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Understanding the historical development of the liberal tradition is essential for any reader of political philosophy. This is due to the historically crucial role that liberal ideas have played in shaping our institutions, mapping out the rights of citizens, and establishing the roles and responsibilities of the state. Today's reader of political philosophy can, however, be forgiven for being deterred from thoroughly examining the development of liberal thought. The discipline is saturated with celebratory, critical, and sceptical responses concerning the value of liberal theory, and this can often overwhelm those seeking a point of entry. That Atanassow and Kahan's Liberal Moments provides readers with a relatively comprehensive overview of this vast intellectual and historical tradition is not only to their credit but also to that of the twenty-four contributors who each provide informative introductions to key liberal thinkers. The book's chief purpose is therefore explanatory. Importantly, and rare to see in a text on liberalism, the contributors neither dismiss any of the ideas or arguments put forward by the liberal thinkers to whom they turn their gaze, nor do they give precedence to their own ideas over their chosen theorist's claims. For the critical philosopher, this may be frustrating, but for the historian of philosophy, students at the beginning of their academic careers, or even experienced academics looking to brush up on their own knowledge, this book deserves praise and attention. Although Liberal Moments does not pursue an overarching line of argumentation, consistent themes are addressed throughout. Firstly, taken together, the chapters seek to convey 'the wide scope, chronological, intellectual and not least geographical, of liberalism as it has developed across the globe since the French Revolution' (1). Secondly, by examining the development of liberalism as a global doctrine, the book aims to explain 'why liberalism found itself in today's leading position' (1). Lastly, Atanassow and Kahan work with a restricted definition of liberalism. While they acknowledge that 'Liberalism is the first truly global political movement', they define the features of liberal thought as consisting of 'an emphasis on individual rights and interests, government […] legitimized by some form of consent, a distinction between the public and private sphere, suspicion of concentrated authority' and 'constitutional guarantees to protect citizens from potentially harmful interference from authority' (2). This limited definition is deployed to (i) enable readers to formulate their own judgements about the conceptual ideas, language, and political practises at the heart of the liberal tradition, and (ii) provide a normative framework within which readers can judge for themselves the extent to which each considered liberal thinker embodies or departs from these core ideas. Throughout the text, each thinker is also located contextually. By taking context seriously, Atanassow and Kahan are able to capture a recurrent theme in the development of liberal thought: liberal thinkers theorised ideas which responded to their relative contextual situations, such that their thought acted as 'political interventions' and 'took an active part in shaping their own societies while contributing, often self-consciously, to a global discourse of liberty' (2). This gives this introductory text a comparative advantage over others that focus solely on the merits of the philosophical arguments of liberalism. The book consists of three sections: Liberal beginnings, Liberalism Confronts the World, and Liberalism Confronts the Twentieth Century. Liberal beginnings explores the ideas and arguments of 'the first generation of post-revolutionary liberals', including Montesquieu, Madame de Staël, Constant, Bentham, Madison, and Tocqueville. These thinkers are grouped together for two main reasons. Firstly, they were all essential contributors to the growth in distinctively liberal ways of discussing the relationship between the individual and society. Secondly, while 'vastly different in intellectual orientation and sensibilities, they were all influenced by Montesquieu's thought' (5). Montesquieu is central to this chapter as he is regarded by Atanassow and Kahan to be the first liberal thinker to take
Liberal Moments, edited by Alan Kahan and Ewa Atanassow (Bloomsbury Academic)
In Praise of Liberty: Madame de Stael's Considerations2017 •
An analysis of a few key passages from Madame de Stael's Considerations that shed light on her commitment to liberal principls
In this brief essay, I refer to Adorno's perspective on ethical life as proposed in his lectures on moral philosophy and Minima Moralia. I argue closely in line with Geuss' analysis in Outside Ethics that in these and other works, Adorno outlines not merely a 'melancholy science' that points to the damaged from within the damaged life. More so, by inciting an epistemological analysis of what is wrong, cannot be known, and what cannot be done, he constructs a possibility to live and act differently, to think about the unthinkable. One aspect of our lifes, which enables such fugitive moments of thinking the seemingly impossible and living beyond and outside a damaged ethics, are radical forms of art. It is the study of the experience and the creation of (modern) art, which, I suggest, merits methodological and epistemological potential beyond philosphical contemplation by directing us towards innovative critical research into the transformative potential of contemporary art.
