Research Seminar in Political Philosophy: Composition of Force, Composition of Interest: The Art of Government
We’d like to invite you to the next session of our “Force and Interest” research seminar in political philosophy. Friday 10th April, from 5-7 pm in C104 (1st floor, 6 rue Colonel Combes, 75007, Paris) the American University of Paris has the pleasure of welcoming Peter Hallward who will speak on:
'Willing and Able: Self-Determination and Political Will'
Abstract: Democracy is an empty word unless it affirms the power of ordinary people to prevail over any form of privileged interest or ruling class. As imposition of 'the will of the people', democracy should be understood as a power of autonomous self-determination, and thus as a capacity to overcome (rather than simply resist) hostile, heteronomous forms of determination. This general capacity, in turn, depends on several mutually reinforcing collective abilities or powers, in particular capacities for assembly, education, information, deliberation, organisation, resolution, and realisation. In order to flesh out this account of political will, I will draw on fragments of canonical texts by Rousseau and Marx, and on the quasi-voluntarist accounts of political agency and capacity advanced by figures like Robespierre, Blanqui, and Gramsci.
Peter Hallward is a Canadian philosopher. He teaches at the centre for research in modern european philosophy at Kingston University London. His work focuses on Alain Badiou and Gilles Deleuze. He has also published works on post-colonialism and contemporary Haiti. Hallward is a member of the editorial collective of the journal Radical Philosophy, a contributing editor to Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, as well as a blogger for The Guardian.
Info: www.ciph.org
Partners
Collège Internationale de Philosophie
American University of Paris
Organizers
Filippo del Lucchese
Oliver Feltham