ABSTRACTPolitical rituals, like the sovereign acclamation described in Rousseau’s social contract, exhibit a logic of representation that seem to oscillate between presence and absence, and enact a problematic identification of the people as a multitude of individuals and as a whole. This article explores this logic of rituals by comparing problems of political representation in Rousseau and Agamben with the highest principle of Aristotle’s philosophy. It thus elucidates the problem of representation in rituals of political power.

Though it may sound awkward to ask whether the political sovereign is happy or unhappy, the question is relevant to political theory, especially within a political theological perspective. Because man was created in the image of God, human happiness needs to be a reflection of divine beatitude, and as divine sovereignty is, at least analogically, related to political sovereignty, the conceptual coherence is secured. The main argument is, however, that the analogy does not hold. I shall show how St Thomas (...) Aquinas’s short treatment of God’s beatitude may mislead us about power, fame, riches, and dignity being essential to happiness, based on an analysis of Franz Kafka’s major novel, The Castle, and a few other writings by him. I shall argue that our tradition of political thinking and behavior remains ambivalent on this issue. The political sovereign is born out of our unhappy condition, yet its power, fame, riches, and glory suggests to us that it has appropriated our happiness. But for this very reason it cannot be happy, and it therefore suggests a false analogy between the divine and the political sovereign. It is fundamentally at variance with our happiness, which incites us to abandon, reject, and eventually, kill it. (shrink)

The paper examines the value of glory and offers a conception of it, which is developed by criticising other accounts and by arguing that the Homeric and the Biblical traditions have a remarkably similar, converging view on glory. A more detailed analysis of Heinrich von Kleist's The Prince Friedrich of Homburg serves to deepen this view and outline an account of glory that rests on the following claims: it is different from, although not entirely opposite to, fame; it is related (...) to victory, to abundant, everlasting life, and to a certain type of passivity and dialogical contemplation. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The paper discusses a possible political theological interpretation of arguments developed in Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities. What emerges is that Musil pose a fundamental challenge to the possibility of any real analogy between God and the political sovereign, as suggested by Carl Schmitt. At stake is Austria as a yet-to-be-born modern sovereign. However, the novel shows why attempts to conceive it in an image of God all fail. After surveying four such attempts, the main focus will be (...) the discussion of Anselm of Canterbury’s existential argument in this secular context. At Diotima’s inspiration it is General von Bordwehr, a largely neglected figure, who makes the most serious attempt to argue for the political sovereign as the greatest conceivable thing. The argument is that greatness entails containing every idea and its opposite, and this yields the concept of order. But order means the frozen end of everything. Hence, instead of a living God, we end up with a political sovereign marked by death. (shrink)