Drawing on seminal texts and lesser known works, this dissertation brings the political theory of Hannah Arendt into the company of several key debates in democratic theory. Though she is most renowned for her theory of political action, it is my contention that Arendt’s concept of World can productively change the very terms by which democratic politics is most often understood and questioned. World, in this case, refers to physical and symbolic matters of commonality that are constructed by and for humans. This project begins with a genealogy of that traces its development of World through Arendt’s own biography including her experience as a female philosopher decades before the feminist movement, German Jewish refugee, and immigrant living in the United States. The following chapter explores the shortcomings of Arendt’s concept of political action, arguing in particular that it limits and forecloses democratic political possibilities. The third chapter brings World to bear on the question of whether unity or difference is necessary for the consolidation of the demos, a well-mined debate in democratic theory that the conceptual terms of World can alter and amend. The final section uses the concept of World to contest the popular depiction of globalization that Thomas Friedman champions in his well known works. This is in service of an argument that World can offer a productive critique of the destructive aspects of globalization, particularly the narrative of capitalist inevitability that often undergirds them.

A careful reading of Hobbes' philosophical writings reveals that this author forwards no fewer than three distinct conceptions of the pre-political situation which he labels "the natural condition of humankind," or "the state of nature." By examining the relevant passages from The Elements of Law, De Cive and Leviathan, Hobbes' three principal works of political philosophy, I demonstrate that Hobbes' state of nature should not be interpreted as a single invariant concept but rather as a series of three distinct heuristic or expository models. Further, I claim that distinctions between Hobbes' various conceptions of the state of nature reflect differing background assumptions concerning such factors as the prevailing degree of group stability and the level of abstractness with which representative human beings are characterized. After establishing this framework, I examine why Hobbes chose to include three distinct conceptions of the state of nature within his writings, and explore the relationship which appears to obtain among these three conceptions. I next examine the manner by which each of Hobbes' three types of commonwealth, namely commonwealth by institution, commonwealth by preservation and commonwealth by acquisition, can be understood to arise from each of Hobbes' three conceptions of the state of nature. In this section, I focus my analysis upon the transitions which occur when the unencumbered and isolated individuals who inhabit the state of nature (in its various forms) enter into the social contract by "transferring" their respective rights of nature to the sovereign of their incipient commonwealth. Moreover, I examine Hobbes' explanation of why each subject incurs an obligation to obey his sovereign's decrees and I address the apparent difficulty of maintaining the subjects' allegiance to their sovereign in light of Hobbes' portrayal of human beings as passionate and predominantly self-serving creatures. I conclude by arguing that given Hobbes' characterization of humans as passionate and predominantly self-serving creatures, one can probably not expect commonwealths to arise in the manner that Hobbes describes, and one can certainly not expect such commonwealths, if established, to endure for any substantial period of time.

A sympathetic reviewer has noted that the best a critic of Rorty can do is to compare his views invidiously to alternative views. Taking this advice to heart, I contrast Rorty's social and political views to Dewey's, and then to an alternative account which I elaborate. My standards of comparison are two liberal ideals than which, according to Rorty, none others are higher. These are: (1) amelioration of suffering, and (2) leaving people alone to pursue their own visions of personal perfection. In Chapter One, I point out that there are significant differences between Rorty and his alleged progenitor, Dewey, notably when it comes to their respective conceptions of how to harmonize personal freedom with public responsibility. Unlike Dewey, Rorty advocates abandoning the attempt to fuse the public realm of altruism and the private realm of sublimity by means of one all-encompassing theory. In Chapter Two, I argue that the existing liberal democracies Rorty is concerned to defend bear little resemblance to his democratic utopia, in which "the quest for autonomy is impeded as little as possible by social institutions." I introduce an alternative vocabulary, according to which political institutions, broadly conceived, traverse nearly the entire length and breadth of the private sphere in the north Atlantic democracies. In Chapter Three, I argue that existing liberal democracies fare little better with reference to Rorty's public ideal of ameliorating suffering than they did with reference to his private ideal of making room for self making. Then I suggest an alternative setup which I believe to be more promising for purposes of ameliorating suffering. In the final chapter, I argue that Rorty's private role as ironist and his public role as self-described apologist for bourgeois liberal democracy are not so much incommensurable as they are incompatible. The better he fulfills one role, I argue, the more seriously he compromises the other.

