of a fragile and disputed supervenience that is re-formulated and extended in Stiegler’s account of the Neganthropocene, particularly in his account of the fate of reflexive culture under the regime of global-digital capitalisation. [R]
73.6026 ANFINSON, Kellan —
This essay revisits Timothy W. Luke’s Ecocritique to make a case for its relevance today, when the world is on the brink of runaway climate change and it is unclear what direction societies will take. To do so, it proceeds in three parts. First, it outlines three significant shifts that have taken place, undermining some of the coordinates that guided Luke’s Ecocritique and raising new problems for political ecology today. Then, it draws a few lessons from Ecocritique that remain vital to political ecology today. Finally, inspired by the way Luke mapped his ecocritique by examining a number of thinkers, projects, and movements, I will briefly outline a number of sites that seem critical for mapping new ways forward at this juncture. The essay concludes with five suggestions for how ecological politics might proceed today. [R] [See Abstr. 73.5904]
73.6027 ASIS ROIG, Rafael de —
La legge della fiducia. Alle radici del diritto, is a proposal for understanding the Law and, at the same time, an invitation to reflect on its meaning and sense. These brief reflections address some of the questions on which the book invites reflection and raise some of the doubts raised by Tommaso Greco’s proposal. [R]
73.6028 BEE, Michele —
Like other Enlightenment thinkers, Smith advocates education to combat popular ignorance as an antidote to fanaticism. However, he stands out from them as he sees fanaticism above all as a moral problem which has an economic solution. He attributes fanaticism to the emergence of antiestablishment movements driven by excessive resentment against the higher ranks of society and asserting excessively strict and unsocial moral standards against the more relaxed morals of established groups, accused of being corrupt. Smith’s root solution to fanaticism can be found in the general improvement of living conditions which comforts people in the hope of bettering their situation. This hope leads people to gradually relax and adopt less rigid moral attitudes in contrast to the gloomy attitude of fanatics and their overly strict morals. [R]
73.6029 BELADI, Hamid, et al.—
In the spirit of J. Von Neumann and O. Morgenstern (Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, Princeton U. P., 1944), we introduce a notion of network stability. We study the structure of stable economic networks and their associated stable payoff allocations by analyzing the conditions under which complete networks and star networks (both with desirable property of inclusiveness) are stable. We also address conditions for existence and uniqueness of stable set of networks. [R]
73.6030 BETTY, Louis —
Laurent Obertone is virtually unknown outside the French-speaking world. The author of bestselling fiction and nonfiction works on crime, immigration, and civil war in France, Obertone maintains a cult following despite being exiled from mainstream media. This article examines the motifs of Obertone’s work, focusing on human domestication, that is, the tendency of prosperous societies to excuse criminal behavior due to guilt, virtue signaling, and fear of conflict. Obertone sees French judicial laxity as a product of misguided humanitarianism coupled with status competition among elites to show the greatest indulgence toward criminals. This attitude is pushing France toward civil conflict, as criminals take advantage of a culture de l’excuse. [R, abr.]
