Groundless Existence: The Political Ontology of Carl Schmitt

ISBN-13: 9781441180001 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 208 str.

Michael Marder

Opis

Groundless Existence discusses the implicit phenomenological and existential foundations of Schmitt's political philosophy. The book's unique contribution lies in its claim that Schmitt decisively breaks with the metaphysical tradition and predicates the political on the "groundless" categories of existence, including risk, decision, and agonism. This argument is substantiated by both tacit and explicit existentialist and phenomenological underpinnings of Schmitt's work, discussed here for the first time in book form. The book provides an insight into the implications of Schmitt's thought reconceptualized in the light of contemporary political developments. An essential text for anyone interested in the political theory of Carl Schmitt, it offers a new reading of Schmitt's work against the double background of phenomenology and existentialism.

Spis treści

List of Abbreviations: The Works of Carl Schmitt

Introduction: On the Possibility of a Non-Objectivist Political Ontology

Part I - The Elements

Chapter 1 - Geometry of the Exception: The Point and The Line
To the Point
Beyond the Line
The Extremism of the Middle Point

Chapter 2 - The Danger: Unavoidability of Risk
A Taxonomy of Risk
Whence Political Risk? The Anthropological Minus the Economic
Risky Recognitions
Risky Decisions

Chapter 3 - The Non-Ground: From the Concept of the Political to the Event of Politics
A Philosophical Primer: Snapshots of the Event in Heidegger and Derrida
There is no Such a Thing as the "Political Sphere"!
Schmitt's Anti-Economism Revisited: Nomos / Appropriation, Politics / Expropriation
How to Remain Faithful to the Event of Politics?

Chapter 4 - Politics in Question
Prelude: Questioning the Question
Posing the Question
Interlude: Yes or No?
In Place of a Response...

Part II - The Critique

Chapter 5 - Metonymic Abuses of Modernity
In the Name of the Law...
Constitutional Unity, Constitutional Details
The Fragility of the Status and the Irreducibility of the Political

Chapter 6 - Political Reduction to Constitutive Subjectivity
Schmitt and Husserl: From the Crisis
The Ontology of Political Will
P.S.: On Political Consciousness

Part III - On the Ground
Chapter 7 - Living Forms: Culture, Multiculturalism and the Complexio Oppositorum
Disentangling Complexio Oppositorum
The Living Forms of Politics
A Virtuous Circle: The Mutual Invigoration of Culture and Politics
Multiculturalism: A New Complexio Oppositorum

Chapter 8 - Political Hermeneutics: The Necessity of Interpretation
Schmitt and Gadamer: Decision and Interpretation
Politics as Interpretation
Interpreting the Meaning of the Political
Political Theology as a Hermeneutic Endeavor