Politics and Friendship in the Cosmos

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Late modern life is characterized by two challenges for making and sustaining political bonds: 1) pluralism and 2) the world as a place for human flourishing. Pluralism seems to challenge ancient notions of political friendship which seem to require homogeneity. Political friendship also seems to imply a world or cosmos that would support humanity’s moral flourishing and the superiority of good over evil, and justice over injustice. The pluralism of modern liberal and global democracy seem to confound the idea of political friendship on the one hand. The evils of totalitarianism in the twentieth-century seem another way of confounding the idea of political friendship. The papers address these two challenges by addressing the possibility of pluralism in modernity, universal love and belonging in the cosmos, and the possibility of friendship in the face of evil.

Sub Unit

• Partner Associations / Eric Voegelin Society

Individual Presentations

• The Ends of Praxis in Hannah Arendt's "Theory of Action" - Thomas Wayne Holman, The Catholic University of America

• Pluralism, Generosity, Charity, and Friendship - Thomas W. Heilke, The University of British Columbia

• Recapturing ‘Fraternity’ as a Forgotten Dimension of the Political - John McNerney, The Catholic University of America

• The Depth of Experience - Jerry L. Martin, University of Colorado at Boulder

Chair

• John F. von Heyking University of Lethbridge

Discussants

• Eduardo Schmidt Passos Arizona State University

• Carol B Cooper University of Houston