73.6031 BÖSEL, Bernd —
The article deals with the intertwining of psyche, technology, and politics first by means of a discussion of French philosopher Bernard Stiegler (1952-2020), who, in his later works, began to conceptualize media as psychotechnologies and argued for supplementing the category of biopower, so popularly used in many disciplines since Foucault, with that of “psychopower”. The term “psychopolitics”, which also emerges in this discussion, will then be given a more concrete meaning with the help of German theorists Alexandra Rau and Byung-Chul Han. On this conceptual as well as contemporary diagnostic basis, the second half of the article outlines the “psychotechnological arsenal” of the present: this refers to digital technological innovations that aim to influence the psychological processes of users, and to which one can count persuasive technologies, microtargeting, apps for wellness and mental health, and affective computing, among others. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.5789]
73.6032 BOSWORTH, Kai —
The concept of “eco-populism” has been used by the political theorist Timothy Luke to designate the possibility of open-ended green political futures which might be constructed beyond the limited ecological imaginaries of technoscience, neoliberalism, and Marxism. This article interrogates the conceptual origins through which “eco-populism” became the preferred name for this alternative. Eco-populism is taken to rightly critique some of the class characteristics of ecological destruction, but it obscures their extension into the realms of reactionary politics, private property, and North American agrarian settler colonialism. This article develops an immanent critique of the formal limits of populism, while also demonstrating its historical formation in the US steers it away from more radical orientations towards climate justice. [R] [See Abstr. 73.5904]
73.6033 BUCHHOLZ, Hans-Ludwig —
The article examines how the social sciences can use fictional literature to study economic inequality. Usually, the relevant research limits itself to societal-factual narratives, as the example of Robert Shiller’s Narrative Economics shows. However, this approach can restrict narratives to the role of a one-dimensional variable in economics, or it inadvertently literises them, which then calls into question their objectivity. In contrast, theorists like Friedrich Schiller and Martha Nussbaum emphasize the multifaceted functions of literary narratives. They tend to place exaggerated hopes in these narratives’ objectivity, though and risk conflating fictional representations with the reality of peoples’ lives. Comparing the two lines of research reveals that literary and societal narratives complement each other as long as their specific functions remain strictly separated. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.5991]
73.6034 BURLES, Regan —
The domestic analogy is an old but persistent problem in theories of international politics. This paper examines the problem in the work of Immanuel Kant, whose political writings are often cited as a paradigmatic example of the analogy between individuals and states. Attention to Kant’s own conception of analogy, however, shows that the political writings are structured by another “domestic analogy” — between international and cosmopolitan right. This analogy, I argue, is based on a correspondence between the systematic unity of the international and the spherical globe, the figure that for Kant represents the boundaries of world order. International and cosmopolitan right are thus distinguished on the basis of a geopolitical criterion: the global scope of international order. This analogy of order, the paper argues, thus works to domesticate world politics through the structural form of international order. To the extent that contemporary theories of international relations rely on this conception of order, they accept Kant’s answer to the problem of perpetual peace. The paper concludes by drawing broader conclusions from the analysis about the domestic analogy, international order, and world politics. [R]
73.6035 CAZZOLA, Matilde —
This essay surveys the social and political thought of Robert Young, who founded the Philanthropic Society in London in 1788. After investigating the political economy of late eighteenth-century philanthropy, which was intertwined with the critique of the Poor Laws, and localizing the roots of philanthropic ‘psychology’ in the principle of self-love, the essay shows how philanthropy was conceived of as a form of policing. Young is here presented as the theorist of philanthropy as a ‘science of society’, and associational philanthropy as the privileged theoretical and practical field through which the early notion of ‘social science’ was conceptualized in Britain. [R]
73.6036 DEGE, Carmen Lea —
This article turns to Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem in order to illustrate the difficulties involved in approaching the (formerly) metaphysical concept of evil as a secular phenomenon. It asks how the advocate of plurality, natality and forgiveness could also vouch for the death sentence of Eichmann based on a rhetoric of retribution and revenge. It then shows that Arendt’s surprisingly consistent view of evil is based on a quasi-ontological understanding of the human condition that allowed her to negate Eichmann’s humanity. Rather than simply unmasking a metaphysical account in disguise, however, the article develops an alternative perspective that emerges from the conversation between Arendt and Jaspers. It argues that Jaspers’ interpretation of Kant offers a way to defend the idea of secular evil and judge Eichmann on the basis of his thoughtlessness. [R]
73.6037 GUIFFRÉ, C. Ignacio —
