Synopses & Reviews
Modern liberalism begins in the forgetting of the English Revolution. Anatomy of Failure seeks to right that wrong by exploring the concept of political action, playing its history against its philosophy.
The 1640s are a period of institutional failure and political disaster: the country plunges into civil war, every agent is naked. Established procedures are thrown aside and the very grounds for action are fiercely debated and recast. Five queries emerge in the experience of the New Model Army, five queries that outline an anatomy of failure, isolating the points at which actors disagree, conflict flares up, and alliances dissolve: Who can act? On what grounds? Who is right about what is to be done? Why do we succeed or fail? If you and I split, were we ever united, and to what end? The application of these questions to the Leveller-agitator writings, and then to Thomas Hobbes and John Locke's philosophies, generates models of political action. No mere philosophical abstractions, the Hobbesian and Lockean models of sovereign and contractual action have dominated the very practice of politics for centuries. Today it is time to recuperate the Leveller-agitator model of joint action, a model unique in its adequacy to the threat of failure and in its vocation for building the common-wealth.
Anatomy of Failure is ideal for upper-level undergraduates and postgraduates taking courses in Contemporary Political Philosophy, Continental Philosophy, Modern European Philosophy, Contemporary French Philosophy, Critical Theory and Radical Political Thought.
Synopsis
This book explores the concept of political action from historical, political and philosophical perspectives, resulting in an exciting intervention in the field of contemporary political philosophy. This book examines what actually happens in politics, addressing a crucial question: why is failure the fundamental category for understanding politics? We all expect promises to evaporate, policies to misfire, alliances to dissolve - politics must fail, but why? Employing Alain Badiou's method of conditioning philosophy with history, Oliver Feltham maps out how politics thinks its own successes and failures, leading to a more nuanced understanding of a distinctly collective form of action. He creates a dialogue between philosophy and politics, playing actual historical instances of political action - such as the English and French revolutions - against philosophical conceptions of political action - found in the work of such thinkers as Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau and Marx. The book thus presents a more concrete conception of the nature of politics as a specific kind of action that reorients and clarifies the field of contemporary political philosophy as a whole.
Synopsis
An historical, political and philosophical account of political action, drawing on the work of Alain Badiou.
Synopsis
This book explores the concept of political action from historical, political and philosophical perspectives, resulting in an exciting intervention in the field of contemporary political philosophy. This book examines what actually happens in politics, addressing a crucial question: why is failure the fundamental category for understanding politics? We all expect promises to evaporate, policies to misfire, alliances to dissolve - politics must fail, but why? Employing Alain Badiou's method of conditioning philosophy with history, Oliver Feltham maps out how politics thinks its own successes and failures, leading to a more nuanced understanding of a distinctly collective form of action. He creates a dialogue between philosophy and politics, playing actual historical instances of political action - such as the English and French revolutions - against philosophical conceptions of political action - found in the work of such thinkers as Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau and Marx. The book thus presents a more concrete conception of the nature of politics as a specific kind of action that reorients and clarifies the field of contemporary political philosophy as a whole.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements \ List of Abbreviations \ 1. Thrasymachus versus Socrates on Philosophy and Political Action \ 2. 1647 - the History of the Leveller-Agitators and the New Model Army \ 3. Hobbes' and Locke's Metaphysics: Substances No Longer Act, Institutions Act \ 4. Hobbes and Locke on Religious Conflict: When Institutions Act, Subjects Act \ 5. Hobbes and Locke on Politics: Sovereign Action and Contractual Action \ 6. Unveiling the Forgotten Model: the Leveller-Agitators on Joint Action \ Notes \ Bibliography \ Index