Suchergebnisse

Cover -- Half Title -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Table of Contents -- Chronology -- One -- Life, influences, and central concerns -- I From Europe to America, philosophy to politics -- II Praising politics after totalitarianism -- III Locating Arendt in the political and philosophical landscape -- IV Praxis, political thinking, and the role of the Ancient Greeks -- V The traditional substitution of making for acting-a link to totalitarianism? -- VI Alienation from the public world and the contemporary crisis -- Summary -- Two -- Totalitarianism and political evil -- I The relation of Origins of Totalitarianism to Arendt's later work -- II Expansionism and the political emancipation of the Bourgeoisie -- III From race-thinking to racism in practice -- IV Continental imperialism, tribal nationalism, and the pan-movements -- V The decline of the nation-state: statelessness and the perplexities of the rights of man -- VI The destruction of the European class system and the rise of totalitarian movements -- VII Anti-Semitism -- VIII Total domination and the destruction of human freedom -- IX Ideology and terror: totalitarianism as an unprecedented regime form -- Summary -- Three -- Marx, labor, and the "rise of the social" -- I Continuities and discontinuities -- II Coming to terms with Marx and the tradition -- III The public realm and the "rise of the social" -- IV Labor and necessity -- Summary -- Four -- Work, action, and the modern age -- I Work and the human artifice -- II Action, meaning, and tangible freedom -- III The modern age: world alienation and life as the highest good -- IV Conclusion -- Summary -- Five -- Revolution, constitution, authority -- I Violence and the meaning of revolution -- II Historical necessity, the "social question," and the politics of authenticity.

The year 2016 witnessed an unprecedented shock to political elites in both Europe and America. Populism was on the march, fueled by a substantial ignorance of, or contempt for, the norms, practices, and institutions of liberal democracy. It is not surprising that observers on the left and right have called for renewed efforts at civic education. For liberal democracy to survive, they argue, some form of political education aimed at "the people" is clearly imperative. In Teachers of the People, Dana Villa takes us back to the moment in history when "the people" first appeared on the stage of modern European politics. That moment - the era just before and after the French Revolution - led many major thinkers to celebrate the dawning of a new epoch in the history of mankind. Yet these same thinkers also worried intensely about the people's seemingly evident lack of political knowledge, experience, and judgment. Villa shows how reformist and progressive sentiments were often undercut by a deep skepticism concerning the political capacity of ordinary people. Difference aside, Rousseau, Hegel, Tocqueville, and Mill all thought that "the people" needed to be restrained, educated, and guided - by specific laws and institutions and by a skilled political elite. The result, Villa argues, was less the taming of democracy's wilder impulses than a pervasive paternalism culminating in new forms of the tutorial state. Ironically, it is the reliance upon the distinction between "teachers" and "taught" in the work of these theorists that generates civic passivity and ignorance. And this, in turn, creates conditions favorable to the emergence of an undemocratic and illiberal populism. -- from dust jacket

"In Public Freedom, renowned political theorist Dana Villa argues that political freedom is essential to both the preservation of constitutional government and the very substance of American democracy itself. Through intense close readings of theorists such as Hegel, Tocqueville, Mill, Adorno, Arendt, and Foucault, Villa diagnoses the key causes of our democratic discontent and offers solutions to preserve at least some of our democratic hopes. He demonstrates how Americans' preoccupation with a market-based conception of freedom - that is, the personal freedom to choose among different material, moral, and vocational goods - has led to the gradual erosion of meaningful public participation in politics as well as diminished interest in the health of the public realm itself. Villa critically examines, among other topics, the promise and limits of civil society and associational life as sources of democratic renewal; the effects of mass media on the public arena; and the problematic but still necessary ideas of civic competence and democratic maturity."--Jacket

"In Public Freedom, renowned political theorist Dana Villa argues that political freedom is essential to both the preservation of constitutional government and the very substance of American democracy itself. Through intense close readings of theorists such as Hegel, Tocqueville, Mill, Adorno, Arendt, and Foucault, Villa diagnoses the key causes of our democratic discontent and offers solutions to preserve at least some of our democratic hopes. He demonstrates how Americans' preoccupation with a market-based conception of freedom - that is, the personal freedom to choose among different material, moral, and vocational goods - has led to the gradual erosion of meaningful public participation in politics as well as diminished interest in the health of the public realm itself. Villa critically examines, among other topics, the promise and limits of civil society and associational life as sources of democratic renewal; the effects of mass media on the public arena; and the problematic but still necessary ideas of civic competence and democratic maturity."--Jacket

Introduction: The Problem of Action in Arendt -- pt. I. Arendt's Theory of Political Action. Ch. 1. Arendt, Aristotle, and Action. Ch. 2. Thinking Action against the Tradition. Ch. 3. Arendt, Nietzsche, and the "Aestheticization" of Political Action -- pt. II. Arendt and Heidegger. Ch. 4. The Heideggerian Roots of Arendt's Political Theory. Ch. 5. Groundless Action, Groundless Judgment: Politics after Metaphysics. Ch. 6. The Critique of Modernity -- pt. III. The Critique of Heidegger's Philosophical Politics. Ch. 7. Arendt, Heidegger, and the Oblivion of Praxis. Ch. 8. Heidegger, Poiesis, and Politics