Description
Book Synopsis
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 1651 Leviathan 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 as truly inclusive when it essentially grows out of a theocracy that thinks about human beings in terms of reduction? In this study, 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 in combination for their contributions to this field: the German Romanticism of the first half of the nineteenth century, a
Table of Contents
Part I. Laws of Love and Laws of Giving: Franz von Baader’s and Friedrich Schlegel’s Political Philosophies Chapter 1. The Romantic Critique of Modern Political Theology Chapter 2. History without God’s Logos: On the Genesis of Ontological Power in Baader and Schlegel Chapter 3. Restituting the Divine Logos: Baader and Schlegel on the Notion of the Recognition of Exteriority Chapter 4. Politics of Consecration: The Path towards the Kingdom of God in Schlegel’s and Baader’s Late Writings “Unus pastor, una grex”: An Interim Appraisal of Baader’s and Schlegel’s Teleological Politics of Absolute Inclusion Part II. Philosophies of Forbearance: An Exploration of Present-day Democracies of Singularity Chapter 5. Jacques Rancière’s “Passion for Equality” Chapter 6. Democracy Beyond Politics in Derrida Conclusion: A Final Appraisal of the Romantic Democracy of Exteriority
