The political crises and upheavals of our age often originate from the
periphery rather than the center of power. Figures like Edward
Snowden, Julian Assange, and Chelsea Manning acted in ways that
disrupted power, revealing truths that those in power wanted to keep
hidden. They are thorns in the side of power, troublemakers in the
eyes of the powerful, though their actions may be valuable and lead to
positive changes.
In this important new book, Dieter Thomä examines the crucial but
often overlooked function of these figures on the margins of society,
developing a philosophy of troublemakers from the seventeenth century
to the present day. Thomä takes as his starting point Hobbes’s idea
of the _puer robustus_ (literally “stout boy”), meaning a figure
who rebels against order and authority. While Hobbes saw the _puer
robustus_ as a threat, he also recognized the potential, in the right
conditions, for figures to rise up and become agents of positive
change. Building on this notion, Thomä provides a rich survey of
intellectuals who have been inspired by this idea over the past 300
years, from Rousseau, Diderot, Schiller, Victor Hugo, Marx, and Freud
to Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss, and Horkheimer, right up to the recent
work of Badiou and Agamben. In doing so, he develops a typology of
the _puer robustus_ and a means by which we can evaluate and assess
the troublemakers of our own times.
Thomä shows that troublemakers are an inescapable part of modernity,
for as soon as social and political boundaries are defined, there will
always be figures challenging them from the margins. This book will be
of great interest not only to students and scholars in the humanities
and social sciences but to anyone seeking to understand the crucial
impact of these liminal figures on our world today.
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A Philosophy of Puer Robustus
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781509525614
Publisert
2019
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
Polity
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter