Hobbes and the Democratic Imaginary

Hobbes and the Democratic Imaginary PDF Author: Christopher Holman
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438490445
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 405

Book Description
At a time when nearly all political actors and observers—despite the nature of their normative commitments—morally appeal to the language of democracy, the particular signification of the term has become obscured. Hobbes and the Democratic Imaginary argues that critical engagement with various elements of the work of Hobbes, a notorious critic of democracy, can deepen our understanding of the problems, stakes, and ethics of democratic life. Firstly, Hobbes's descriptive anatomy of democratic sovereignty reveals what is essential to the institution of this form of government, in the face of the conceptual confusion that characterizes the contemporary deployment of democratic terminology. Secondly, Hobbes's critique of the mechanics of democracy points toward certain fundamental political risks that are internal to its mode of operation. And thirdly, contrary to Hobbes's own intentions, Christopher Holman shows how the selective redeployment of certain Hobbesian categories could help construct a normative ground in which democracy is the ethical choice in relation to other sovereign forms.

Liberty, Rationality, and Agency in Hobbes's Leviathan

Liberty, Rationality, and Agency in Hobbes's Leviathan PDF Author: David van Mill
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791450352
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

Book Description
A new interpretation of the theory of Hobbes.

Hobbes and the Epic Tradition of Political Theory

Hobbes and the Epic Tradition of Political Theory PDF Author: Sheldon S. Wolin
Publisher: [Los Angeles] : William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles
ISBN:
Category : Political science
Languages : en
Pages : 84

Book Description


Fugitive Democracy

Fugitive Democracy PDF Author: Sheldon S. Wolin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691183279
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 518

Book Description
An authoritative collection of the most important writings of an influential political thinker Sheldon Wolin was one of the most influential and original political thinkers of the past fifty years. In Fugitive Democracy, the breathtaking range of Wolin’s scholarship, political commitment, and critical acumen are on full display in this authoritative and accessible collection of essays. This book brings together his most important writings, from classic essays to his late radical essays on American democracy such as "Fugitive Democracy," in which he offers a controversial reinterpretation of democracy as an episodic phenomenon distinct from the routinized political management that passes for democracy today. Wolin critically engages a diverse range of political theorists, and grapples with topics such as power, modernization, the sixties, revolutionary politics, and inequality, all the while showcasing enduring commitment to writing civic-minded theoretical commentary on the most pressing political issues of the day. Fugitive Democracy offers enduring insights into many of today’s most pressing political predicaments, and introduces a whole new generation of readers to this provocative figure in contemporary political thought.

Leviathan

Leviathan PDF Author: Thomas Hobbes
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 048612214X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 418

Book Description
Written during a moment in English history when the political and social structures were in flux and open to interpretation, Leviathan played an essential role in the development of the modern world.

Imagined Democracies

Imagined Democracies PDF Author: Yaron Ezrahi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139577069
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 341

Book Description
This book proposes a revisionist approach to democratic politics. Yaron Ezrahi focuses on the creative unconscious collective imagination that generates ever-changing visions of legitimate power and authority, which compete for enactment and institutionalization in the political arena. If, in the past, political authority was grounded in fictions such as the divine right of kings, the laws of nature, historical determinism and scientism, today the space of democratic politics is filled with multiple alternative social imaginaries of the desirable political order. Exposure to electronic mass media has made contemporary democratic publics more aware that credible popular fictions have greater impact on shaping our political realities than do rational social choices or moral arguments. The pressing political question in contemporary democracy is, therefore, how to select and enact political fictions that promote peace and how to found the political order on checks and balances between alternative political imaginaries of freedom and justice.

Hobbes's Political Philosophy

Hobbes's Political Philosophy PDF Author: A. P. Martinich
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197531717
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
'Hobbes's Political Philosophy' clarifies Hobbes's positions by examining what Hobbes considered a science of politics, a set of timeless truths grounded in definitions. A.P. Martinich explains this science of politics, examining Hobbes's views on the laws of nature, authorization and representation, sovereignty by acquisition, and others. He argues that in addition to the timeless science, Hobbes had two timebound projects. The first was to eliminate the apparent conflict between the new science of Copernicus and Galileo and the second was to show that Christianity is not politically destabilizing.--

Democratization and Social Settlements

Democratization and Social Settlements PDF Author: Daniel Nataf
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791425909
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Book Description
Examines the transition to, and consolidation of, democracy in Portugal following the revolutionary events of 1975, during a period of major changes in socioeconomic structure. Nataf emphasizes that not only political institutions but also the fabric of social relations were uprooted, and he compares the Portuguese case to other models of European democratization and postwar settlements.

Hobbes Today

Hobbes Today PDF Author: S. A. Lloyd
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139851330
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 595

Book Description
Hobbes Today: Insights for the 21st Century brings together an impressive group of political philosophers, legal theorists and political scientists to investigate the many ways in which the work of Thomas Hobbes, the famed seventeenth-century English philosopher, can illuminate the political and social problems we face today. Its essays demonstrate the contemporary relevance of Hobbes' political thought on such issues as justice, human rights, public reason, international warfare, punishment, fiscal policy and the design of positive law, among others. The volume's contributors include both Hobbes specialists and philosophers bringing their expertise to consideration of Hobbes' texts for the first time. This volume will stimulate renewed interest in Hobbes studies among a new generation of thinkers.

Putting Choice Before Democracy

Putting Choice Before Democracy PDF Author: Emily Hauptmann
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791430286
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 152

Book Description
Shows how rational choice theory's critique and justification of democracy fails in its project to recast democratic theory.