How can we reinvigorate the human capacity for political judgement as a practical activity capable of addressing the uncertainties of our postfoundational world? The book takes up this challenge by drawing on the historically attuned perspective of 20th-century philosophies of existence – in particular the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus and Hannah Arendt. Displacing the lingering rationalist temptations, Maša Mrovlje engages these thinkers’ aesthetic sensibility to delve into the experiential reality of political judgement and revivify it as a worldly, ambiguous practice. The purpose is to illustrate the prescient political significance of existentialists’ narrative imagination on two contemporary perplexities of political judgement: the problem of dirty hands and the challenge of transitional justice. This engagement reveals the distinctly resistant potential of worldly judgement in its ability to stimulate our capacities of coming to terms with and creatively confronting the tragedies of political action, rather than simply yielding to them as a necessary course of political life.
Review
This book is a timely work that brings Arendt into conversation with Beauvoir, Camus, and Sartre, making a significant and valuable contribution to political theory and philosophy. It is an ambitious and extremely fruitful project concerning the need to reconsider political judgment by taking into account its ambiguous and tragic character.
-- Marguerite La Caze, University of Queensland
From the Inside Flap
How can we reinvigorate the human capacity for political judgement as a practical activity capable of addressing the uncertainties of our postfoundational world?The book takes up this challenge by drawing on the historically attuned perspective of twentieth-century philosophies of existence – in particular the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus and Hannah Arendt. Displacing the lingering rationalist temptations, it engages these thinkers’ aesthetic sensibility to delve into the experiential reality of political judgement and revivify it as a worldly, ambiguous practice. The purpose is to illustrate the prescient political significance of existentialists’ narrative imagination on two contemporary perplexities of political judgement: the problem of dirty hands and the challenge of transitional justice. This engagement reveals the distinctly resistant potential of worldly judgement in its ability to stimulate our capacities of coming to terms with and creatively confronting the tragedies of political action, rather than simply yielding to them as a necessary course of political life.Maša Mrovlje is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh.
From the Back Cover
How can we reinvigorate the human capacity for political judgement as a practical activity capable of addressing the uncertainties of our postfoundational world? The book takes up this challenge by drawing on the historically attuned perspective of twentieth-century philosophies of existence – in particular the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus and Hannah Arendt. Displacing the lingering rationalist temptations, it engages these thinkers’ aesthetic sensibility to delve into the experiential reality of political judgement and revivify it as a worldly, ambiguous practice. The purpose is to illustrate the prescient political significance of existentialists’ narrative imagination on two contemporary perplexities of political judgement: the problem of dirty hands and the challenge of transitional justice. This engagement reveals the distinctly resistant potential of worldly judgement in its ability to stimulate our capacities of coming to terms with and creatively confronting the tragedies of political action, rather than simply yielding to them as a necessary course of political life. Maša Mrovlje is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh.
About the Author
Maša Mrovlje is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Edinburgh, working on the ERC-funded project 'Illuminating the Grey Zone'. Her research interests are oriented by the rubric of international political theory and the history of political thought, with a specific focus on 20th-century philosophies of existence, poststructuralist and critical theories, and their significance to issues of political judgement, responsibility, violence, resistance and transitional justice.
Description:
How can we reinvigorate the human capacity for political judgement as a practical activity capable of addressing the uncertainties of our postfoundational world? The book takes up this challenge by drawing on the historically attuned perspective of 20th-century philosophies of existence – in particular the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus and Hannah Arendt. Displacing the lingering rationalist temptations, Maša Mrovlje engages these thinkers’ aesthetic sensibility to delve into the experiential reality of political judgement and revivify it as a worldly, ambiguous practice. The purpose is to illustrate the prescient political significance of existentialists’ narrative imagination on two contemporary perplexities of political judgement: the problem of dirty hands and the challenge of transitional justice. This engagement reveals the distinctly resistant potential of worldly judgement in its ability to stimulate our capacities of coming to terms with and creatively confronting the tragedies of political action, rather than simply yielding to them as a necessary course of political life.
Review
This book is a timely work that brings Arendt into conversation with Beauvoir, Camus, and Sartre, making a significant and valuable contribution to political theory and philosophy. It is an ambitious and extremely fruitful project concerning the need to reconsider political judgment by taking into account its ambiguous and tragic character.
-- Marguerite La Caze, University of Queensland
From the Inside Flap
How can we reinvigorate the human capacity for political judgement as a practical activity capable of addressing the uncertainties of our postfoundational world?The book takes up this challenge by drawing on the historically attuned perspective of twentieth-century philosophies of existence – in particular the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus and Hannah Arendt. Displacing the lingering rationalist temptations, it engages these thinkers’ aesthetic sensibility to delve into the experiential reality of political judgement and revivify it as a worldly, ambiguous practice. The purpose is to illustrate the prescient political significance of existentialists’ narrative imagination on two contemporary perplexities of political judgement: the problem of dirty hands and the challenge of transitional justice. This engagement reveals the distinctly resistant potential of worldly judgement in its ability to stimulate our capacities of coming to terms with and creatively confronting the tragedies of political action, rather than simply yielding to them as a necessary course of political life.Maša Mrovlje is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh.
From the Back Cover
How can we reinvigorate the human capacity for political judgement as a practical activity capable of addressing the uncertainties of our postfoundational world? The book takes up this challenge by drawing on the historically attuned perspective of twentieth-century philosophies of existence – in particular the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus and Hannah Arendt. Displacing the lingering rationalist temptations, it engages these thinkers’ aesthetic sensibility to delve into the experiential reality of political judgement and revivify it as a worldly, ambiguous practice. The purpose is to illustrate the prescient political significance of existentialists’ narrative imagination on two contemporary perplexities of political judgement: the problem of dirty hands and the challenge of transitional justice. This engagement reveals the distinctly resistant potential of worldly judgement in its ability to stimulate our capacities of coming to terms with and creatively confronting the tragedies of political action, rather than simply yielding to them as a necessary course of political life. Maša Mrovlje is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh.
About the Author
Maša Mrovlje is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Edinburgh, working on the ERC-funded project 'Illuminating the Grey Zone'. Her research interests are oriented by the rubric of international political theory and the history of political thought, with a specific focus on 20th-century philosophies of existence, poststructuralist and critical theories, and their significance to issues of political judgement, responsibility, violence, resistance and transitional justice.