The Inhumanity of Right

by Christos Yannaras

Overview

In this study of an important aspect of political theory, Christos Yannaras argues that the concept of the right of the individual (since Hegel's Philosophy of Right) summarizes the philosophical and cultural identity of the paradigm of modernity. The philosophical assumptions underlying the concept of right have not hitherto been subjected to a searching critique. This book maintains that the starting-point of the concept of right is a phenomenalistic naturalism, which presupposes an abstract concept of the human subject as a fundamentally undifferentiated natural individual. The question is explored of how the priority accorded to this concept of right is related to the contemporary crisis of the modern politico-social paradigm. Against the modern concept of right with its illusion of objectivity, Yannaras sketches out the basic lines of a political theory that prioritizes new social needs that reflect the relational character of the human person.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780227177556
Publisher:	James Clarke & Co
Publication date:	03/31/2022
Pages:	179
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.17(h) x (d)

About the Author

Christos Yannaras, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the Panteion University of Athens, is, in the words of Basilio Petra, 'one of the most important Orthodox thinkers of the second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the present millennium'. He is the subject of two studies already published by James Clarke & Co: Sotiris Mitralexis (ed.), Polis, Ontology, Ecclesial Event: Engaging with Christos Yannaras' Thought (2018) and Basilio Petra, Christos Yannaras: The Apophatic Horizon of Ontology (2019). Norman Russell is Honorary Research Fellow of St Stephen's House, University of Oxford. He is well known as a patristics scholar and translator from Greek, Italian, and French. An experienced interpreter of Yannaras's thinking, he has already translated seven of his works.

Table of Contents

Preface Chapter 1 The Logical Image of Right Chapter 2 Consequences of the Logical Image of Right (a)Defining acts and defining relations (b)Defining truth and defining utility Chapter 3 The Political Hermeneutic of Right (a)Right: a pre-political achievement (b)The alienation of politics and the citizen (c)The 'homeopathic' paradox of right (d)The religious foundations of the utilitarianism of right Chapter 4 A Preliminary Transcendence of the Logic of Right (a)'Law' (Dikaion) and 'law' (nomos): the classical Greek version (b)'Law' (Dikaion) and 'law' (nomos): the Roman and early Christian versions Chapter 5 Cultural Resistance to the Individualism of Right (a)The 'civilization' of ecclesial Orthodoxy today (b)Orthodoxy, the West, and Islam (c)Orthodoxy and nationalism (d)Orthodoxy and liberalism Chapter 6 The Inhumanity of Right or the Humanizing of Right? (a)The dilemma of political anthropology (b)Oughtness and isness (c)The state and the community (d)The consumer and the citizen Bibliography Index