Continental Political Philosophy

What is continental political philosophy?

continental philosophy?• the concept will be treated ‘lightly’ in this course:- neither as a separate tradition or orientation, nor as anything exact (definable) at all- “that other philosophical discourse”

• (neg) discourses and themes not generally acknowledged and discussed within mainstream liberal political philosophy- for example: Rawlsian type theory of justice• (pos) the legacies of Marx and Heidegger (among others), their impact and relevance for contemporary political philosophy - those political philosophical discourses that start off and have developed from out of the 20th century French and German discourses- partly separately from the Anglo-American

• Today: Anglo-American and continental more and more intertwined, especially in political philosophy

What is continental political philosophy?

phenomenology- Husserl, Heidegger- almost nothing of political philosophy as such (justice, equality, problem of political order, political institutions etc.) - implications for conceptions of the social (social ontology)

hermeneutics- modern hermeneutics: Heidegger, Gadamer, Ricoeur- important implications for conceptions of the social (social ontology)- some political philosophical discourse, esp. Ricoeur

(French) phenomenological existentialism- Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, de Beauvoir- existential phenomenology still not a political philosophy- deeply politically involved thinkers- Merleau-Ponty: separate writings on politics and political philosophy (not phenomenology?, instead the question of Marxism)- Sartre: committed writing, philosophical engagement in contemporary politically relevant issues- de Beauvoir: The Second Sex (1949), (not political philosophy?), other writings on politics

Marx and Marxism

- in France especially after the Second World War- existentialism and Marxism?- Merleau-Ponty continues to discuss Marxism, few references to phenomenology- especially Sartre: Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960)

What is continental political philosophy?

phenomenology hermeneutics

(French) phenomenological existentialism

Marx and Marxism

(German) critical social theory- Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse- social theory with a strong philosophical content- political philosophy as critique of society and of the present- no normative political philosophy in the classical sense

• Habermas- incorporation of philosophy, critical social theory and sociology- engages with more classical political philosophical themes- debate with Rawls, mid 1990:ies- political philosophy of deliberative democracy

- Honneth, Forst

Arendt

What is continental political philosophy?

phenomenology hermeneutics

(French) phenomenological existentialism

Marx and Marxism

(German) critical social theory

from structuralism to post-structuralism• Althusser: structural Marxism• Derrida: deconstruction as critique of phenomenology- from sporadic engagement in ethics and political themes, to deep engagement (esp. 1990:ies onwards) => deconstruction and the political• Foucault: power and a critical ontology of the present

Nietzsche

• Deleuze&Guattari: “a prologue to anti-fascist thought”• Lyotard: The Postmodern Condition (1979)

- strongly and explicitly political themes, not much of classical political philosophy!

- Lefort, Rancière, Badiou, Balibar- Butler- Laclau & Mouffe- Zizek- Hardt & Negri

- a return to more classical political philosophical themes?

Anglo-American critical theory:- Walzer, Young, Fraser, Benhabib

Arendt

Some main areas of questions:

• ontology/social ontology- how to understand social and political reality- ontology of human being and of life in ‘society’

• diagnosis of the times and social critique- a central theme of continental political philosophy- White: malignancy

• the problem of normativity- how to justify normative conceptions- common to all of political philosophy- often left vague and unclear in continental political philosophy

• the self-understanding of philosophical reflection- what can philosophy actually achieve and what should political philosophy do- critical reflection on this common in continental political philosophy=> philosophical depth or ‘high-brow vagueness’?

• history and the question of possibilities- the problem of social transformation- often a central theme in continental political philosophy- importance of the Marxist tradition