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Author: Miguel Vatter Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA ISBN: 0190942355 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 313
Book Description
"The 'return of religion' in the public sphere and the emergence of post-secular societies have propelled the discourse of political theology into the centre of contemporary democratic theory. This situation calls forth the question addressed in this book: Is a democratic political theology possible? Carl Schmitt first developed the idea of the Christian theological foundations of modern legal and political concepts in order to criticize the secular basis of liberal democracy. He employed political theology to argue for the continued legitimacy of the absolute sovereignty of the state against the claims raised by pluralist and globalized civil society. This book shows how, after Schmitt, some of the main political theorists of the 20th century, from Jacques Maritain to Jèurgen Habermas, sought to establish an affirmative connection between Christian political theology, popular sovereignty and the legitimacy of democratic government. In so doing, the political representation of God in the world was no longer placed in the hands of hierarchical and sovereign lieutenants (Church, Empire, Nation), but in a series of democratic institutions, practices and conceptions like direct representation, constitutionalism, universal human rights, and public reason that reject the primacy of sovereignty"--
Author: Miguel Vatter Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA ISBN: 0190942355 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 313
Book Description
"The 'return of religion' in the public sphere and the emergence of post-secular societies have propelled the discourse of political theology into the centre of contemporary democratic theory. This situation calls forth the question addressed in this book: Is a democratic political theology possible? Carl Schmitt first developed the idea of the Christian theological foundations of modern legal and political concepts in order to criticize the secular basis of liberal democracy. He employed political theology to argue for the continued legitimacy of the absolute sovereignty of the state against the claims raised by pluralist and globalized civil society. This book shows how, after Schmitt, some of the main political theorists of the 20th century, from Jacques Maritain to Jèurgen Habermas, sought to establish an affirmative connection between Christian political theology, popular sovereignty and the legitimacy of democratic government. In so doing, the political representation of God in the world was no longer placed in the hands of hierarchical and sovereign lieutenants (Church, Empire, Nation), but in a series of democratic institutions, practices and conceptions like direct representation, constitutionalism, universal human rights, and public reason that reject the primacy of sovereignty"--
Author: Miguel Vatter Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0190942371 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 304
Book Description
How secular are the political and legal concepts that underpin liberal democracy? Carl Schmitt first coined the term political theology to show the dependency of modern western jurisprudence and political science on Christian theological discourse, and in so doing criticized the claim to religious neutrality of liberal institutions. In this book, Miguel Vatter reconstructs how and why the discourse of political theology was adopted and repurposed by anti-Schmittian thinkers, from Eric Voegelin through Jacques Maritain and Ernst Kantorowicz to Jürgen Habermas, to bolster the legitimacy of liberal democratic government. The book traces the way in which crucial political concepts for liberal democracy--including sovereignty, representation, government, constitutionalism, human rights, and public reason--are transformed when they become part of a discourse on political theology. Vatter's aim is to provide an intellectual history of political theology in the 20th century. His study reveals the overdetermined role that religion plays in contemporary democratic political and legal theory as an ultimate source of legitimacy for government and as wellspring for revolutionary aspirations.
Author: David Wootton Publisher: Hackett Publishing ISBN: 9780872206533 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 516
Book Description
The seventeenth century was England's century of revolution, an era in which the nation witnessed protracted civil wars, the execution of a king, and the declaration of a short-lived republic. During this period of revolutionary crisis, political writers of all persuasions hoped to shape the outcome of events by the force of their arguments. To read the major political theorists of Stuart England is to be plunged into a world in which many of our modern conceptions of political rights and social change are first formulated. David Wootton's masterly compilation of speeches, essays, and fiercely polemical pamphlets--organized into chapters focusing on the main debates of the century--represents the first attempt to present in one volume a broad collection of Stuart political thought. In bringing together abstract theorizing and impassioned calls to arms, anonymous tract writers and King James I, Wootton has produced a much-needed collection; in combination with the editor's thoughtful running commentary and invaluable Introduction, its texts bring to life a crucial period in the formation of our modern liberal and conservative theories.
