This book examines nature as a foundational concept for political and constitutional theory, drawing on readings from Plato and Hegel to counter the view that optimal political arrangements are determined by nature. Focussing on the dialectical implications of the word 'nature',…
The book makes a new contribution to the contemporary debates on nihilism and the sacred. Drawing on an original interpretation of Richard Rorty's writings, it challenges the orthodox treatment of nihilism as a malaise that human beings must overcome. Instead, nihilism should be…
This thesis is concerned with Maine de Biran's and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's conceptions of will, and the way in which both thinkers' posterities have been affected by the central role of these very conceptions in their respective bodies of thought. The research question that an…
Arendt on freedom, liberation, and revolution
This book explores the intriguing idea that there is much more democracy in human history than is generally acknowledged. It establishes that democracy was developing across greater Asia before classical Athens, clung on during the 'Dark Ages', often formed part of indigenous go…
In 1873, John Stuart Stuart-Glennie elaborated a theory of 'the moral revolution' to characterize the historical shift from roughly 600 BCE in a variety of civilizations, as part of a critical theory of history. This book brings light to the now eclipsed theory and offers new co…
Reframing the Social argues for a critical realist and systemist social ontology, designed to shed light on current debates in social theory concerning the relationship of social ontology to practical social research, and the nature of 'the social'. It explores the works of the …