Scatter 2: Politics in Deconstruction
This book deconstructs the whole lineage of political philosophy, showing the ways democracy abuts and regularly undermines the sovereignist tradition across a range of texts from the Iliad to contemporary philosophy.

Politics is an object of perennial difficulty for philosophy—as recalcitrant to philosophical mastery as is philosophy’s traditional adversary, poetry. That difficulty makes it an attractive topic for any deconstructive approach to the tradition from which we inherit our language and our concepts. Scatter 2 pursues that deconstruction, often starting with, and sometimes departing from, the work of Jacques Derrida by attending to the concepts of sovereignty on the one hand and democracy on the other.

The book begins by following the fate of a line from Homer’s Iliad, where Odysseus asserts that “the rule of many is no good thing, let there be one ruler, one king.” The line, Bennington shows, is quoted, misquoted, and progressively Christianized by Aristotle, Philo Judaeus, Suetonius, the early Church Fathers, Aquinas, Dante, Ockham, Marsilius of Padua, Jean Bodin, Etienne de la Boétie, up to Carl Schmitt and Erik Peterson, and even one of the defendants at the Nuremberg trials, before being discussed by Derrida himself. In the book’s second half, Bennington begins again with Plato and Aristotle and tracks the concept of democracy as it regularly abuts and undermines that sovereignist tradition. In detailed readings of Hobbes and Rousseau, Bennington develops a notion of “proto-democracy” as a possible name for the scatter that underlies and drives the political as such and that will always prevent politics from achieving its aim of bringing itself to an end.

1136278356
Scatter 2: Politics in Deconstruction
This book deconstructs the whole lineage of political philosophy, showing the ways democracy abuts and regularly undermines the sovereignist tradition across a range of texts from the Iliad to contemporary philosophy.

Politics is an object of perennial difficulty for philosophy—as recalcitrant to philosophical mastery as is philosophy’s traditional adversary, poetry. That difficulty makes it an attractive topic for any deconstructive approach to the tradition from which we inherit our language and our concepts. Scatter 2 pursues that deconstruction, often starting with, and sometimes departing from, the work of Jacques Derrida by attending to the concepts of sovereignty on the one hand and democracy on the other.

The book begins by following the fate of a line from Homer’s Iliad, where Odysseus asserts that “the rule of many is no good thing, let there be one ruler, one king.” The line, Bennington shows, is quoted, misquoted, and progressively Christianized by Aristotle, Philo Judaeus, Suetonius, the early Church Fathers, Aquinas, Dante, Ockham, Marsilius of Padua, Jean Bodin, Etienne de la Boétie, up to Carl Schmitt and Erik Peterson, and even one of the defendants at the Nuremberg trials, before being discussed by Derrida himself. In the book’s second half, Bennington begins again with Plato and Aristotle and tracks the concept of democracy as it regularly abuts and undermines that sovereignist tradition. In detailed readings of Hobbes and Rousseau, Bennington develops a notion of “proto-democracy” as a possible name for the scatter that underlies and drives the political as such and that will always prevent politics from achieving its aim of bringing itself to an end.

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Scatter 2: Politics in Deconstruction

Scatter 2: Politics in Deconstruction

by Geoffrey Bennington
Scatter 2: Politics in Deconstruction

Scatter 2: Politics in Deconstruction

by Geoffrey Bennington

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$39.00 
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Overview

This book deconstructs the whole lineage of political philosophy, showing the ways democracy abuts and regularly undermines the sovereignist tradition across a range of texts from the Iliad to contemporary philosophy.

Politics is an object of perennial difficulty for philosophy—as recalcitrant to philosophical mastery as is philosophy’s traditional adversary, poetry. That difficulty makes it an attractive topic for any deconstructive approach to the tradition from which we inherit our language and our concepts. Scatter 2 pursues that deconstruction, often starting with, and sometimes departing from, the work of Jacques Derrida by attending to the concepts of sovereignty on the one hand and democracy on the other.

The book begins by following the fate of a line from Homer’s Iliad, where Odysseus asserts that “the rule of many is no good thing, let there be one ruler, one king.” The line, Bennington shows, is quoted, misquoted, and progressively Christianized by Aristotle, Philo Judaeus, Suetonius, the early Church Fathers, Aquinas, Dante, Ockham, Marsilius of Padua, Jean Bodin, Etienne de la Boétie, up to Carl Schmitt and Erik Peterson, and even one of the defendants at the Nuremberg trials, before being discussed by Derrida himself. In the book’s second half, Bennington begins again with Plato and Aristotle and tracks the concept of democracy as it regularly abuts and undermines that sovereignist tradition. In detailed readings of Hobbes and Rousseau, Bennington develops a notion of “proto-democracy” as a possible name for the scatter that underlies and drives the political as such and that will always prevent politics from achieving its aim of bringing itself to an end.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780823289936
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Publication date: 01/05/2021
Pages: 352
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Geoffrey Bennington is Asa G. Candler Professor of Modern French Thought at Emory University.

Table of Contents

Preface | ix

Abbreviations of Works by Jacques Derrida | xiii

Introduction: Politics in Deconstruction | 1

Part I: Politics, Metaphysics, Sovereignty

1. Bios Theōrētikos, Bios Politikos | 15

2. Polykoiranie I (Derrida, Homer, Aristotle, Xenophanes) | 48

3. Polykoiranie II (Philo Judaeus, Early Christian Apologists, Pseudo-Dionysius) | 70

4. Polykoiranie III (John of Salisbury, Aquinas, Dante, Marsilius of Padua) | 100

5. Polykoiranie IV (Bodin, La Boétie) | 125

Part II: (Proto)Democracy

6. To Poikilon (Plato, Alfarabi, Aristotle) | 147

7. Democracy (Arendt, Aristotle) | 182

8. Protodemocracy and the Fall of Sovereignty (Hobbes, Aristotle) | 203

9. Nature, Sovereignty, Government (Spinoza, Rousseau) | 250

10. Stasiology (Rothaug, Peterson, Schmitt, Gregory of Nazianzus) | 280

Postscript | 301

Index | 305

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