Deliberative constitutionalism is one of the most important developments of recent decades in constitutional theory and practice. It is in this context that Cristina Lafont’s Democracy Without Shortcuts was published. Lafont’s theory provides an opportunity to advance the research agenda on deliberative constitutionalism since she offers a deliberative democratic reinterpretation of judicial review. According to this compelling and powerful idea, citizens can challenge any laws in constitutional courts and thus trigger democratic deliberation about rights. With this issue in mind, this article offers a general approach to deliberative constitutionalism, describes Lafont’s reinterpretation of judicial review, and makes explicit five tensions in this reinterpretation of judicial review vis-à-vis deliberative constitutionalism: (1) the default authority in the interim; (2) the procedural type of constitutional amendment; (3) the scope of judicial review; (4) the irrelevance of constitutional amendments; and (5) the scope of constituent power. [R]
73.6038 HALL, Edward, et al.—
Marc Stears’ Out of the Ordinary: How Everyday Life Inspired a Nation and How It Can Again is an engaging and sincere work of political theory. In it, Stears explores how the work of a number of British writers and artists in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s — Bill Brandt, Barbara Jones, Laurie Lee, George Orwell, JB Priestley and Dylan Thomas — can help us to overcome some of the lazy ideological conventions of our time which suggest it is impossible to simultaneously value tradition and progress, patriotism and diversity, individual rights and social duties, nationalism and internationalism, conservativism and radicalism. In this review, I highlight the timely and engaging elements of Stears’ book while also raising doubts about his treatment of the ‘everyday’ and his Blue Labour solutions to our political ills. [R]
73.6039 HEUER, Wolfgang —
In their attitude towards war, Arendt and Habermas show great differences. Whereas Arendt publicly advocated the armed self-defense of the Jewish people against Hitler with great emotionality, Habermas warns against such emotionality and too much commitment in the case of the war against Ukraine. These differently emotional attitudes of both as citizens are reflected in their supposedly non-emotional differences as theorists, exemplified by Arendt’s "On Violence" and Habermas’s critique of this essay. [R]
73.6040 JAFFE, S. N. —
Modern discussions of freedom focus on negative liberty or nondomination. In his portrait of the Athenian democracy, Thucydides thematizes the psychology of ancient freedom. By focusing on the psychology of the demos, Thucydides shows how democratic imperialism unfolds from the experience of freedom as a kind of felt power. His analysis offers us a way to think about contemporary populism. In representative democracy, the connection between power and freedom has been severed by representation and the modern state, but an experience of power nonetheless remains part of what we mean by freedom today. Modern citizens frequently feel powerless and so unfree, ensnared by impersonal forces. One lure of populism is that it satisfies the longing for freedom as a form of felt power, for a measure of control over one’s life. [R] [First of a series of articles on "The Crowd in the history of political thought — A conversation in a Socratic spirit", introduced by the author and Guillermo GRAÍÑO FERRER. See also Abstr. 73.6042, 6048, 6050, 6054]
73.6041 JÄGER, Anton —
This article revisits the debate on ‘populism’ set off by Richard Hofstadter’s 1955 classic of American historiography The Age of Reform. Hofstadter’s revisionist reading of the late nineteenth-century ‘big p’ Populist movement as an anomic status revolt fed a powerful strand of social science and political commentary in the 1950s and 1960s, popularized by pluralist intellectuals such as Daniel Bell, Edward Shils, Peter Viereck and Seymour Martin Lipset. Although Hofstadter’s claims saw fierce contestation in the 1960s and 1970s — notably in work by Lawrence Goodwyn, Robert McMath and Comer Vann Woodward — his vision continued to condition the language of the global social sciences for subsequent decades. Adopting a crossdisciplinary view, this article reads the Hofstadter-controversy as a crucible of the Cold War academe, both methodologically and politically. [R, abr.]
73.6042 KEUM Tae-Yeoun —
Plato’s antipathy to crowds is a commonplace that reinforces a prevailing portrait of the Socratic method as a practice that centers on individuals, to the exclusion of crowds and the many. This canonical view, however, comes into tension with the tendency of Plato’s Socrates to conduct his dialogues in the presence of collective audiences. I argue that Plato’s position on crowds is at once more complex and more ambivalent than has been commonly accepted. I distinguish between two distinct lines of critique that Plato develops against crowds: the argument that the incentive structures that move crowds are unconducive to philosophy; and a more ambiguous argument that crowds tend not to be as amenable to control as their portrayal in the Athenian democratic imaginary seems to promise. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.6040]
73.6043 KIM Seongcheol —
This article takes up Chantal Mouffe’s recent interventions in support of left populism as a starting point for a theoretical reflection on the tension between populism and radical democracy. In light of the radical democratic theories of Claude Lefort, Jacques Rancière, Ernesto Laclau, and Chantal Mouffe, Laclau’s theory of populism as well as the relevant reception, it is argued that populism emerges as both a constitutive moment and a limit of a radical understanding of democracy, which crystallizes in the shift in accent from autonomy to representation within Laclau’s work in particular and comes to the fore as a question of organization for Mouffe. The article thus opens up an empirical research perspective for examining the relationship between populism and radical democracy, proposing a distinction between movement parties and people’s parties of a new type. [R, abr.]
