Post-Foundational Political Thought: Political Difference in Nancy, Lefort, Badiou and Laclau (Taking on the Political) 1st Edition by Oliver Marchart (PDF)

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A wide-ranging overview of the emergence of post-foundationalism and a survey of the work of its key contemporary exponents.This book presents the first systematic coverage of the conceptual difference between ‘politics’ (the practice of conventional politics: the political system or political forms of action) and ‘the political’ (a much more radical aspect which cannot be restricted to the realms of institutional politics). It is also the first introductory overview of post-foundationalism and the tradition of ‘left Heideggerianism’: the political thought of contemporary theorists who make frequent use of the idea of political difference: Jean-Luc Nancy, Claude Lefort, Alain Badiou and Ernesto Laclau.After an overview of current trends in social post-foundationalism and a genealogical chapter on the historical emergence of the difference between the concepts of ‘politics’ and ‘the political’, the work of individual theorists is presented and discussed at length. Individual chapters are presented on the political thought of Jean-Luc Nancy (including Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe), Claude Lefort, Alain Badiou, and Ernesto Laclau (including Chantal Mouffe).Overall the book offers an elaboration of the idea of a post-foundational conception of politics.Other titles in the Taking on the Political series: Valentine and Arditi/ Polemicisation 0 7486 1064 2Shapiro/ Cinematic Political Thought 0 7486 1289 0Chambers/ Language and the Politics of Untimeliness 0 7486 1766 3Bowman/ Post-Marxism Versus Cultural Studies 978 0 7486 1762 3Simons/ Critical Political Theory in the Media Age 0 7486 1583 0

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review This book will make a valuable contribution in engaging students and academics with important debates in contemporary political theory… it is a clear, well-written and sophisticated introduction, one that will be welcomed by students and university teachers alike. — Dr Majid Yar, University of Kent at CanterburyThere is a real need for a book like this. Marchart is a patient author. He explains things slowly and clearly to his reader. And what he explains is surely of interest to those of us who work in the interstices of political theory and Continental (especially post-Heideggerian) philosophy. — Professor Linda Zerilli, Northwestern UniversityMarchart is to be praised for rescuing the nation of post-foundationalism as well as political difference and the political itself. — Anya Topolski, Political Theory About the Author Oliver Marchart is Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Political Science at University of Vienna.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Marchart takes what he regards as an essential insight from Heidegger/Derrida and uses it to organize a reading of four contemporary political thinkers: Nancy, Lefort, Badiou and Laclau.That essential insight is the ontic/ontological distinction and the play of difference that is revealed as a result. That distinction has its equivalent in the distinction between politics and the political that all four thinkers organize their own thought around. Marchart also uses a distinction in the thought of Arendt and Schmidt as a further thematic. In that case, the distinction is based on whether one focuses on the associative (the acting together) or the dis-associative (acting against) of the political.I found the readings of Nancy and Laclau to be useful and clear. The one on Lefort alone is worth the book. It revealed several themes of Lefort’s work on democracy that I have been blind to. The reading on Badiou is less clear but I think that has more to do with Badiou himself that with Marchart’s explication. Perhaps other readers more sympathetic to Badiou’s work will get more out of the discussion than I did.The final chapter is a summing up of the readings in the form of an argument for seeing the political/politics distinction as the originary form of the ontic/ontological difference. It is an argument to accept the simultaneous impossibility of a grounding with the necessity of one to give linguistic/discursive form to our social life.This is a challenging book. It is a bit wordy at times and occasionally the reader will want to snarl at some particular phrase. But there is too much good explication going on in this book to not read it. There are insights into Heidegger, Derrida, Ricouer, Schmidt, Arendt, Zizek, Lacan, Gramsci and Mouffe. A book that can help to clearly introduce those thinkers and to sort out their differences for us is too rare to ignore.I also think that the subject matter of the book is timely now that we live under Trump/Bannon. We live in a time where many of our foundational institutions, behaviors and beliefs are under attack. Trump/Bannon are revealing how those institutions, behaviors, and beliefs are conventions that have no safeguards other than our common insistence that they be maintained.Much of the philosophy explored in this book (especially those of Lefort and Laclau) are useful guides for understanding what the blazes is happening. What we do with that understanding is up to us. And isn’t that really what living in a democracy it supposed to be about?

⭐An excellent work of post-foundational and post-structural thinking, exposing key underpinnings to Western political thinking. Though superfluous wording and awkward syntax make for a demanding read in it’s own right, the pithy arguments make it effort well spent. Professors, grad students, junior-to-senior college students, and life-learners familiar with the philosophical lexicon will greatly benefit from this book.

⭐too many underlines in the book!!

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