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. Stepping back somewhat, I now propose to offer some ecocritical political orientation, starting with some of the standard ‘green’ political positions on which environmental humanities stands or, at its most extreme edges, deconstructs or makes newly radical. Andrew Dobson, in his useful introduction to Green Political Thought , defines ‘political ecology’ (a term used purposefully by T. J. Demos in Decolonizing Nature , for instance) as a viewpoint that holds that ‘a sustainable and fulfilling existence presupposes radical changes in our relationship with the non
led to this ‘silencing’. How was it possible that their German intellectual socialisation that continued to inform their political thought became overlooked and indeed no longer even realised? It is argued that German émigrés and American International Relations (IR) constitute a case of successful integration. Before this argument is further expounded, it has to be acknowledged that émigré scholars partly caused this silencing themselves. After their forced emigration, they were at pains to adjust their research and teaching to the different intellectual and
– including Cicero, Harrington and Sidney – in his works.8 Most significantly, the values that he emphasised in his political thought were almost identical to those of the commonwealthmen. ‘Liberty, civil and religious’ Bolingbroke certainly shared the Real Whig belief that liberty was the central political value. He described it as ‘the greatest of human blessings’ and ‘the greatest good of a people’, and like them he referred to it in order to justify his works.9 At the beginning of his Remarks on the History of England he suggested that the purpose of the essays in the
in the classical Greek city-state to the present moment. Based on this itinerary, I argue that Derrida’s contribution to thinking democracy can be summed up as follows: democracy is an impossible possibility, insofar as it is both enabled and ultimately threatened by what can never be brought under the sign of ‘we’. Derrida’s various attempts to define democracy within the history of Western political thought allows him to trace its fundamental aporias, most notably, the contradiction between freedom (qua unconditionality), on the one hand, and equality (which is
other words, is derivative in a twofold sense: it has its origin in the pre-political data of biological life, and it has its end in the post-political, highest possibility of human destiny.”13 This paradox is especially evident in the thought of Karl Marx, who sought to explain politics with the ultimate goal of escaping from a condition of politics defined in terms of class struggle. Arendt argues that the death of Socrates represented a major threat to philosophy, and set in motion an intellectual tradition whereby the pursuit of political thought is directed
to each his due’. 3 [ 1.2 ] Aquinas was especially influential on medieval political thought, reconciling the teachings of Christ with Aristotelian logic to achieve a distinctive philosophy of law and the state. Mankind, he argued, could not apprehend the eternal law of God directly, but by applying reason (the divine spark which set man apart from and above the animals) he might deduce a body of
formulation does not completely negate the need for secular political action, sometimes even by women. As Constance Jordan writes about the political and spiritual status of early modern women: ‘In the language of Renaissance political thought, she is a persona mixta : her natural and political self balanced by her spiritual self’ ( 1990 : 23). Though early modern patriarchy often
the development of English law during the early eleventh century. Background: politics and society in early medieval England Understanding the origins of Wulfstan’s political thought requires some knowledge of the troubled history of later Anglo-Saxon England. His vision of a holy society cannot be separated from the social and intellectual upheavals that radically reshaped
’s sedulously developed criticism of the government and the Laudian establishment and Filmer’s forceful patriarchalist theory serve as lenses to bring into focus a pivotal series of larger issues concerning english politics and political thought in the pre-civil War era. As this chapter will illustrate, their ideas of what the nation was and what it ought to stand for moulded two mutually exclusive models of england.36 Thus, the Kentish literati scott and Filmer took the disputes on monarchical power and the role of Parliament very seriously. Both cousins were shocked by what
’s identities as a ‘scientist’ and a ‘statesman’.11 It is certainly clear from several of his works that Bacon found a degree of incommensurability between ethical (specifically Christian) and civic values,12 and that many of the conditions praised in his natural philosophy are condemned Price_04_Ch4 62 14/10/02, 9:33 am Ethics and politics 63 elsewhere in his writings. Markku Peltonen stresses that the repeated identification of Bacon’s philosophical with his political thought relies upon a ‘rhetorical similarity’ which can obscure the distinction Bacon makes between