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Advancing the thesis that a contract between the political members of a community must lead to the highest form of social inclusion, Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan (1651) has provided the groundwork for democracies around the world. Yet, Hobbes also states that this contract can only be upheld by a strong sovereign whose authority is derived from God. How can a democracy be defined, then, as truly inclusive when it essentially grows out of a theocracy that thinks about human beings in terms of "reduction"?
In Democracy and the Divine: The Phenomenon of Political Romanticism Alexandra Aidler argues that despite modern democracy's problematic heritage, one should not abandon its claims to religion. Articulating a democracy that is based on the religious principle of giving oneself to another, Aidler develops a political theology of democracy that is built upon two traditions in political thought that have rarely been examined thus far side by side for their contributions to this field: German Romanticism, as exemplified by Franz von Baader and Friedrich Schlegel, and the "theological turn" in French philosophy, as represented by Jacques Derrida and Jacques Rancière.
List of contents
Part I. Laws of Love and Laws of Giving: Franz von Baader's and Friedrich Schlegel's Political Philosophies
Chapter 1. The Romantic Critique of Modern Political Theology
Chapter 2. History without God's Logos: On the Genesis of Ontological Power in Baader and Schlegel
Chapter 3. Restituting the Divine Logos: Baader and Schlegel on the Notion of the Recognition of Exteriority
Chapter 4. Politics of Consecration: The Path towards the Kingdom of God in Schlegel's and Baader's Late Writings
"Unus pastor, una grex": An Interim Appraisal of Baader's and Schlegel's Teleological Politics of Absolute Inclusion
Part II. Philosophies of Forbearance: An Exploration of Present-day Democracies of Singularity
Chapter 5. Jacques Rancière's "Passion for Equality"
Chapter 6. Democracy Beyond Politics in Derrida
Conclusion: A Final Appraisal of the Romantic Democracy of Exteriority
About the author
Alexandra Aidler earned her PhD at the University of Konstanz.
Summary
Democracy and the Divine articulates a democracy that is based on the principle of giving oneself to another. For this project, the author highlights two traditions that rarely have been read side by side or considered seminal to the philosophical idea of democracy: nineteenth-century German romanticism and French postmodernism.
