Francis Cheneval

This special issue is motivated by the observation that conservatism plays a marginal role in contemporary philosophy even though it appears to be of considerable importance in moral, social, and political reality. One reason for this neglect is that defenders of conservatism have often refrained from articulating their arguments in a language that is acceptable to and understandable by analytically -trained philosophers. The contributions of this special issue show that conservatism can profitably be approached from the point of view of analytic philosophy. Many of them are indebted to Jerry Cohen’s (2012) seminal paper on conservative value, which develops a sophisticated justification of what Oakeshott (1991) called the disposition to be conservative.

The Eurozone crisis has brought the imperative of democratic autonomy within the EU to the forefront, a concern at the core of demoicratic theory. The article seeks to move the scholarship on demoicratic theory a step further by exploring what we call the social construction of demoicratic reality. While the EU’s legal-institutional infrastructure may imperfectly approximate a demoicratic structure, we need ask to what extent the ‘bare bones’ demoicratic character of a polity can actually be grounded in a full-flesh social construct that is or could be acted out in the democratic experience and the self-awareness of its peoples. Ultimately, such an enquiry should help us understand whether a polity like the EU is actually and potentially a stable or unstable political form. We develop a consistent theory of popular sovereignty drawing on John Searle and HLA Hart to conceive the constitutionalised people (dêmos) as a social fact and the sovereignty of the people as a status ascribed to the people. We use this construction of demoicratic reality as a conceptual framework to understand the possibility of popular sovereignty being exercised concurrently by several rather than just one dêmos.

In a ‘demoi-cracy’, separate statespeoples enter into a political arrangement and jointly exercise political authority. Its proper domain is a polity of democratic states with hierarchical, majoritarian features of policy-making, especially in value-laden redistributive and coercive policy areas, but without a unified political community (demos). In its vertical dimension, demoi-cracy is based on the equality and interaction of citizens’ and statespeoples’ representatives in the making of common policies. Horizontally, it seeks to balance equal transna- tional rights of citizens with national policy-making autonomy. The EU belongs to the domain of demoi-cracy and has established many of its features. We argue that both vertical and horizontal demoi-cratization have been triggered by processes of supranational integration in the European Union (EU). They differ, however, in the origins and the outcomes. Vertical demoi-cratization has initially been a reaction of parliamentary institutional actors to majoritarian decision-making in regulatory policy-areas, resulting in the empowerment of the European Parliament (EP) and the strengthening of parliamentary oversight at the national level. By contrast, hori- zontal demoi-cratization has been promoted by governments as an alternative to majoritarian and legally binding policy-making in core areas of statehood, as well as coercive and redistributive policy-areas; it has resulted in soft, co-ordinative forms of policy-making, seeking to protect national autonomy. The extent to which these developments actually meet the normative standards of demoi-cracy in practice, however, is mixed.

This article proposes the political organisation of interstate integration – characterised by functional differentiation and unbundled multi-level territoriality – as a political ideal type. The theoretical foundations and empirical conditions of this new form of political organisation are explored focussing on basic security threats, such as nuclear armament, transnational terrorism, and organised crime. The empirical conditions of multilateral democratic integration are not essentially different from the conditions of democratic state-building and not limited to Europe. The political reality of multilateral integration is often misperceived in political theory. This is due, either to the uncritical presupposition of a traditional political ontology, defined by an essentialist understanding of the unitary state; or by an apolitical discourse on flows and scapes that loses sight of the specific features of political authority in the postnational realm.

In dieser Schrift begründet Dante die Priorität der Volks- und Muttersprache vor der lateinischen Gelehrtensprache und fordert eine italienische Hochsprache. Er untermauert seine Ausführungen durch eine anthropologische Erörterung der menschlichen Sprachfähigkeit. Dank einer originellen Interpretation des biblischen Mythos vom Turmbau von Babel legt er eine vernünftig begründete Neubewertung der Vielfalt und der historischen Entwicklung der Sprachen vor. Das Problem der Sprache stellt sich im Denken Dantes in zweifacher Weise: als Problem der Sprache der Philosophie und unter dem Gesichtspunkt der Philosophie der Sprache. In "De vulgari eloquentia" bietet Dante ein ganzes Arsenal metaphysischer Paradigmen auf, um der sprachlichen Verständigung der Menschen eine unvordenkliche Dignität zu geben. Er stellt die gesamte Philosophie in den Dienst des Menschen als sprechendes Wesen. Auch wenn Dante die Doppelbestimmung der Sprache als sinnliches Zeichen, das den Gedanken des einen Menschen einem andern zu vermitteln fähig ist, von der Tradition übernimmt, setzt er andere Akzente. Die Sprache der Menschen ist nicht nur eine im Vergleich zur Transparenz der reinen Geister unvollkommenere Form der Kommunikation, sondern sie wird positiv als die dem Menschen gänzlich angemessene und entsprechende Form der Kommunikation interpretiert: Das Sprechen ist der "herausragende Akt des menschlichen Geschlechts". Mit dem Erscheinen von "De vulgari eloquentia" liegt die vierbändige Ausgabe der Philosophischen Werke Dante Alighieris vollständig vor. Bislang erschienen Bd. 1: Das Schreiben an Cangrande (PhB 463) Bd. 2: Disputation über das Wasser und die Erde (PhB 464) Bd. 4: Das Gastmahl I-IV (PhB 466a-d)

The debate on the European Union's democratic deficit usually operates within a national-democratic framework of analysis. This article argues for a change in methodology. It follows the thesis that the EU is a ‘demoicracy’– a polity of multiple demoi– and has to be evaluated as such. Core principles of demoicracy are developed and the EU is assessed accordingly. Such an evaluation is not only more adequate, but also provides original insights: it is found that, whereas the constitutional development of the EU has approached demoicratic standards in general, major deficits remain at the national level.

Globalization stands for systemic integration, mainly economical and technological. It is related to the expansion of the free market economy, trade, and the global integration of systems of communication and information technology. As such, globalization co-exists with strong cultural affirmations of individual and collective difference and with political fragmentation. Cosmopolitanism needs to take into consideration cultural and political conditions of human existence. The cosmopolitan imperative to form a political community beyond the nation state is a process-guiding principle or regulative ideal, not an institutional blueprint. Cosmopolitanism needs to stress the voluntary character of integration among self-governed peoples who are willing to enhance the transnational rights and freedoms of their citizens while accepting institutional constraints.

This article studies the reception of Christian Wolff's theory of the civitas maxima by Hermann Friedrich Kahrel (1719-1787) and Michael Hanov (1695-1773). According to his previous work mentioned in the article (n. 2), the author considers the concept of civitas maxima as a methodological innovation. It is the normative fiction of a presumed rational consensus of mankind and of the states. As the article tries to show, this concept was misunderstood, not only by the enemies of Wolff but also by his followers. Kahrel considered the consensus of mankind and of the states a tacit factual consensus. The innovative idea of a presumed normative consensus was thereby lost. Hanov interpreted the civitas maxima as a civitas dei in the sense of Leibniz. He transformed the normative idea of a presumed consensus into a fact of metaphysics and natural theology. Nevertheless, he introduced a diachrone dimension into the concept of civitas maxima which he sees as an infinite sequence of all generations of mankind. This anticipates Kant's integration of cosmopolitanism in a certain concept of history. Kahrel and Hanov however misconceived Wolff's idea of a normative fiction of reason by its reduction to a factual reality, be it natural or metaphysical. They thereby are representative for a common misunderstanding of Wolff's theory that also leads to an inadequate critique.

The Eurozone crisis has brought the imperative of democratic autonomy within the EU to the forefront, a concern at the core of demoicratic theory. The article seeks to move the scholarship on demoicratic theory a step further by exploring what we call the social construction of demoicratic reality. While the EU’s legal-institutional infrastructure may imperfectly approximate a demoicratic structure, we need ask to what extent the ‘bare bones’ demoicratic character of a polity can actually be grounded in a full-flesh social construct that is or could be acted out in the democratic experience and the self-awareness of its peoples. Ultimately, such an enquiry should help us understand whether a polity like the EU is actually and potentially a stable or unstable political form. We develop a consistent theory of popular sovereignty drawing on John Searle and HLA Hart to conceive the constitutionalised people as a social fact and the sovereignty of the people as a status ascribed to the people. We use this construction of demoicratic reality as a conceptual framework to understand the possibility of popular sovereignty being exercised concurrently by several rather than just one dêmos.

Les nouveaux et nombreux défis de la constellation " postnationale " rendent plus actuelle que jamais une ancienne idée philosophique : le cosmopolitisme. Dans ses variantes modernes, celui-ci pose l'autonomie de l'individu humain comme norme fondamentale de toute construction politique. Le cosmopolitisme représente donc une alternative aussi bien au nationalisme qu'à la théorie normative d'un monde multipolaire de confrontations entre empires. L'ouvrage montre que le cosmopolitisme peut être considéré comme une conséquence des principes de la philosophie politique moderne. Définissant les bases normatives de l'Etat-nation démocratique, elle comprend ce dernier comme une réalisation temporaire des principes cosmopolitiques et la nation comme une entité politique qui doit, graduellement, être intégrée dans une construction intergouvernementale et cosmopolitique. L'étude s'achève sur un aperçu du cosmopolitisme dans la philosophie politique actuelle. L'auteur propose un cosmopolitisme processuel qui défende une intégration graduelle, progressive et pragmatique vers la sécularisation du droit et de l'autonomie de l'individu par l'interconnexion d'institutions nationales, intergouvernementales et supranationales. La cité des peuples n'est donc pas l'anticipation normative d'un Etat mondial, mais la volonté d'un processus d'intégration différenciée entre les peuples démocratiquement constitués.