73.6044 KUJALA, Will —
Arendt’s concept of the social is at the heart of her interventions in racial politics in the US. Readers of Arendt often focus on whether her distinction is too rigid to accommodate the reality of US racial politics, or whether it can be altered to be more capacious. The central issue here is that of closing the gap between conceptual abstraction and concrete reality. However, by extending our archive regarding the social and political beyond Arendt — to work in subaltern studies and the thought of Arendt’s radical Black contemporaries — I argue that we can craft a concept of the social as a counterinsurgent logic by which political acts are reduced to social disorder, neutralizing the political edge and novelty of revolt. [R, abr.]
73.6045 LEVASSEUR, Bruno ; LONG, Imogen —
This article considers how recent French documentary filmmaking has engaged with the representation of masculinities in some of Paris’s most emblematic banlieues. Focusing on Alice Diop’s sixth film Vers la tendresse (2016), which brings to the screen testimonies of straight and gay men from La Courneuve, Aulnay-sous-Bois, and Montreuil, this article examines how the documentary form offers new ways to interrogate men’s experiences of love and relationships in the French peripheries. Drawing on an interview with the filmmaker, this article argues that Diop’s conversation-based performative documentary filmmaking, with its detaching of image from sound, destabilizes viewer assumptions and challenges cultural clichés about men and emotion. By emphasizing the universal characteristics of the men’s personal accounts, this article suggests that Diop’s film reclaims the banlieues from the stereotype of a marginal space of “otherness” and offers instead singular narratives, voicing poignant portraits of masculinities that resonate widely in twenty-first century France. [R]
73.6046 LUO, Simon Sihang —
Judith Shklar has been invoked by contemporary realists as an example of how history is a better source of political knowledge than abstract philosophy. This emphasis on history challenges the predominant understanding of her political theory that stresses the universality of fear of cruelty. This contrast between history and moral universalism invites a serious investigation of Shklar’s historical method. This article takes up this task by reconstructing a Shklarian historical method based on a tripartite relation between historical memory, democratic citizenship, and historically minded political theory. This reconstructed historical method challenges the boundaries of Shklar’s liberalism and broadens the possibilities that her political theory can offer. [R]
73.6047 MOEBIUS, Stephan —
Georg Simmel’s political position has rarely been discussed explicitly — perhaps because many scholars have assumed that Simmel was ‘apolitical’ before 1914. The present article shows that even before 1914 Simmel held a distinct political position, to wit a peculiar kind of liberal-Nietzschean aristocratic individualism. This individualism is the result of a passage through ‘the hard school’ of egalitarian socialism in order to reach true individuality. It is closely related to Simmel’s central theorem of the so-called ‘individual law’. After a socio-historical contextualisation of Simmel’s political thought, the article follows this motif in detail through his diagnosis of the times, his theory of socio-cultural development, his engagement in cultural politics, his ideal of personality formation and his engagement in the bourgeois women’s movement. Simmel’s thought culminates in a conception of ‘dialectic aristocratism’. In this respect, the normative core of Simmel’s political standpoint is very close to Max Weber’s position. [R, abr.]
73.6048 ORWIN, Clifford —
Renowned as a historian, Flavius Josephus enjoys little reputation as a political thinker. As heir to the classical historical tradition of Thucydides, however, considerations of the regime remained primary for him. All the more so given his most important task not inherited from them: the defense of the Jewish law and people against their pagan detractors. Josephus defended the law as having specified the best political regime (which he called “theocracy” but by which he meant a rigorous natural aristocracy). He defended the people as faithful to that law and as innocent of the terrible excesses of the great uprising of 66 CE. He uncannily anticipated features of the modern (post-Machiavellian) reinterpretation of politics in terms of “peoples” and “elites.” [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.6040]
73.6049 PIPPENGER, Nathan —
This article contributes to recent work treating Ralph Ellison as a major democratic theorist by reading his political thought through a heretofore overlooked, and apparently remote, interpretive lens: the linguistic and cultural theories of Johann Gottfried von Herder. Ellison’s controversial endorsement of an integrationist vision of American nationhood was, I show, rooted in an underlying theory of language whose premises were essentially Herderian. Yet Ellison also creatively expanded on those ideas, notably through his concept of the “democratic vernacular,” which analyzed the relationship between language, culture, and politics to explain how democracy and integration might progress in the US, despite the racism of its political system and amid the deep pluralism of its culture. Ellison’s thought furnishes resources to democratic theorists confronting a range of urgent normative issues related to cultural diversity. [R, abr.]
