Dante's Political Philosophy: Rethinking Paradiso

Dante's Divina Commedia/Divine Comedy (completed c. 1321) is considered one of the greatest works in Western literature, and its three canticles – Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso – have had a powerful influence on subsequent literature and thought. Dante shares the classical idea that political philosophy aims to defend the philosophic life, and in Paradiso he does just that, defending philosophy, understood as a way of life, against its subordination to Christianity. Paul Stern shows the...