Claude Lefort and Pierre Manent offer contrasting yet complementary views on “the political form.” Lefort emphasizes the openness and indeterminacy of democracy, arguing that a healthy political form requires constant contestation and pluralism. Manent, by contrast, stresses the importance of stable political structures, particularly the nation-state, as essential for preserving a shared moral order and …
From the study of highly specific cases of conflict, both past and present, we can establish the facts of what happened as best we can: what were the causes and conditions of each conflict as well as its impact on societies at the time and in the legacy it left (or spoiled) for humanity in …
For Camus, the great novelty of Christianity is not faith because faith only shields Christian beliefs from criticism but rather the Christian notion of apocalyptic history and a final redemption in the afterlife. This belief in the apocalypse expresses a tragic sensibility in which the Christian embraces his or her mortality in the hope of …
During the Medieval period in which they were first organized, the universities such as Oxford operated as kingdoms unto themselves, the intellectual work associated with the vita contemplativa occurring in isolation behind cloistered walls that exempted the monkish scholars from the practical exigencies of the town’s daily life.
