Politics and the search for the common good / Hans Sluga.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Part I. The Search for the Common Good: Beyond the Normative and the Natural: -- 1. From normative theory to diagnostic practice -- 2. The failure of political naturalism -- 3. The historization of politics -- 4. 'The time is coming when we will have to relearn about politics' -- Part II. Three Diagnostic Thinkers in Pursuit of the Common Good: -- 5. Carl Schmitt: 'all essential concepts are not normative but existential' -- 6. Hannah Arendt: 'does politics still have a meaning?' -- 7. Michel Foucault: 'could you define the sense you give the word "political"?' -- Part III. The Fragility of the Common Good: -- 8. 'A fundamental change in political paradigms' -- 9. Politics as a domain of uncertainty -- Bibliography -- Index.

"Rethinking politics in a new vocabulary, Hans Sluga challenges the firmly held assumption that there exists a single common good which politics is meant to realize. He argues that politics is not a natural but a historical phenomenon, and not a single thing but a multiplicity of political forms and values only loosely related. He contrasts two traditions in political philosophy: a 'normative theorizing' that extends from Plato to John Rawls and a newer 'diagnostic practice' that emerged with Marx and Nietzsche and has found its three most prominent twentieth-century practitioners in Carl Schmitt, Hannah Arendt, and Michel Foucault. He then examines the sources of diagnostic political thinking, analyzes its achievements, and offers a critical assessment of its limitations. His important book will be of interest to a wide range of upper-level students and scholars in political philosophy, political theory, and the history of ideas"-- Provided by publisher.