Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 3 of 3
Full-Text Articles in Philosophy
The Grammar Of Politicization And Depoliticization : Arendt's Republicanism And The Translation Of Revolutionary Politics And Judgment Into Political Institutions, Daniel Kuchler
Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)
For Arendt, political freedom is both a spontaneous rejection of rule and the foundation of institutions. In my dissertation, I argue that both aspects are linked together by her concept of political judgment. This reading of Arendt contrasts with a strand of political theory that seems to argue that public-participatory politics, as found in revolutions, cannot be translated into lasting institutions: Wolin and Rancière argue that any attempt at establishing institutions undermines the participatory character of politics. Habermas and Pettit on the other hand argue for establishing lasting institutions, but they do so at the expense of a rich concept …
Dynamic Politics : Necessity, Founding, And (Re)Founding In Machiavelli's Discourses On Livy, Vincent John Commisso
Dynamic Politics : Necessity, Founding, And (Re)Founding In Machiavelli's Discourses On Livy, Vincent John Commisso
Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)
This dissertation is an attempt to recast the political thought of Niccolò Machiavelli in his Discourses on Livy in a far more radical light than it has been previously understood. Rather than trying to overcome fortune, I argue that Machiavelli was encouraging political actors to embrace it by embracing the force which fortune generates: necessity. Along with this orientation towards fortune and necessity, Machiavelli also was engaging in an additional subversive project: the systematic undermining of the conventional republican wisdom of his predecessors and his contemporaries. On a practical level, the necessity central to Machiavelli’s thought is that of “founding,” …
Eudaimonia And Virtù : Excellence And Conflict In Democratic Politics, Christine M.K. Dow
Eudaimonia And Virtù : Excellence And Conflict In Democratic Politics, Christine M.K. Dow
Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)
Despite renewed interest in republicanism as a political and theoretical alternative to liberalism, much of contemporary republican scholarship emphasizes the ways that republican principles - liberty, rule of law, political participation - fit within a liberal framework, sharing its institutions and commitment to individual liberty. This project, in contrast, extracts a radically democratic republican theory of politics from two founding republican thinkers - Aristotle and Machiavelli. Using an analytical approach, I argue that a concept of human excellence or flourishing is central to a democratic interpretation of these texts. I show, in an analysis of the Ethics and Politics, that …