The Agonistic ConditionMaterialism and Democracy
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Published 31 January 2027
About this book
Examines the philosophical background to theories of conflict in political theory and their sources in philosophy
- Supplies an engagement of philosophy with political theory
- Provides a critique of the critique of instrumental reason
- Proposes a new conception of non-representational politics
Political theory influenced by philosophy examines the political as the sphere of human interaction that is distinct from politics, the sphere of political institutions and parties. The political is usually described in conflictual terms, such as Marx’s class struggle, Heidegger’s polemos, Rancière’s dissensus, or the discourse of agonistic democracy.
This book challenges the premise of such constructions of agonism, namely, that the political is essentially distinct from means and ends calculations. He argues that this premise is derived from the critique of instrumental reason, which assumes that utilitarianism is correct that instrumental ends are measurable. This forgets an ancient tradition that describes phronesis as the primary ethical and political virtue because it calculates the good, which is however impossible to measure with any certainty.
The Agonistic Condition shows that a new consideration of phronesis can help political philosophy and theory to develop more robust conceptions of power that better describe the world we live in.
Reviews
In The Agonistic Condition Dimitris Vardoulakis offers a deep and powerful critique of what he calls “ineffectualism,” the idea, promoted by many left leaning philosophers, of the value of non-instrumentality. For Vardoulakis, this allows for a return of metaphysics, a disengagement with the actual world as such that leads to various forms of domination and control. By fundamentally accepting the Nietzschean concept of the death of God, Vardoulakis calls for a radical affirmation of instrumentality, not in terms (once again) of domination, but precisely for the opposite reason. Vardoulakis claims—very convincingly—that we must embrace instrumentality as being the basis for a human centered form of judgment that has no truck with the transcendental. This is the basis for the agonistic--i.e. human--condition itself. This book should be on the shelf of every scholar who is interested in having a radical rethinking of the entire basis of leftist anti metaphysics and the politics that result from it.
With The Agonistic Condition Dimitris Vardoulakis adds a third volume to his extensive and brilliant rethinking of the phronetic tradition. Against the common-sense view that agonistic thinking is opposed to instrumental action, Vardoulakis unearths a forgotten Aristotelian and Epicurean inheritance of phronesis that is the foundation of agonistic politics beyond what he calls “the ineffectual.” Counterintuitive, incisive, learned, and simply stunning: Vardoulakis’s philosophical erudition is a pinnacle of contemporary political theorizing.
The Agonistic Condition rehabilitates a kind of instrumental thinking and acting that has been the target of attack of much political and ethical theory. In this text, Vardoulakis presents a convincing argument about the way in which ends-directed action opens a space for contestation that is central to any democratic condition.
Table of contents
Preface
Preamble, The Agonistic Condition
Introduction: Agonism and Democracy
[1] Agonistic Democracy
[2] What is Agon?
[3] The Repression of Instrumentality
[4] Agonism and the Phronetic Tradition
1. The Political as Irreducible to the Institutional
[5] The Problematic of the Confinement of the Political to Institutions
[6] The Expansion of Power (Nietzsche)
[7] Pluralism, or the Materialism of Differentiation (Connolly)
[8] The Agonistic Interplay of Law and Culture (Tully)
[9] Natality and Agonism (Arendt)
[10] (Re)founding (Honig)
[11] The Ontologization of the Political (Schmitt)
[12] The Ever Present Possibility of Antagonism (Mouffe)
[13] The Political Difference (Marchart)
[14] Monism and Instrumentality (the first sense of agonism)
2. Consensus as Incommensurate with the Political
[15] The Problematic of the Politics of Consensus
[16] Power or Consensus? (Nietzsche)
[17] Genealogy and Resentment (Connolly)
[18] Consensus or Recognition? (Tully)
[19] The Rise of the Social (Arendt)
[20] Agonism as Disruption (Honig)
[21] The Double Sense of Agonism (Schmitt)
[22] Pluralism or Consensus? (Mouffe)
[23] The Rise of the Political (Marchart)
[24] Stasis (the second sense of agonism)
3. Instrumentality and Agonism
[25] The Problematic of the Repression of Instrumentality
[26] The Calculating Animal (Nietzsche)
[27] Becoming and the Ineffectual (Connolly)
[28] Use Without Ends (Tully)
[29] The Slavery of Modernity (Arendt)
[30] Paradoxes of Excess (Honig)
[31] Total Peace (Schmitt)
[32] Liberalism, the Frenemy, and the Instrumentality Without Ends (Mouffe)
[33] The Two Negations (Marchart)
[34] The Conflation of Causality and Instrumentality (repression)
5. The Ruse of Power
[35] The Problematic of the Ruse of Power
[36] The Magic Trick of the Ascetic Ideal (Nietzsche)
[37] Agonistic Respect and Existential Faith (Connolly)
[38] Not European Enough (Tully)
[39] The Inverse Relation of Power and Violence (Arendt)
[40] The ruse of power and neoliberalism (Honig)
[41] Where does War End? (Schmitt)
[42] The Logic of the Whatever (Mouffe)
[43] The Persistence of Political Judgment (Marchart)
[44] Violence and Political Change (the Epicurean “Social Contract”)
Afterword
[45] Afterword: In Defense of Instrumentality, or, the Persistence of the Good
Bibliography
Index