Thomas Hobbes and Carl Schmitt : the Politics of Order and Myth.

Description

Thomas Hobbes, the English 17th century philosopher, and Carl Schmitt, Hitler's 'crown jurist', a political thinker and author of an enigmatic book on Hobbes, are increasingly relevant today for two reasons. First, they address the problem of political order, so important when we witness failed states, the privatisation of war, and the rise of political violence that does not derive from the state. Secondly, they are both crucial sources for the use of mythology in politics; moreover, they address the key issue of our time, namely, the relation between politics and religion. This collection of.  Read more... Cover Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Notes on Contributors Acknowledgements 1. Introduction: Thomas Hobbes, Carl Schmitt, and three conceptions of politics 2. Schmitt's Behemoth 3. Hobbes and Schmitt on the name and nature of Leviathan revisited 4. Re-imagining Leviathan: Schmitt and Oakeshott on Hobbes and the problem of political order 5. Hobbes's paradox redux 6. The liberal slip of Thomas Hobbes's authoritarian pen 7. Does Hobbes have a concept of the enemy? 8. From Roman Catholicism to mechanized oppression: on political-theological disjunctures in Schmitt's Weimar thought9. Hobbes, Schmitt, and the paradox of religious liberality 10. The significance of Hobbes's conception of power 11. Order, the ocean, and Satan: Schmitt's Hobbes, National Socialism, and the enigmatic ambiguity of friend and foe Index.