Totalitarianism and the modern conception of politics / Michael Halberstam
- Bib ID:
- 1762157
- Format:
- Book
- Author:
- Halberstam, Michael, 1963-
- Description:
-
- New Haven, Conn. : Yale University Press, c1999
- x, 290p. ; 22 cm.
- ISBN:
- 0300071809 (alkaline paper)
- Summary:
-
"Halberstam argues that neither liberalism nor totalitarianism can be understood without the other. Liberalism reflects the modern conception of politics: a vision of society as a human construct answering to an unprecedented valorization of freedom. The liberal attempt to emancipate politics from culture, however, risks a loss of shared meaning that totalitarianism promises to repair. The author thus reveals how the idea of totalitarianism embodies truths and contradictions about liberalism itself. The philosophical heart of the book is a critical development of Immanuel Kant's theory of reflective, aesthetic judgment, exposing the limits of reason and taking up what Hannah Arendt's unfinished work suggests. This rich study in the history of modern political thought from Hobbes through Marx to the present culminates with a new and surprising interpretation of Arendt's theory of totalitarianism."--BOOK JACKET.
- Full contents:
-
- Pt. 1. Modern Emancipation and the Problem of Meaning. Ch. 1. Society as Artifact. Ch. 2. Social Reconstruction and the Problem of Meaning. Ch. 3. Liberalism versus Totalitarianism
- Pt. 2. Questioning the Self-Understanding of Liberalism. Ch. 4. Freedom, Common Sense, and the Limited Reach of Reason. Ch. 5. The Indeterminancy of Kant's Rational Reason and the Intervention of Taste. Ch. 6. Totalitarianism as the Liberal Nightmare
- Pt. 3. Hannah Arendt on Modernity and the Experience of Totalitarianism. Ch. 7. Modernity and the Loss of World. Ch. 8. Terrible Freedom.
- Notes:
-
- "This book grew out of my dissertation work with Karsten Harries at Yale University"--Acknowledgments.
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Subject:
- Totalitarianism
- Also Titled:
- Totalitarianism & the modern conception of politics
- Copyright:
-
In Copyright
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Copyright status was determined using the following information:
- Material type:
- Literary Dramatic Musical
- Published status:
- Published
- Publication date:
- 1999
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