In this important new book, Daniel Loick argues that in order to become sensible to the violence imbedded in our political routines, philosophy must question the current forms of political community - the ways in which it organizes and executes its decisions, in which it creates and interprets its laws - much more radically than before. It must become a critical theory of sovereignty and in doing so eliminate coercion from the law. The book opens with a historical reconstruction of the concept of sovereignty in Bodin, Hobbes, Rousseau, and Kant. Loick applies Adorno and Horkheimer's notion of a 'dialectic of Enlightenment' to the political sphere, demonstrating that whenever humanity deemed itself progressing from chaos and despotism, it at the same time prolonged exactly the violent forms of interaction it wanted to rid itself from. He goes on to assemble critical theories of sovereignty, using Walter Benjamin's distinction between 'law-positing' and 'law-preserving' violence as a terminological source, engaging with Marx, Arendt, Foucault, Agamben and Derrida, and adding several other dimensions of violence in order to draw a more complete picture. Finally, Loick proposes the idea of non-coercive law as a consequence of a critical theory of sovereignty. The translation of this work was funded by Geisteswissenschaften International - Translation Funding for Humanities and Social Sciences from Germany, a joint initiative of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the German Federal Foreign Office, the collecting society VG WORT and the Boersenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (German Publisher & Booksellers Association)

Axel Honneth is widely credited with being one of the most important contemporary critical theorists. His oeuvre which spans more than four decades of writing-from his early engagement with critique in the Frankfurt School tradition to his theory of recognition and the latest discussions of freedom in modern ethical life and the question of socialism-has been enormously influential in the shaping of current critical theory and beyond. This volume takes the central themes of Honneth's work as a starting point for debating the present and future of critical theory as a form of socially grounded philosophy that is geared towards analyzing and critiquing society. The volume brings together leading scholars in contemporary social and political philosophy. Honneth's writings revolve around five key themes: critique, recognition, freedom, progress and socialism. His arguments with respect to each of these themes have substantially advanced current debates in critical theory and social and political philosophy more generally. The contributing authors take on these five themes and use them as a springboard to structure their discussion of the future of critical theory in our contemporary moment.

Axel Honneth is widely credited with being one of the most important contemporary critical theorists. His oeuvre which spans more than four decades of writing-from his early engagement with critique in the Frankfurt School tradition to his theory of recognition and the latest discussions of freedom in modern ethical life and the question of socialism-has been enormously influential in the shaping of current critical theory and beyond. This volume takes the central themes of Honneth's work as a starting point for debating the present and future of critical theory as a form of socially grounded philosophy that is geared towards analyzing and critiquing society. The volume brings together leading scholars in contemporary social and political philosophy. Honneth's writings revolve around five key themes: critique, recognition, freedom, progress and socialism. His arguments with respect to each of these themes have substantially advanced current debates in critical theory and social and political philosophy more generally. The contributing authors take on these five themes and use them as a springboard to structure their discussion of the future of critical theory in our contemporary moment.

In this important new book, Daniel Loick argues that in order to become sensible to the violence imbedded in our political routines, philosophy must question the current forms of political community - the ways in which it organizes and executes its decisions, in which it creates and interprets its laws - much more radically than before. It must become a critical theory of sovereignty and in doing so eliminate coercion from the law. The book opens with a historical reconstruction of the concept of sovereignty in Bodin, Hobbes, Rousseau, and Kant. Loick applies Adorno and Horkheimer's notion of a 'dialectic of Enlightenment' to the political sphere, demonstrating that whenever humanity deemed itself progressing from chaos and despotism, it at the same time prolonged exactly the violent forms of interaction it wanted to rid itself from. He goes on to assemble critical theories of sovereignty, using Walter Benjamin's distinction between 'law-positing' and 'law-preserving' violence as a terminological source, engaging with Marx, Arendt, Foucault, Agamben and Derrida, and adding several other dimensions of violence in order to draw a more complete picture. Finally, Loick proposes the idea of non-coercive law as a consequence of a critical theory of sovereignty. The translation of this work was funded by Geisteswissenschaften International - Translation Funding for Humanities and Social Sciences from Germany, a joint initiative of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the German Federal Foreign Office, the collecting society VG WORT and the Boersenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (German Publisher & Booksellers Association)