Author: Alexandra Aidler Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 1498598293 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 259
Book Description
Advancing the thesis that a contract between the political members of a community must lead to the highest form of social inclusion, Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651) has provided the groundwork for democracies around the world. Yet, Hobbes also states that this contract can only be upheld by a strong sovereign whose authority is derived from God. How can a democracy be defined, then, as truly inclusive when it essentially grows out of a theocracy that thinks about human beings in terms of “reduction”? In Democracy and the Divine: The Phenomenon of Political Romanticism Alexandra Aidler argues that despite modern democracy’s problematic heritage, one should not abandon its claims to religion. Articulating a democracy that is based on the religious principle of giving oneself to another, Aidler develops a political theology of democracy that is built upon two traditions in political thought that have rarely been examined thus far side by side for their contributions to this field: German Romanticism, as exemplified by Franz von Baader and Friedrich Schlegel, and the “theological turn” in French philosophy, as represented by Jacques Derrida and Jacques Rancière.
Author: Patrick Deneen Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 1400826896 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 389
Book Description
The American political reformer Herbert Croly wrote, "For better or worse, democracy cannot be disentangled from an aspiration toward human perfectibility." Democratic Faith is at once a trenchant analysis and a powerful critique of this underlying assumption that informs democratic theory. Patrick Deneen argues that among democracy's most ardent supporters there is an oft-expressed belief in the need to "transform" human beings in order to reconcile the sometimes disappointing reality of human self-interest with the democratic ideal of selfless commitment. This "transformative impulse" is frequently couched in religious language, such as the need for political "redemption." This is all the more striking given the frequent accompanying condemnation of traditional religious belief that informs the "democratic faith.? At the same time, because so often this democratic ideal fails to materialize, democratic faith is often subject to a particularly intense form of disappointment. A mutually reinforcing cycle of faith and disillusionment is frequently exhibited by those who profess a democratic faith--in effect imperiling democratic commitments due to the cynicism of its most fervent erstwhile supporters. Deneen argues that democracy is ill-served by such faith. Instead, he proposes a form of "democratic realism" that recognizes democracy not as a regime with aspirations to perfection, but that justifies democracy as the regime most appropriate for imperfect humans. If democratic faith aspires to transformation, democratic realism insists on the central importance of humility, hope, and charity.
Author: Amy Kittelstrom Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 1594204853 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 450
Book Description
The first people in the world to call themselves 'liberals' were New England Christians in the early republic, for whom being liberal meant being receptive to a range of beliefs and values. The story begins in the mid-eighteenth century, when the first Boston liberals brought the Enlightenment into Reformation Christianity, tying equality and liberty to the human soul at the same moment these root concepts were being tied to democracy. The nineteenth century saw the development of a robust liberal intellectual culture in America, built on open-minded pursuit of truth and acceptance of human diversity. By the twentieth century, what had begun in Boston as a narrow, patrician democracy transformed into a religion of democracy in which the new liberals of modern America believed that where different viewpoints overlap, common truth is revealed. The core American principles of liberty and equality were never free from religion but full of religion.
Author: Franklin I. Gamwell Publisher: Georgetown University Press ISBN: 9781589013087 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 380
Book Description
Western moral and political theory in the last two centuries has widely held that morality and politics are independent of a divine reality. Claiming that this consensus is flawed, prominent theologian Franklin I. Gamwell argues that there is a necessary relation between moral worth and belief in God. Without appealing to the beliefs of any specific religion, Gamwell defends a return to the view that moral and political principles depend on a divine purpose. To separate politics from the divine misrepresents the distinctive character of human freedom, Gamwell maintains, and thus prevents a full understanding of the nature of justice. Principles of justice define "democracy on purpose" as the political form in which we pursue the divine good. Engaging in a dialogue with such major representatives of the dominant consensus as Kant, Habermas, and Rawls, and informed by the philosophical writings of Alfred North Whitehead, this book makes the case for a neoclassical metaphysics that restores a religious sensibility to our political life.