Politics of the One: Concepts of the One and the Many in Contemporary Thought

This volume in the Political Theory and Contemporary Philosophy series examines one of the most important topics in contemporary political theory: how to conceptualize the relationship between the one and the many.

The essays discuss how to reconcile multiple ontologies without subsuming them to a totalitarian unity. While one school of thought (Deleuze, Negri) seeks to create a new ontology based on the many instead of the one, (which, politically, is close to anarchy), another proposes to understand the "one" as the "ultra-one" of the event (Badiou). In this groundbreaking work, leading thinkers explore these debates and offer alternative concepts. Building on Jean-Luc Nancy's essay who proposes an ontology of "singular plurality," contributors aim to synthesize the one and the many and suggest different ways of forming collectives, beyond the dominant representative political forms.

An original and challenging work, Politics of the One addresses new possible ways of bringing people together, integrating philosophy with theoretical and practical problems of politics.

Leading thinkers address the relationship between the one and the many in this Political Theory and Contemporary Philosophy volume.

Introduction to the OneThe Concept of One: From Philosophy to Politics -Artemy MagunPart I. Metaphysics of the One and the Multiple1. More than One -Jean Luc Nancy2. Condivision, or Towards a Non- communitarian Concatenation of Singularities -Gerald Raunig3. Unity and Solitude -Artemy Magun4. The Fragility of the One -Maria Calvacante5. The One: Construction or Event? For a Politics of Becoming -Boyan MancherPart II. 20th-Century Thinkers of Unity and Multiplicity6. Truth and Infinity in Badiou and Heidegger -Alexey Chernyakov7. Complicated Presence: The Unity of Being in Parmenides and Heidegger -Jussi Bachman8. The Universal, the General, the Multiple in the Perspective of a Political Utopia: Deleuze and Badiou on the Event -Keti Chukhrov9. Humanity, Unity and the One -Nina PowerPart III. Unity and Multiplicity in Nature10. Elemental Nature as the Ultimate Common Ground of the World Community -Susanna Lindberg11. Vegetative Democracy, or the Post-metaphysics of Plants -Michael MarderPart IV.  Unity in Action: Forms of Political Consolidation in the Case of Contemporary Russia12. Collectivity in Post-revolutionary Russia -Igor Tchubarov13. Street University: Production of Collective Time and  Public Space -Pavel Arsenyev14.  Fighting Together: the Problem of Solidarity -Carine ClémentPart V. E Pluribus Unum: Res Publica and Community15. How Does One Constitute the One? Theology of  the Icon, Theory of Non-representative Art and of Non-representative Politics -Oleg Kharkhodin12. Drawing Lots in Politics: Unity and Totality -Yves Sintomer