Augustine and the Limits of Politics
by Jean Bethke Elshtain
On This Page
Description
Now with a new foreword by Patrick J. Deneen. Jean Bethke Elshtain brings Augustine's thought into the contemporary political arena and presents an Augustine who created a complex moral map that offers space for loyalty, love, and care, as well as a chastened form of civic virtue. The result is a controversial book about one of the world's greatest and most complex thinkers whose thought continues to haunt all of Western political philosophy. What is our business "within this common mortal show more life?" Augustine asks and bids us to ask ourselves. What can Augustine possibly have to say about the conditions that characterize our contemporary society and appear to put democracy in crisis? Who is Augustine for us now and what do his words have to do with political theory? These are the underlying questions that animate Jean Bethke Elshtain's fascinating engagement with the thought and work of Augustine, the ancient thinker who gave no political theory per se and refused to offer up a positive utopia. In exploring the questions, Why Augustine, why now? Elshtain argues that Augustine's great works display a canny and scrupulous attunement to the here and now and the very real limits therein. She discusses other aspects of Augustine's thought as well, including his insistence that no human city can be modeled on the heavenly city, and further elaborates on Hannah Arendt's deep indebtedness to Augustine's understanding of evil. Elshtain also presents Augustine's arguments against the pridefulness of philosophy, thereby linking him to later currents in modern thought, including Wittgenstein and Freud. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
Members
- Recently Added By
Author Information
29+ Works 1,281 Members
Jean Bethke Elshtain is the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at The University of Chicago.
Awards and Honors
Awards
Christianity Today Book Awards (No. 4 – 1997)
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Augustine and the Limits of Politics
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, Philosophy, Politics and Government, General Nonfiction, History
- DDC/MDS
- 320.092 — Society, government, & culture Political science Types of Government Political Science Biography And History
- LCC
- BR1720 .A9 .E57 — Philosophy, Psychology and Religion Christianity Christianity Biography
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 89
- Popularity
- 359,863
- Rating
- (3.00)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