Der Artikel erläutert mit dem kosmopolitischen Republikanismus einen Aspekt, der in der nationalstaatlich fixierten und meist euroskeptischen Republikanismus-Forschung vernachlässigt worden ist, aber in der frühen Phase der Französischen Revolution eine wichtige Rolle spielte. In der Perspektive des hier vorliegenden Artikels erscheint der revolutionäre Republikanismus zumindest in seinen Anfängen nicht als Inbegriff nationalstaatlich gehegter Demokratie und Autonomie, sondern als kosmopolitische oder zumindest Europa einigende Idee. Das Beispiel von Cloots zeigt, dass der Republikanismus in jener Zeit des Umbruchs und am historischen Ursprung der modernen europäischen Demokratie nicht partikularstaatlich, sondern kosmopolitisch konnotiert war. Heutige Versuche, den Republikanismus kosmopolitisch zu transformieren, wie sie von R. Bellamy und D. Castiglione unternommen werden, können in die Tradition des kosmopolitischen Republikanismus gestellt werden. Der Artikel würdigt sechs systematisch bedeutende Merkmale von Cloots’ Theorie und stellt diese in Beziehung zum kantischen Kosmopolitismus, der sich hauptsächlich durch seinen prozessualen, historisch-hermeneutisch reflektierten Charakter von Cloots’ kosmopolitischem Republikanismus unterscheidet.

This paper assesses the theory, first voiced by Schelling and Kant, according to which an infinite historical process will lead to cosmopolitan institutions.The assessment will mainly be done on the basis of theories about infinitely repeated games. The first part of the paper reconstructs “infinitesimal” historical cosmopolitanism as proposed by Schelling and Kant. The second part confronts this position with the results of the theory of infinitely repeated games among groups. The third part offers reflections on additional conditions and contingencies of the theory and the forth part draws the conclusion: while we can reasonably assume global cooperation to increase and stabilize over time under sustainable conditions, we cannot predict the institutional design of that cooperation.

In this paper an analysis of Hobbes' argument in favor of the Leviathan is combined with a reassessment in a new security environment. The analysis shows that Hobbes' premises are complex and lead to conclusions that differ from the realist as well as from the world-state position, both attributed to Hobbesian logic in IR theory. A strict application of the Hobbesian argument in today's security context leads to a rationale of multilateral institution-building among states. In the first part of the paper the internationalist analogy in the concept of war of all against all is uncovered and analyzed in relation to the security dilemma, domestic analogy, and methodological individualism. The second part reassesses the Hobbesian security rationale in a security environment which is assumed to be shaped by transnational terrorism and nuclear WMD.

The article argues that Rawls’s property-owning democracy should not be understood as a necessary standard of democratic legitimacy. This position contradicts Rawls’s own understanding to some extent, but a rejoinder with elements of political liberalism is possible. He concedes that justice as fairness is a ‘comprehensive liberal doctrine’ and that a well ordered society affirming such a doctrine ‘contradicts reasonable pluralism’. Rawls makes clear that reasonable pluralism in combination with the burdens of judgment lead to rare unanimity in political life and to the necessity of majority and plurality voting procedures.

The original constitution of the dêmos by democratic means is a fundamental problem for normative democratic theory. In this paper, I make an assessment of different solutions to the dêmos problem that have been presented in recent literature. I find that none of them is adequate, and thus hold that the dêmos problem remains unresolved. At the end of the paper, I propose a constellation in which multiple dêmoi are thought to be constituted at the same time. I show that this leads to a mitigation of the negative consequences that are implied in the proposed solutions analysed in previous parts of the paper. Constituting the dêmos according to the democratic ideal is more expedient under the conditions of a large number of individuals having the option to form a plurality of dêmoi. This overall conclusion means that the democratic legitimacy of the dêmos itself is critically dependent on a relational setting of relatively open but independent dêmoi. The relations between dêmoi and the freedom of movement among them is thus not something which is added to ideal democratic theory as an external and foreign element reducing the legitimacy of a democracy. Rather, the norm that states that there should be multiple dêmoi that openly relate to each other is actually part of the hard core of democratic legitimacy.