David Antonini

Clemson University
Great Basin College
  •  916
    Relational Plurality as a Corrective to Liberal Atomistic Pluralism
    Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture 4 (3/2020): 65-75. 2020.
    This essay argues for a concept of political identity that is fundamentally relational in nature contra more liberal accounts of identity that are atomistic. I consider John Rawls’ account of political identity in his Political Liberalism and provide a response stemming from Hannah Arendt’s account of political identity grounded in the existential condition of politics: human plurality. Using her concept of human plurality, I argue that political identity ought to be conceived as relationally in…Read more
  •  760
    Social Contract Theory
    1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology. 2018.
    Contracts are common, and some influential thinkers in the “modern” period of philosophy argued that the whole of society is created and regulated by a contract. Two of the most prominent “social contract theorists” are Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and John Locke (1632-1704).[2] This essay explains the origins of this tradition and why the concept of a contract is illuminating for thinking about the structure of society and government.
  •  470
    Hannah Arendt's Political Thought
    1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology. 2018.
    Hannah Arendt (1906-1975), born in Hanover, Germany, was a public intellectual, refugee, and observer of European and American politics. She is especially known for her interpretation of the events that led to the rise of totalitarianism in the twentieth century. Arendt studied under German philosophers Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers and set out to pursue a path as an academic, writing a dissertation on St. Augustine. However, Hitler, the Nazi regime’s rise to power, and the bloody Holocaust …Read more
  •  39
    Within the current global political context in Western democracies, one might argue that engaging in public discourse about matters of shared concern is not an inviting opportunity for citizens. Generally speaking, participation in public discourse is not something we seek out unless, perhaps, from behind the privacy of our electronic devices. What this might indicate, following an Arendtian insight, is that we currently have no sense of a shared world together. In other words, we have become al…Read more
  •  33
    Human Plurality as Object
    Southwest Philosophy Review 34 (1): 69-76. 2018.
  •  16
    A Commentary on Noell Birondo’s “Aristotle and the Virtues of Will Power”
    Southwest Philosophy Review 31 (2): 7-10. 2015.
  •  15
    Citizens in the contemporary world have become alienated from politics because they conceive of it as an instrumental activity. David Antonini argues that Hannah Arendt's thought can help us recover meaningful political experience: a distinct experience of politics in which citizens can speak and act together.