A1 Journal article (refereed)
Politics of the Idea : (Anti-)Platonic Politics in Arendt and Badiou (2020)

Backman, J. (2020). Politics of the Idea : (Anti-)Platonic Politics in Arendt and Badiou. Comparative and Continental Philosophy, 12(3), 168-181. https://doi.org/10.1080/17570638.2020.1842701

JYU authors or editors

Publication details

All authors or editors: Backman, Jussi

Journal or series: Comparative and Continental Philosophy

ISSN: 1757-0638

eISSN: 1757-0646

Publication year: 2020

Publication date: 04/12/2020

Volume: 12

Issue number: 3

Pages range: 168-181

Publisher: Routledge

Publication country: United Kingdom

Publication language: English

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17570638.2020.1842701

Publication open access: Openly available

Publication channel open access: Partially open access channel

Publication is parallel published (JYX): https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/73043

Abstract

This paper compares two influential but conflicting contemporary models of politics as an activity: those of Hannah Arendt and Alain Badiou. It discovers the fundamental difference between their approaches to politics in their opposing evaluations of the contemporary political significance of the legacy of Plato, Platonism, and the Platonic Idea. Karl Popper’s and Arendt’s analyses of the inherently ideological nature of totalitarianism are contrasted with Badiou’s vindication of an ideological “politics of the Idea.” Arendt and Badiou are shown to share an understanding of politics as a realm for the human deployment of novelty and world-transformation. Their key disagreement concerns the form of activity that accomplishes this deployment. For Arendt, political activity has the basic form of noninstrumental and nonteleological action (praxis), devalued by the Platonic tradition of political philosophy. Badiou, by contrast, follows Plato in regarding politics essentially as a process of production (poiēsis) oriented to an ideal end.

Keywords: political philosophy; political theory; ideologies; Platonism

Free keywords: political theory; ideology; Arendt, Hannah; Badiou, Alain; Plato; platonism

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Ministry reporting: Yes

Reporting Year: 2020

JUFO rating: 1