Critical review of international social and political philosophy
Paging:
Volume 10 (2007) nr. 2 pages 147-165
Year:
2007-06
Contents:
Friendship and politics generally come to the fore as incompatible phenomena. At the same time, there are at least two important conceptions that link them explicitly: the Aristotelian notion of 'political friendship' and Carl Schmitt's idea of the political as dividing into friend and enemy. While the second is, in the end, more about enmity than actually about friendship, a modification of the notion of the political offers the possibility of accommodating the first. A critical modification of the notion of the political, with the assistance of Jacques Derrida and Chantal Mouffe, makes it possible, finally, to use the notion of friendship in politics to point out the tension between friendship in politics, potentially leading to a 'rule by friends', and the necessary striving for political friendship as a means to transform antagonistic into agonistic conflict.
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