000 03770nam 2200541 a 4500
003 CaOLU
005 19970613100434.0
008 960913s1997 cau b 001 0 eng
010 $a96044652
020 $a0804729247 (pbk. : alk. paper)
020 $a0804728186 (cloth : alk. paper)
029 $aocm35599948
039 $eJMC$zA
040 $aDLC$cDLC$dC#P$dCaOLU$beng$dOrLoB-B
049 $aUWOO
050 00 $aJA71$b.D52 1997
082 00 $a320/.01$220
099 $aJA71.D52 1997
099 $aJA71.D52 1997
100 1 $aDienstag, Joshua Foa,$d1965-
245 10 $a'Dancing in chains' :$bnarrative and memory in
political theory /$cJoshua Foa Dienstag.
260 $aStanford, Calif. :$bStanford University
Press,$c1997.
300 $axii, 268 p. ;$c24 cm.
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p.
[251]-259) and index.
520 $aThe book maintains that philosophical texts
frequently persuade through the creation of a role that they
invite their audience to inhabit. Political theory is most
powerful not when it erects timeless principles, but when it
alters readers understanding of their own past and future.
By this the author means that a theorist's account of
history or of time itself is in many instances the center of
(and not merely an addendum to) an account of human nature
and politics; political theory seeks not so much to reform
our morals as to reshape our memories. This book
investigates the place of narrative in politics in two ways.
It offers a hypothesis of a broad connection between
political identity and narrative, and it analyzes three
major figures in the history of political thought - Locke,
Hegel, and Nietzche - to demonstrate that their work is best
understood through the hypothesis. The author argues that
each of these philosophers rewrites the past in an attempt
to direct the future. For Locke, this involves replacing the
patriarchal history of kingly authority with a more
naturalistic past grounded in episodes of consent - an act
that he believes will replace a tyrannical future with a
free one. In contrast, Hegel's approach to the past is
aesthetic, and each epoch of history is understood as a work
of art. Despite the romantic overtones of this view, the
frozenness of these images results, for Hegel, in a weakly
imagined future, Nietzsche's narrative is at once the most
open and the most gruesome, emphasizing the centrality of
violence in human history but also holding out hope for a
redemption of that history in a particular future. This
redemptive approach to the past, the author argues, is
superior to the alternatives in that it supports the
strongest account of human freedom.
600 10 $aLocke, John,$d1632-1704$xContributions in
political science.
600 10 $aHegel, Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich,$d1770-1831$xContributions in political science.
600 10 $aNietzsche, Friedrich
Wilhelm,$d1844-1900$xContributions in political science.
650 0 $aPolitical science$xPhilosophy.
650 0 $aNarration (Rhetoric)
650 0 $aMemory (Philosophy)
650 0 $aHermeneutics.
970 01 $tAbbreviations
970 11 $tIntroduction: The Plotters of Political Theory$p1
970 11 $lPt. I$tJohn Locke
970 12 $l1$tA World Without Dreams$p25
970 12 $l2$tPlotting Liberty Under a Gray Sky$p48
970 11 $lPt. II$tFriedrich Nietzsche
970 12 $l3$tThe Reveries of the Solitary$p77
970 12 $l4$tThe Future of Pain$p106
970 11 $lPt. III$tG. W. F. Hegel
970 12 $l5$tThe Temple of Memory$p141
970 11 $lPt. IV$tVisions of Past and Future
970 12 $l6$tReconciliation or Redemption?$p183
970 12 $l7$tThe Politics of Memory$p198
970 01 $tNotes$p217
970 01 $tSelect Bibliography$p251
970 01 $tIndex$p261
