Totalitarianism and the modern conception of politics

Halberstam, Michael 1963- (Author).

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."--Jacket.

Record details

ISBN: 0300071809
ISBN: 0300146663
ISBN: 9780300146660
ISBN: 9780585344850
ISBN: 058534485X
Physical Description: 1 online resource (x, 290 pages)
remote
Publisher: New Haven, Conn. : Yale University Press, ©1999.

Content descriptions

General Note:	"This book grew out of my dissertation work with Karsten Harries at Yale University"--Acknowledgments.
Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-277) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	Society as artifact -- Social reconstruction and the problem of meaning -- Liberalism versus totalitarianism -- Freedom, common sense, and the limited reach of reason -- The indeterminacy of Kant's rational reason and the intervention of taste -- Totalitarianism as the liberal nightmare -- Modernity and the loss of world -- Terrible freedom.
Source of Description Note:	Print version record.