In the twentieth century discussion of liberty, in its more political aspects, are to a very signifiant degree shaped by a double process in the development of liberalism. First the emergence, dating back to the late nineteenth century of a kind of liberalism which departed from earlier forms of liberalism in giving a more active role to the state, and seeking some middle way between the limited government impulses of earlier liberalism and socialism of a state orientated kind. Second the emergence of movement to prolong and continue the earlier form of liberalism, in association with a rejection of socialism, certainly where that refers to state enforced laws and policies, and a critical attitude to the tendencies to compromise with socialism. This debate became associated with the distinction Isaiah Berlin made in the 1950s between positive and negative liberty in his essay ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’, which itself built on late eighteenth and early to mid- nineteenth century discussions of the relation between the liberty of the ancients and the liberty of the moderns, a debate that also intertwined with debates about natural law and moral liberty. Other parts of this project locate Foucault’s thought, particularly in its historical aspects, within these discussions, so the paper will now move straight onto Foucault’s engagements with twentieth century liberalism, which will itself require some reference to his work on the liberalism of the Enlightenment. Foucault’s account of neoliberalism has two parts, or two themes, the European and the US. The European aspect; focused on the University of Freiburg, is referred to as Ordoliberalism, while the American aspect, focused on the University of Chicago, is referred to as anarcholiberalism. The term Ordoliberalism is not Foucault’s invention, but a reference back to a term invented by Hero Moeller in 1950 to refer to ideas put put forward in the journal ORDO-Jahrbuch for die Ordnung von Wirthschaft und Gesellschaft (Yearbok of Economic and Business Order), so we could cal this Order Liberalism. We will maintain reference to Ordoliberalism which is quite widespread in English, though surely either Ordoliberalismus or Orderliberalism is more correct in not mixing English and German . 2 Foucault on Two Types of Liberalism The term suggests that the question of the ordering of the economy or the order within which the economy operated is central, and Foucault is picking up on this with regard to the elements of the order which owe something to conscious political will expressed through state laws and public policy.
Journal of Modern Italian Studies
Political Philosophy Across the Atlantic: a Difficult Relationship?2005 •
The article is a survey of the impact of U.S. political philosophy over its Italian counterpart. Such impact has not been deep, judging from the presence of Italian authors in the American debate, even though the most important American authors have been translated in Italian, and their work has been the object of essays and reviews by several Italian authors belonging to different schools of thought. There two explanations, according to the author of the survey, of such relative inhospitality of Italian political philosophy to its American homologue. The first is a general difference over the way to understand philosophy itself. Whereas American philosophers subscribe to what might be described roughly as an analytical understanding of their discipline, the majority of Italian philosophers are still under the spell of several brands of historicist or relativistic thought. The second is the sensible difference in the understanding of liberalism, the predominant attitude among political philosophers in the U.S.. Whereas in the U.S. liberalism is understood as a political theory which deals with normative models of just institutions, in Italy, where it is far from the prevalent orientation among the political philosophers, it is conceived “meta-politically”.
Critical Review of Social and Political Philosophy
Political Realism and the "Realist Tradition"2017 •
History of European Ideas
Review-essay on Lucien Jaume (Tocqueville) and Annelien De Dijn (French Political Thought)2009 •
2009 •
Policy Futures in Education
Totalitarianism and the'Repressed'Utopia of the Present: moving beyond Hayek, Popper and Foucault2003 •
Political Theory
Hope Abjuring Hope: On the Place of Utopia in Realist Political Theory (Political Theory)2018 •
The Cambridge Companion to Isaiah Berlin, eds Joshua Cherniss and Steven B. Smith (Cambridge)
Isaiah Berlin on Marx and Marxism2018 •
English Historical Review
Currents of Neo-Liberalism: British Political Ideologies and the New Right, c. 1955-19792016 •
2012 •