Post-Foundational Political Thought: Political Difference in Nancy, Lefort, Badiou and Laclau (Taking on the Political)

✍ Scribed by Oliver Marchart

• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 209
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

A wide-ranging overview of the emergence of post-foundationalism and a survey of the work of its key contemporary exponents.This book presents the first systematic coverage of the conceptual difference between 'politics' (the practice of conventional politics: the political system or political forms of action) and 'the political' (a much more radical aspect which cannot be restricted to the realms of institutional politics). It is also the first introductory overview of post-foundationalism and the tradition of 'left Heideggerianism': the political thought of contemporary theorists who make frequent use of the idea of political difference: Jean-Luc Nancy, Claude Lefort, Alain Badiou, and Ernesto Laclau.After an overview of current trends in social post-foundationalism and a genealogical chapter on the historical emergence of the difference between the concepts of 'politics' and 'the political', the work of individual theorists is presented and discussed at length. Individual chapters are presented on the political thought of Jean-Luc Nancy (including Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe), Claude Lefort, Alain Badiou, and Ernesto Laclau (including Chantal Mouffe). Overall the book offers an elaboration of the idea of a post-foundational conception of politics. (2/1/09)

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 6
Expanded Contents List......Page 8
Introduction: On the Absent Ground of the Social......Page 10
Notes......Page 19
1.1 Anti-Foundationalism and Post-Foundationalism......Page 20
1.2 The ‘Quasi-Transcendental Turn’......Page 22
1.3 Heidegger: Event, Moment, Freedom, Dif-ference......Page 27
1.4 The ‘Grounding Question’ regarding the Ontological Difference......Page 31
1.5 Contingency......Page 34
1.6 Moment and Constellation......Page 40
Notes......Page 42
2.1 The Political Paradox......Page 44
2.2 The Associative Political: the Arendtian Trait......Page 47
2.3 The Dissociative Political: the Schmittian Trait......Page 50
2.4 Neutralization, Colonization and Sublimation of the Political......Page 53
2.5 The Conceptual Difference: a Diachronic View......Page 57
2.6 The Politicization of Concepts and the Concept of the Political......Page 61
2.7 The Crisis of the Social – or Why Conceptual Nominalism is Not Enough......Page 65
Notes......Page 68
3.1 Philosophy and the Political: the Deconstruction of the Political......Page 70
3.2 The ‘Retreat’ of the Political......Page 72
3.3 La Politique and le Politique......Page 76
3.4 Community and the Political Difference......Page 78
3.5 The Moment of the Political: Event......Page 83
3.6 The Danger of Philosophism and the Necessity of a ‘First Philosophy’......Page 87
Notes......Page 92
4.1 Thinking, Philosophy, Science......Page 94
4.2 Politics and the Political......Page 97
4.3 Conflict as Foundation: Society’s Double Division......Page 101
4.4 The Machiavellian Moment according to Lefort......Page 105
4.5 The Real as Disturbance and the Imaginary as Concealment......Page 108
4.6 Democracy as ‘Ontic Institutionalization’ of the Originary Division......Page 112
Notes......Page 117
5.1 Against Political Philosophy as a Philosophy of the Political......Page 118
5.2 Politics of the Real......Page 124
5.3 A ‘Politics’ of Truth: Equality and Justice......Page 129
5.4 The Grace of Contingency and the Evil of Foundationalism......Page 133
5.5 The Danger of Ethicism......Page 137
Notes......Page 141
6.1 The Impossibility of Society......Page 143
6.2 Social Sedimentation and the Event of Reactivation......Page 147
6.3 Politics and the Political – a ‘Laclauian’ Difference......Page 151
6.4 Discourse Theory as Political Ontology......Page 155
6.5 The Seventh Day of Rest......Page 159
Notes......Page 160
7.1 Towards a Philosophy of the Political......Page 163
7.2 Post-Foundationalism and Democracy......Page 165
7.3 The Political Displacement of Politics......Page 168
7.4 Political Thought as First Philosophy......Page 171
7.5 The Political Difference as Political Difference......Page 178
Notes......Page 185
Bibliography......Page 188
Index......Page 202