Телеграм канал «Политическая теория и философия (Political theory and philosophy)»

Robert K. Merton - On the Shoulders of Giants: A Shandean Postscript

With playfulness and a large dose of wit, Robert Merton traces the origin of Newton's aphorism, "If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Using as a model the discursive and digressive style of Sterne's Tristram Shandy, Merton presents a whimsical yet scholarly work which deals with the questions of creativity, tradition, plagiarism, the transmission of knowledge, and the concept of progress.

Robert K. Merton - On Theoretical Sociology: Five Essays, Old and New

Containing the most systematic statement of the theoretical foundations and framework of functional sociology, the essays included in this edition provide an authoritative approach to the functional analysis of social structures. Featuring two new chapters that form an introduction to the three essays publishing in part one of Social Theory and Social Structure, Robert K. Merton reflects on some of the most important thinking in contemporary sociology. On Theoretical Sociology presents a clear and precise overview of basic concepts and serves as an introduction to the unique intellectual achievements of one of America’s foremost scholars.

Kojève's End of History: Hegel, Stalin, Bataille, Deleuze, and the Return to Animality

In this intellectual biography, critic and philosopher Boris Groys turns to the Arthur Rimbaud of modern bureaucracy, Alexandre Kojève, a philosopher of little-known writings and profound influence. Kojève was fascinated with Hegel’s dialectics and with communism and envisioned a universal empire as the end of history. Kojève drew on Buddhism and also proclaimed himself a Stalinist. At the same time, he was one of the creators of a nascent European Union. His concept of the human as something defined by negation and unique among animals in being separated from nature is highly political. It explains why humans can never be fully satisfied by a political system based on their allegedly ‘natural’ rights.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=za1b7VuaTnc&ra=m

Карл Шмитт - Суша и море. Всемирно-историческое размышление

В эссе «Суша и море» (1942) Карл Шмитт изложил двенадцатилетней дочери свое видение всемирной истории, которая предстает драматической борьбой между континентальной и морской стихией, схваткой библейских чудищ Бегемота и Левиафана. На этом построена драматургия нового исторического нарратива. В его центре – судьбоносное событие решительного коллективного выбора в пользу одной из стихий. О нем свидетельствует планетарная пространственная революция XVII‒XVIII веков, а также новый «номос» – основополагающий закон присвоения территорий, их дележа и последующей экономической эксплуатации. Рассказ Шмитта не исчерпывается тоской по романтическим подвигам храбрых покорителей морей в духе Мелвилла, но взывает к настоящему, поскольку выбор, когда-то сделанный нашими предшественниками, оказывается выбором, стоящим перед нами сегодня.