Democracy - The Power of Illusion

Democracy hope or illusion? Blooming, failing or declining? Our doubts and hesitation make part of unbending efforts to endorse and explain democracy. Who is right the custodians of promise or the prophets of decline? The author tries to explore «the other side of the moon», emphasizing the role of critical thinking, opposing a main-current optimism.

Autorentext

Stanislaw Filipowicz is professor of Warsaw University and corresponding member of Polish Academy of Sciences. His research work concentrates on history of political ideas and political philosophy. Author of many books and publications addressing the main currents of liberal thinking, exploring the patterns of rationality originating in the tradition of the Enlightenment and investigating their decay. Recently, his focus is shifting towards the field of study embracing challenges posed by the erosion of classical (modern) patterns of democracy.

Zusammenfassung
«This is an engaging book which sows the seeds of intellectual doubt in this period where democracy appears rather ill almost every where.» (Michel Theys, Bulletin Quotidien Europe 05/2014)

Inhalt
Contents: Democracy and ambiguity between rationality and mythology Instrumental reason and the domain of politics Illusions as a formative power, shaping the foundation of modern democracy and framing its message Unmasking illusions in company of great champions of critical thinking, revealing a hallucinatory power of key concepts, underpinning the project of modern democracy Tocqueville, Nietzsche, Weber, Freud, Foucault, MacIntyre on deceiving nature of modernity.