Eno Trimcev

This article rethinks the space between the ontological and historical registers of Hannah Arendt's thought. In a first step, the article moves against Arendt by arguing that her ontological analytic of new beginnings cannot support an account of politics. In a second step, the article moves against Arendt's intentions but within her thought to undermine her divide between action and thinking by understanding both as instances of human experience. Finally, the article moves with Arendt to recover a language of experience whose terms gain meaning only in relation to one another for they have neither a strictly universal nor a strictly particular character. As an articulation, this language interweaves the creative insights of the ontological register into historical experiences thus remaining loyal to the Arendtian project.

The article examines the coherence of conservative political theory by seeking out its principle and its form. It argues that conservative theory differs from liberal theory by the principle of differentiating between the activities of theorizing and doing. Two thought-figurations, called here “sympathetic” and “unsympathetic dissent”, are outlined with respect to the perspective conservative theory holds vis-à-vis the liberal order. The paper argues that only sympathetic dissent is coherent with the principle of conservative theory. The argument is illustrated by way of the thought of Michael Oakeshott. The form of sympathetic dissent is constituted by a double-movement of thought: a dissenting move, away from the historical context which deconstructs and critiques the existing political order, and a sympathetic, constructive move, which recovers the coherence of that very order.

Most contemporary liberal thought is concerned with the institutional framework
within which we may live our lives. It is, therefore, a mundane or earthly thought,
i.e. it renounces what it derisively calls metaphysical speculation on the good life. I
want to argue here that the mundanity of liberal thought hinders its understanding
of the liberal order. The kernel of truth of that order I take to be (still): the transcendent
dignity of human beings. Since the old philosophical vocabularies that established
this dignity are now regarded as obsolete, I indicate with this term merely that an
individual person is more than what she presents herself to be; that the person is more
than the sum of experiences, achievements, comportments, and choices she has taken
so far. Contemporary liberal thought must do more than merely acknowledge this –
which it often does. It must think it. That is, liberal thought must become metaphysical.

This article provides a reading of the symposium argument in Plato’s Laws. Reading the text on drinking wine with friends in the context of the myth of the divine puppets, it argues that the symposium illumines the nature of politics and, particularly, citizenship. By way of the symposium, Plato’s Athenian Stranger unfolds a political psychology which distinguishes politics from rule in order to show how politics assimilates and transforms rule. The symposium stands as an example for politics by intensifying and hence training the psychic motions involved in political activity. By showing how the virtue of moderation is achieved by stimulating its obverse, the Stranger gives a complete account of civic education as education of spiritedness.

... through their financial support would like thank apajev Gjokutaj the Open Society Foundation for Albania and Richard Jones Ambassador Her Majesty Government Albania for their enthusiastic support the necessity this study would also like thank Dritan Tola Arben Kashahu ...

This paper argues that the process of turning Albanian “brain drain” into “brain circulation” is not only desirable but also entirely possible. The professional integration of foreign-educated Albanian students in state institutions requires, first and foremost, the consolidation of a ...