A Philosophy of Political Myth

A Philosophy of Political Myth PDF Author: Chiara Bottici
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139466798
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
In this book, originally published in 2007, Chiara Bottici argues for a philosophical understanding of political myth. Bottici demonstrates that myth is a process, one of continuous work on a basic narrative pattern that responds to a need for significance. Human beings need meaning in order to master the world they live in, but they also need significance in order to live in a world that is less indifferent to them. This is particularly true in the realm of politics. Political myths are narratives through which we orient ourselves, and act and feel about our political world. Bottici shows that in order to come to terms with contemporary phenomena, such as the clash between civilizations, we need a Copernican revolution in political philosophy. If we want to save reason, we need to look at it from the standpoint of myth.

A Philosophy of Political Myth

A Philosophy of Political Myth PDF Author: Chiara Bottici
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139466798
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this book, originally published in 2007, Chiara Bottici argues for a philosophical understanding of political myth. Bottici demonstrates that myth is a process, one of continuous work on a basic narrative pattern that responds to a need for significance. Human beings need meaning in order to master the world they live in, but they also need significance in order to live in a world that is less indifferent to them. This is particularly true in the realm of politics. Political myths are narratives through which we orient ourselves, and act and feel about our political world. Bottici shows that in order to come to terms with contemporary phenomena, such as the clash between civilizations, we need a Copernican revolution in political philosophy. If we want to save reason, we need to look at it from the standpoint of myth.

Imaginal Politics

Imaginal Politics PDF Author: Chiara Bottici
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231527810
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Between the radical, creative capacity of our imagination and the social imaginary we are immersed in is an intermediate space philosophers have termed the imaginal, populated by images or (re)presentations that are presences in themselves. Offering a new, systematic understanding of the imaginal and its nexus with the political, Chiara Bottici brings fresh perspective to the formation of political and power relationships and the paradox of a world rich in imagery yet seemingly devoid of imagination. Bottici begins by defining the difference between the imaginal and the imaginary, locating the imaginal's root meaning in the image and its ability to both characterize a public and establish a set of activities within that public. She identifies the imaginal's critical role in powering representative democracies and its amplification through globalization. She then addresses the troublesome increase in images now mediating politics and the transformation of politics into empty spectacle. The spectacularization of politics has led to its virtualization, Bottici observes, transforming images into processes with an uncertain relationship to reality, and, while new media has democratized the image in a global society of the spectacle, the cloned image no longer mediates politics but does the act for us. Bottici concludes with politics' current search for legitimacy through an invented ideal of tradition, a turn to religion, and the incorporation of human rights language.

Political Myth

Political Myth PDF Author: Christopher Flood
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135347956
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
First Published in 2002. Myth theorists characterize myths as stories that possess the status of sacred truth within one or more social groups. Flood discusses how political myth is an ideologically marked narrative that purports to give a true account of a set of past, present, or predicted political events, widely accepted as valid in its essentials. Among the topics explored are: the historical line of political myth in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Western political discourse; the characteristics of political myths and the forms they take in political life and the ends they serve; and the features of political ideologies that are most useful for understanding the nature of political myth.

Myth

Myth PDF Author: Robert Alan Segal
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198724705
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
This Very Short Introduction explores different approaches to myth from several disciplines, including science, religion, philosophy, literature, and psychology. In this new edition, Robert Segal considers both the future study of myth as well as the impact of areas such as cognitive science and the latest approaches to narrative theory.

Hollywood Westerns and American Myth

Hollywood Westerns and American Myth PDF Author: Robert B. Pippin
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300145780
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
In this pathbreaking book one of America’s most distinguished philosophers brilliantly explores the status and authority of law and the nature of political allegiance through close readings of three classic Hollywood Westerns: Howard Hawks’ Red River and John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Searchers.Robert Pippin treats these films as sophisticated mythic accounts of a key moment in American history: its “second founding,” or the western expansion. His central question concerns how these films explore classical problems in political psychology, especially how the virtues of a commercial republic gained some hold on individuals at a time when the heroic and martial virtues were so important. Westerns, Pippin shows, raise central questions about the difference between private violence and revenge and the state’s claim to a legitimate monopoly on violence, and they show how these claims come to be experienced and accepted or rejected.Pippin’s account of the best Hollywood Westerns brings this genre into the center of the tradition of political thought, and his readings raise questions about political psychology and the political passions that have been neglected in contemporary political thought in favor of a limited concern with the question of legitimacy.

Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy

Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy PDF Author: Karl Widerquist
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748678670
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
How modern philosophers use and perpetuate myths about prehistoryThe state of nature, the origin of property, the origin of government, the primordial nature of inequality and war why do political philosophers talk so much about the Stone Age? And are they talking about a Stone Age that really happened, or is it just a convenient thought experiment to illustrate their points?Karl Widerquist and Grant S. McCall take a philosophical look at the origin of civilisation, examining political theories to show how claims about prehistory are used. Drawing on the best available evidence from archaeology and anthropology, they show that much of what we think we know about human origins comes from philosophers imagination, not scientific investigation.Key FeaturesShows how modern political theories employ ambiguous factual claims about prehistoryBrings archaeological and anthropological evidence to bear on those claimsTells the story of human origins in a way that reveals many commonly held misconceptions

Plato and the Mythic Tradition in Political Thought

Plato and the Mythic Tradition in Political Thought PDF Author: Tae-Yeoun Keum
Publisher: Belknap Press
ISBN: 0674984641
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
Winner of the Gustave O. Arlt Award in the Humanities Winner of the Istvan Hont Book Prize An ambitious reinterpretation and defense of Plato’s basic enterprise and influence, arguing that the power of his myths was central to the founding of philosophical rationalism. Plato’s use of myths—the Myth of Metals, the Myth of Er—sits uneasily with his canonical reputation as the inventor of rational philosophy. Since the Enlightenment, interpreters like Hegel have sought to resolve this tension by treating Plato’s myths as mere regrettable embellishments, irrelevant to his main enterprise. Others, such as Karl Popper, have railed against the deceptive power of myth, concluding that a tradition built on Platonic foundations can be neither rational nor desirable. Tae-Yeoun Keum challenges the premise underlying both of these positions. She argues that myth is neither irrelevant nor inimical to the ideal of rational progress. She tracks the influence of Plato’s dialogues through the early modern period and on to the twentieth century, showing how pivotal figures in the history of political thought—More, Bacon, Leibniz, the German Idealists, Cassirer, and others—have been inspired by Plato’s mythmaking. She finds that Plato’s followers perennially raised the possibility that there is a vital role for myth in rational political thinking.

The Myth of the Clash of Civilizations

The Myth of the Clash of Civilizations PDF Author: Chiara Bottici
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136951199
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
While globalization unifies the world, divisions re-emerge within it in the form of a spectacular separation between Islam and the West. How can it be that Huntington’s contested idea of a clash of civilizations became such a powerful political myth through which so many people look at the world? Bottici and Challand disentangle such a process of myth-making both in the West and in Muslim majority countries, and call for a renewed critical attitude towards it. By analysing a process of elaboration of this myth that took place in academic books, arts and media, comics and Hollywood films, they show that the clash of civilizations has become a cognitive scheme through which people look at the world, a practical image on the basis of which they act on it, as well as a drama which mobilizes passions and emotions. Written in a concise and accessible way, this book is a timely and valuable contribution to the academic literature, and more generally, to the public debate. As such, it will be an important reference for scholars and students of political science, sociology, philosophy, cultural studies, Middle Eastern politics and Islam.

Myth and Philosophy in Plato's Phaedrus

Myth and Philosophy in Plato's Phaedrus PDF Author: Daniel S. Werner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107021286
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
Examines the role of myth in Plato's Phaedrus, arguing that it leads readers to participate in Plato's dialogues and to engage in self-examination.

The Myth of American Individualism

The Myth of American Individualism PDF Author: Barry Alan Shain
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691029122
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
Sharpening the debate over the values that formed America's founding political philosophy, Barry Alan Shain challenges us to reconsider what early Americans meant when they used such basic political concepts as the public good, liberty, and slavery. We have too readily assumed, he argues, that eighteenth-century Americans understood these and other terms in an individualistic manner. However, by exploring how these core elements of their political thought were employed in Revolutionary-era sermons, public documents, newspaper editorials, and political pamphlets, Shain reveals a very different understanding--one based on a reformed Protestant communalism. In this context, individual liberty was the freedom to order one's life in accord with the demanding ethical standards found in Scripture and confirmed by reason. This was in keeping with Americans' widespread acceptance of original sin and the related assumption that a well-lived life was only possible in a tightly knit, intrusive community made up of families, congregations, and local government bodies. Shain concludes that Revolutionary-era Americans defended a Protestant communal vision of human flourishing that stands in stark opposition to contemporary liberal individualism. This overlooked component of the American political inheritance, he further suggests, demands examination because it alters the historical ground upon which contemporary political alternatives often seek legitimation, and it facilitates our understanding of much of American history and of the foundational language still used in authoritative political documents.