73.6050 POLANSKY, David —
Contemporary writers have had difficulty parsing populism’s relationship to democracy, partly because they are universally committed to the latter. It is worth turning to a thinker like Aristotle, who — despite not explicitly addressing populism itself — is able to reflect clearly on various democratic phenomena that we tend to consider populist, because he does not share our normative or analytical assumptions about democracy. Aristotle’s discussions in books 3 and 4 of the Politics allow us to see that what we call populism is a function of a broader problem of class conflict in democracies. In light of this analysis, we can see populist movements not as an external challenge to the democratic regime, but rather as a characteristic expression of a recurring dispute over the contours and prerogatives of the people. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.6040]
73.6051 PRATTEN, Stephen —
Alfred Marshall is often depicted as a pioneer of neoclassical economics almost as if this is a label he embraces and promotes. Yet neoclassical economics is not a category Marshall deploys but a term Thorstein Veblen introduces in characterising Marshall. Veblen coins the term neoclassical to identify an ontological discrepancy in the work of a specific group of his contemporaries, a prominent figure among whom is Marshall. Veblen’s view is that Marshall and other neoclassicals discern features of social reality that suggest a tentative recognition of a causal processual social ontology of the type Veblen associates with modern evolutionary approaches and yet also remain staunchly committed to a taxonomic conception of science underpinned by a quite different set of ontological presuppositions. Veblen’s assessment of Marshall is brief and assertive. [R, abr.]
73.6052 RAZA, Sebastian —
This paper seeks to make two distinctive sets of contributions through a supplementary reinterpretation of Max Weber in the light of Charles Taylor’s expressivist-hermeneutical theory of human agency. First, it offers a reinterpretation of Weber’s work. Focussing on the concept of stance, the paper highlights that Weber’s theorising on values and their relation to cognition, action and identity is less underpinned by subjectivism, representationalism, emotivism and decisionism than is typically thought. Instead, Weber sets values within a non-naturalist dimension where agents find their bearings and are constituted as such. In this dimension, orientation to meaning takes place; identity, action and thought are constituted; and normative experiences (such as freedom, or responsibility) are made possible. Weber recognised that this non-naturalist dimension has variegated modes, but seemingly studied them in their purest and most logical form (the ‘ideal type’), hence his focus on explicit belief systems and worldimages. Second, there is a prospective supplementation of Weber’s theory through Taylor’s notion of expression. For Taylor, we take a stance and orient ourselves expressively through the domain of strongly valued meanings. [R, abr.]
73.6053 RYAN, Derval —
Hobbes argues the universal acknowledgement of natural equality is necessary for stability in the commonwealth. Hobbes’s explanation rests, in part, on his account of the problematic desire for glory and honour. Hobbes’s proposal of a ‘law of honour’, which distributes public honour unequally between subjects, is in tension with the laws of equality. I argue that Hobbes’s justification of the laws of equality is best understood as a rhetorical strategy, designed to persuade subjects to acknowledge their equality as a pragmatic principle of reciprocity, necessary for peace. But Hobbesian subjects must also learn to become indifferent to dis/honour, and the rhetorical strategy of Leviathan is constructed to shape the reader’s attitude towards dis/honour. [R]
73.6054 SAXONHOUSE, Arlene W. —
Aristophanes in his comedy the Acharnians educates the crowd that he creates as a character on stage, as well as the crowd gathered to watch his comedy, about what is truly in their interest: the peace that allows them to be happy by satisfying their longings for good food and frequent sex. I suggest, invoking the medieval language of vox populi vox dei, that Aristophanes (like the politicians and demagogues of today) competes to become the one who gives the people their voice. His comedy imagines that both the crowd in the play and the audience in the theater learn through the action of the comedy the value of peace for private happiness. The crowd so educated will give voice to Aristophanes’s wisdom when they vote in their democratic assemblies about what seems best to the people. [R] [See Abstr. 73.6040]
73.6055 SCHWARTZ, Daniel —
