Suchergebnisse

An outline of Thomas Hobbes's account of power shows that domination in political & social affairs is both inevitable & self-defeating. This self-defeat arises when domination becomes violent, where violence is construed as the disempowerment of persons in certain fundamental ways, ie, with respect to those capacities that are prerequisite for social interactivity. To avoid this self-defeat, dominating power must be restrained by other kinds of power that are socially & politically relevant. It is suggested that Hannah Arendt's notion of concertive power (On Violence, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc, 1970) & C. B. Macpherson's concept of developmental power (Democratic Theory, Oxford: Oxford U Press, 1975) can serve this function, by providing prudentially required, socially relevant, natural restraints on dominating power. Modified AA