Is there an epistemological and/or practical basis for an ethic of history at the close of the twentieth century? This dissertation focuses upon selected works within the tradition of Western metaphysics that have allowed such a question to become both recognizable and problematic today. The problematic aspects of such a question become readily apparent. For it gives rise to the idea of a world-history—of a teleological historical process—which is all but unanimously considered to be of contemporary relevance only as a reminder of why the present defines itself as a “postmodern” age. Furthermore, the concept of an ethic of history evokes the thought of the Kantian moral law which Georg Lukàcs described as early as 1914 as a depleted source of illumination that no longer serves as “the map of all possible paths.” But along with the philosophy of history as conceived by Herder, Hegel and Marx, the present has inherited a critique of that tradition whose origins lie in the Kantian system. Chapter 1 explores how Kant presents an ethic of history that is in fact deprived of the kind of objective or empirically verifiable measure capable of providing something like a road map for human action. For Kant the task of enforcing an unwritten and unrepresentable law is therefore conferred upon the human imagination. Chapter 2 then focuses upon how Kant's critique of reason regulates the necessary yet potentially boundless and debilitating power of the imagination by instituting a theological supplement to the moral law. The very phrase “theological supplement” indicates that an unorthodox theological concept has thereby been introduced in order to establish and valorize a limit to the capacities of the human will. Can such a limit be represented “atheologically”? This is the question underlying chapters 3 and 4. In chapter 3 Friedrich Schiller's program for an “aesthetic education” is interpreted as a supplement to the moral law that ends up by all but displacing it. Chapter 4, in turn, argues that Friedrich Nietzsche's attempt to displace the moral law succeeds in revitalizing it.

The thesis of my dissertation is that Kant's theory of the social contract, which is the central concept of his political philosophy, provides, when suitably reconstructed, an adequate theoretical foundation for liberal democracy. I take liberal democracy to consist of three components: first, the rule of law; second, democratic self-rule (either representative, direct, or some combination of the two); and third, the recognition and institutional guarantee of the rights of individuals. In the dissertation, I take as my starting point Kant's conception of autonomy. For Kant, the idea of the social contract explains how individual moral agents can maintain their autonomy in the context of community. The social contract resolves the conflict between moral autonomy and political authority by defining a model of civil society in which free, equal, and independent rational agents collectively legislate the public laws that are to govern their external relations, which are essentially property relations. Ideal civil society, then, is a condition of maximum equal freedom for rational agents who interact with one another.

Technological mediation| The implications of technology on the human experience

Thesis (M.A.)--Guo li Taiwan da xue, 1965. / Reproduced from typescript, on double leaves. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Guo li Taiwan da xue, 1965. / Reproduced from typescript, on double leaves. Includes bibliographical references.

From an examination of how environmental issues reshape politics, this inquiry focuses on the theoretical grounds of deliberative democratic theory to ask whether such a vision offers the best means of resolving environmental problems. Arguing that the very terms in which environmental politics have been defined retain features better suited to previous historical circumstances, the analysis proceeds from features typical of environmental problems to a more context-specific assessment of the role for democratic participation. Engaging the works of Jürgen Habermas, the author details the way in which deliberative democratic theory is indebted to a concept of communicative action that defines complex environmental issues as beyond the scope for successful resolution. Covering theoretical as well as empirical aspects of environmental deliberation, this inquiry includes a comparative framework for evaluating the performance of differing deliberative institutions according to the type of environmental problem addressed. Following this critical assessment of deliberative democratic theory, the analysis turns to the effects of authoritative expertise on democratic involvement in environmental issues. Given that authoritative expertise cannot be dispensed with despite the asymmetry it introduces into the relationship between experts and lay citizens, it is asserted that the conditions for justifiable deference should be encouraged by cultivating institutions that promote trust between experts and lay citizens. The analysis proceeds to link the way in which decentralized institutions decrease the risks inherent in trust with an assessment of the precautionary principle as a standard against which regulatory decisions can be evaluated. The inquiry concludes by turning to proposals for global democratic governance, arguing that the fragmented landscape of international environmental law offers increased opportunities for resolving environmental disputes due to the proliferation of coordinated but decentralized institutions and codification of the precautionary principle.

By virtue of his powerful notion of overdetermination, Althusser lays the groundwork for the fusion of Marxism and postmodernism. Althusser's overdetermination is an attempt to go beyond or break out of the essentialist dichotomies. As is interpreted by the Amherst School, Althusserian overdeterminism does not take Marxism and postmodernism as oppositional and alternative theoretical frameworks but sees them as closely related and even inseparably intertwined in taking Marxism in new directions. One contribution of my work is in the presentation and elaboration of this articulation between Marxism and postmodernism. In light of Althusserian overdeterminism, I will demonstrate these points of articulation from Marxism to postmodernism using instances of postmodern expressions and impulses found in the works of Lenin, Lukacs, and Gramsci. My project therefore is an attempt to shed light on the postmodern moments in the Marxist tradition through the theoretical framework of Althusserian overdeterminism. This, however, is not to say that these theorists are full-blown postmodernists. I would rather like to make visible the glimpses or impulses of the overdeterminist (postmodern) theory they formulate while they are attacking non-Marxist thinking as, what may be called, essentialist (modernist).