One of Solon’s laws punished citizens who fail to take sides in the event of a civil war. Among the very few sixteenth-century political writers who defended Solon’s law we find Jean Bodin, Justus Lipsius and Michel de Montaigne (the latter two possibly reacting to Pierre Grégoire’s criticism of Bodin). This article retrieves the justifications offered by these writers for taking sides in a civil war in the context of what should be seen as an exercise in humanist casuistry. According to Bodin, citizens may strategically join a party in order to restrain fellow partisans. Lipsius and Montaigne seem to agree with Grégoire that Bodin is too optimistic about the strategic partisan’s capacity to restrain his fellows. In response, Lipsius de-emphasizes restraint of others as a justification for partisanship. Montaigne, by contrast, rejects Bodin’s assumption of partisan unreasonability and emphasizes the partisan’s capacity of selfmoderation. [R]
73.6056 SHARMA, Shubham —
In this article, I attempt to critically assess Kenneth Waltz’s deployment of the idea of anarchy to erect a ‘scientific theory of international politics’. First, I argue that the formation of a concept requires comprehension of the object from the standpoint of historical development, not a narrow reading of it. Second, I subject the thinner abstractions of self-help, balance of power and bandwagoning to the test of history. Third, I argue about mainstream international relations’ disdain for revolutions. I would posit that revolutions are fine templates which store rich agential history of structural transformation, a theme subject to much chagrin by realists of all hues, particularly neorealists. In doing so, I take the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 as my benchmark. I elucidate that through the occlusion of first and second images, man and state, in the favour of third image, that is, structural anarchy, Waltz tends to ignore the role of agency as a conscious collective which could be best captured by the Bolshevik Revolution. [R, abr.]
73.6057 SHIPPEN, Nichole Marie —
Revisiting André Gorz’s Destroy the University (1970) offers an opportunity to reconsider the concept of edu-factory explained by the respective authors of the Edu-factory Collective and Toward a Global Autonomous University (2009), which considers the political implications of asserting, “What was once the factory is now the university,” critical university studies’ critique of the neoliberal university (2012), and abolition university studies (2019), which asks, “Are prisons and universities two sides of the same coin?” The community college in the United States is arguably situated most directly between the factory and the prison. Most community college students are first generation, full-time students, workers, and often parents. They face severe time constraints, which are under-theorized and under-politicized to their own detriment. The COVID-19 pandemic compelled most people, including students, to transform previously private spaces to public spaces to accommodate work, school, and care-giving responsibilities. As a result, spatial and temporal distinctions between these different modes of being collapsed, allowing economic rationality to inform the most intimate settings of home, a Gorzian nightmare. [R]
73.6058 STUBBERFIELD, Alexander T. —
This paper uses Thomas Hobbes’ argument for Commonwealth and the existence of the Leviathan as a foil within an immanent critique rejecting the notion of “the state” presenting an escape from “the state of nature” as Hobbes characterized it. It does so through a negative dialectic arguing that both conceptually and materially “civilization” needs “the wild,” or “the wilderness” to justify its everyday existence but, instead, rethreads wildness and wilderness through the production of lifeforms necessary for its continued expansion. I motivatie this Lukean ecocritique of Hobbes through Benton MacKaye’s philosophy of regional planning drawing from work in anthropology, sociology, geography, critical animal studies, and environmental studies to argue that “civilization” not only transcends the nation-state but is constituted as material fact through the manifestation of wildness within its environs. The Leviathan co-authors environment but has the power to unleash wildness on a planetary scale – creating localized states of nature, and cannot help but do so. [R, abr.] [See Abstr. 73.5904]
73.6059 VITALI, James, et al.—
This article suggests that there are good grounds for considering Bentham a political realist. Bentham’s political thought has considerable commonalities with that of Max Weber: both agree that politics is a unique domain of human activity defined by its association with power; that consequently, ethical conduct is unavoidably inflected by power in politics; that a commitment to truth in politics can only ever be contingent; and that politics has a set of basic conditions that it would be not only misguided but dangerous to attempt to transcend. Whilst it is often held that Bentham advanced a reductive framework for understanding politics, in fact, his utilitarianism was a far more realistic approach to political ends and means than has generally been acknowledged, and one that contemporary political theory realists would benefit from taking seriously. [R, abr.]
