Suchergebnisse

Argues that the Epicurean influence on Spinoza has profound implications for his conception of politics and ontologyRadically re-reads the Theological Political Treatise in relation to Spinoza's other worksSets the book in the intellectual context of 17th-century approaches to religion, politics and societyDevelops a thorough and coherent interpretation of Epicurean themes in Spinoza's thoughtMakes an important contribution to the understanding of the broader influence of Epicureanism in modern philosophyThrough a radical new reading of the Theological Political Treatise, Dimitris Vardoulakis argues that the major source of Spinoza's materialism is the Epicurean tradition that re-emerges in modernity when manuscripts by Epicurus and Lucretius are rediscovered. This reconsideration of Spinoza's political project, set within a historical context, lays the ground for an alternative genealogy of materialism. Central to this new reading of Spinoza are the theory of practical judgment (understood as the calculation of utility) and its implications for a theory of democracy that is resolutely positioned against authority

Preamble : the ruse of sovereignty or agonistic monism? -- Constituent power forges the distinction between democracy and sovereignty -- Sovereign violence is always justified violence -- The different ways in which violence is justified delineate different forms of sovereignty -- Sovereignty and the refugee -- Judgment is constitutive of democracy -- Judgment establishes the agonistic relation between democracy and sovereignty by dejustifying violence -- Democratic judgment shows the imbrication of the ontological, the political, and the ethical -- The refugee and resistance to sovereign power -- Stasis indicates that judgment is the condition of the possibility of the law, or that democracy is the form of the constitution -- Stasis, or agonistic monism, names the forms of the relation between democracy and sovereignty -- Stasis underlies all political praxis

In this text, Dimitris Vardoulakis asks how it is possible to think of a politics that is not commensurate with sovereignty. For such a politics, he argues, sovereignty is defined not in terms of the exception but as the different ways in which violence is justified

Oliver Marchart constructs an elaborate ontologization of the political that builds on theories developed by the Essex School while relying on Heideggerianism and Hegelianism. This original thought is a powerful and convincing attempt to think the ontology of the political without lapsing into a celebration of essentialist grounding or complete groundlessness, which are equally meta-physical and mutually supporting positions. Tensions arise within Marchart's own thought when the notion of instrumentality appears to be inscribed solely on the side of politics or the ontic. I suggest that a theory of practical judgment that is inchoate in Marchart's own position can resolve the tensions toward constructing a genuinely materialist ontology.

Cover; Contents; Preamble: The Ruse of Sovereignty or Agonistic Monism?; Thesis 1: Constituent power forges the distinction between democracy and sovereignty; Thesis 2: Sovereign violence is always justified violence; Thesis 3: The different ways in which violence is justified delineate different forms of sovereignty; Intermezzo 1: Sovereignty and the Refugee; Thesis 4: Judgment is constitutive of democracy; Thesis 5: Judgment establishes the agonistic relation between democracy and sovereignty by dejustifying violence.

Jacques Rancière's conception of equality as an axiomatic presupposition of the political is important, because it bypasses the tradition which defines equality in terms of Aristotle's conception of geometric equality. In this paper, I show that Rancière's theory both espouses a monism, according to which inequality implies equality, and relies on a concept of the free will, which is incompatible with monism. I highlight this tension by bringing Rancière's theory into conversation with the great monist of the philosophical tradition, Baruch Spinoza.