A careful reading of Hobbes' philosophical writings reveals that this author forwards no fewer than three distinct conceptions of the pre-political situation which he labels "the natural condition of humankind," or "the state of nature." By examining the relevant passages from The Elements of Law, De Cive and Leviathan, Hobbes' three principal works of political philosophy, I demonstrate that Hobbes' state of nature should not be interpreted as a single invariant concept but rather as a series of three distinct heuristic (...) or expository models. Further, I claim that distinctions between Hobbes' various conceptions of the state of nature reflect differing background assumptions concerning such factors as the prevailing degree of group stability and the level of abstractness with which representative human beings are characterized. ;After establishing this framework, I examine why Hobbes chose to include three distinct conceptions of the state of nature within his writings, and explore the relationship which appears to obtain among these three conceptions. I next examine the manner by which each of Hobbes' three types of commonwealth, namely commonwealth by institution, commonwealth by preservation and commonwealth by acquisition, can be understood to arise from each of Hobbes' three conceptions of the state of nature. In this section, I focus my analysis upon the transitions which occur when the unencumbered and isolated individuals who inhabit the state of nature enter into the social contract by "transferring" their respective rights of nature to the sovereign of their incipient commonwealth. Moreover, I examine Hobbes' explanation of why each subject incurs an obligation to obey his sovereign's decrees and I address the apparent difficulty of maintaining the subjects' allegiance to their sovereign in light of Hobbes' portrayal of human beings as passionate and predominantly self-serving creatures. I conclude by arguing that given Hobbes' characterization of humans as passionate and predominantly self-serving creatures, one can probably not expect commonwealths to arise in the manner that Hobbes describes, and one can certainly not expect such commonwealths, if established, to endure for any substantial period of time. (shrink)

This essay proposes an examination of Carl Schmitt’s thought by placing at its core the influence from Juan Donoso Cortés. Donoso Cortés has been largely forgotten over the centuries, and his influence on Schmitt’s thought has been overlooked as well. This essay advocates a reevaluation of their intellectual relationship by focusing on the defence of dictatorship as counterrevolution by both Schmitt and Donoso Cortés. To achieve this, the essay first presents the counterrevolutionary philosophy of Donoso Cortés framing him as a (...) philosopher of counterrevolution. Second, it examines the concept of dictatorship in Schmitt’s thought as articulated in his Dictatorship. Finally, the essay presents evidence of the influence that Donoso Cortés’s thought has had on Schmitt’s ideas. Thus, the essay suggests, firstly, that Donoso Cortés’s impact on Schmitt should be reassessed considering more aspects of their thought and secondly, it argues that the concept of dictatorship as articulated and defended by both Donoso Cortés and Schmitt could also be viewed as counterrevolutionary. (shrink)

Si la teología política es uno de los temas centrales que recorre la obra de Carl Schmitt, el problema de los valores —a pesar de los pocos trabajos dedicados al tema— no deja de tener importancia en relación con las reflexiones de este autor. El propósito de este trabajo es, precisamente, mostrar el vínculo existente entre uno y otro, entre la teología política schmittiana y su reflexión en torno a los valores. Para ello, nos proponemos recorrer, por una parte, sus (...) textos tempranos, que nos permitirán dilucidar la relación entre teología y política en la modernidad y, por otro lado, la crítica a la filosofía de los valores elaborada en La tiranía de los valores. A partir de ese recorrido bifurcado intentaremos trazar la continuidad existente entre la teología política y los valores, que, a nuestro juicio, puede rastrearse ya en El valor del Estado y el significado del individuo. (shrink)

This article addresses Eric L. Santner’s claim that “there is more political theology in everyday life than we might have ever thought” by analyzing the “theologico-political problem” in the work of three prominent twentieth-century political thinkers—Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss, and Hannah Arendt. Schmitt, Strauss, and Arendt share a preoccupation with the crisis of modern political liberalism and confront the theologico-political problem in a similar spirit: although their responses differ dramatically, their individual accounts dwell on the absence of incontestable principles in (...) modern society that can justify life-in-common and the persistence of the political order. Their writings thus engage with the question of the place of “the absolute” in the political realm. In particular, Arendt’s indirect approach to the theologico-political problem is crucial to understanding the radicality of a political world in which traditional certainties can no longer be re-established. The theoretical trajectory I present suggests that the dispersion of political theology in everyday life has a specific corollary: modern politics operates within the tragic and paradoxical nature of its unstable and common origins that cannot be incorporated in exceptionalist versions of the body politic. (shrink)

This article theorizes the European-level political response to the radical right by suggesting a focus on the conceptions of politics, society and of the European Union itself that inform this response. Analyses of the ways in which the political mainstream relates to such movements remain under-theorized and often fall back on understandings of political action in narrow instrumental terms. Instead, this article proposes an approach to this response which emphasizes the process through which shared understanding of the European political project (...) surface. It engages with these issues by turning to ideas that emerged in relation to the rise of European fascism in the 1930s on how to mount an effective defence of democracy. The underlying social analysis that fed into such strategies, the article argues, serves as a useful framework for analysis of the contemporary European response to the radical right. (shrink)