73.6060 WARD, Ann ; CRAIG, Catherine —
The article explores the relationship between sexuality and political life in Plato’s Statesma. The dialogue begins with an unsatisfying definition of political rule as care of the herd of featherless bipeds, that lumps human beings together with other animals. In order to correct this definition, the Eleatic Stranger gives a cosmic myth wherein sexual generation in women makes human beings aware of their relationship to others, and in turn develops their unique rational and hence political capacities. This allows human beings to move from their immediate physical reliance on others to their highest ends in beauty, goodness and justice. [R]
73.6061 WEISS, Robin —
The Stoic analogy between the cosmos and a city is commonly considered to rest primarily on the claim that the cosmos is law-governed. This view is disputed through a reading of Cicero’s De Natura Deorum, where law is not cited as the ground for this comparison. Correspondingly, definitions of a city that cite law as a city’s distinguishing feature are shown to be less authoritative than commonly supposed in comparison with sources that define cities in terms of other features. Therefore, the standard view may neglect the most important reasons for the analogy with a city, and potentially, the original ones. [R]
73.6062 WHIMSTER, Sam —
In May 1904 Max Weber published a short article in the Frankfurter Zeitung. It has gone unnoticed in the extensive Weber literature and it appears here in English translation for the first time. It is an important statement of Weber’s political views after his withdrawal from his active political engagement in the 1890s. He defends the Reich Constitution from attack and a possible coup d’état. He demands that the German Parliament (Reichstag) stand up to autocratic plans, closely linked to Emperor William II, to suppress democracy and voting rights. A constitutional conflict would require not a great statesman but an ‘unscrupulous idiot or a political adventurer’ who would undermine ‘all our institutions and the security of law for many generations’. The article marks the start (earlier than previously assumed in the literature) of Weber’s consistent championing of Parliament and democratic institutions. [R]
73.6063 WIENS, David —
Eva Erman and Niklas Möller have recently presented [“Is ideal theory useless for nonideal theory?”, ibid. 84(1), 2022: 525-540; Abstr. 72.4462] a trenchant critique of my argument [“Against ideal guidance”, ibid. 77(2), 2015: 433-446; Abstr. 65.4174] that ideal normative theories are uninformative for certain practical purposes. Their critique is largely correct. In this article, I develop the ideas behind my earlier argument in a way that circumvents their critique and explains more clearly why ideal theory is uninformative for certain purposes while leaving open the possibility that it might be informative for other purposes. [R]
73.6064 YAURE, Philip —
In republican political philosophy, citizenship is a status that is constituted by one’s participation in the public life of the polity. In its traditional formulation, republican citizenship is an exclusionary and hierarchical way of defining a polity’s membership, because the domain of activity that qualifies as participating in the polity’s public life is highly restricted. I argue that Black American abolitionist Frederick Douglass advances a radically inclusive conception of republican citizenship by articulating a deeply capacious account of what it means to participate in the public life of the polity. On Douglass’s conception of republican citizenship, what it means to contribute to the polity, and thereby be a citizen, is to act in ways that contest and shape what the polity values. We contest and shape what the polity values not only through public discourse traditionally conceived or grand political acts like revolt, but also through quotidian forms of social interaction. In his pre-American Civil War political thought, Douglass deployed his radically inclusive account of republican citizenship as the conceptual foundation of his stance that enslaved and nominally free Black Americans were already, in the 1850s, American citizens whom the polity ought to acknowledge as such. [R, abr.]
73.6065 ZELINSKY, Dominik —
This paper explores the contribution of early social phenomenologists working in the 1920s and 1930s in Germany to charisma theory. Specifically, I focus on the works of Gerda Walther, Herman Schmalenbach and Aron Gurwitsch, whose work is now being re-appreciated in the field of social philosophy. Living in the interbellum German-speaking space, these authors were keenly interested in the issue of charismatic authority and leadership introduced into the social sciences by Max Weber, with whom they engaged in an indirect intellectual dialogue. I argue that their phenomenological background equipped them well to understand the intricacies of the experiential and emotional dimension of charisma, and that their insights remain valid even a century after they have been first published. [R]