Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics 30th Anniversary Edition Bonnie Honig Cornell University Press Ithaca and London Copyright ©  by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House,  East State Street, Ithaca, New York . Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu. The original edition of this book was published in the Contestations series, edited by William E. Connolly. First published  by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Honig, Bonnie, author. Title: Political theory and the displacement of politics / Bonnie Honig. Description: th anniversary edition. | Ithaca : Cornell University Press, . | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN  (print) | LCCN  (ebook) | ISBN  (hardcover) | ISBN  (paperback) | ISBN  (pdf) | ISBN  (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Political science. | Political science—Philosophy. | Liberalism. | Democracy. Classification: LCC JA .H  (print) | LCC JA (ebook) | DDC .—dc/eng/ LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/ LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/ Cover: Steps of Hope, Steps of Loss, Neera Huckvale. Silk, cotton, and organza ('" × '"), . Used by permission of the artist. For Michael Democratic ages are times of experiment, innovation, and adventure. —Alexis de Tocqueville The hero’s gesture has not accidentally become the pose of philosophy since Nietzsche: it requires heroism to live in the world as Kant left it. —Hannah Arendt Not long ago I became acquainted with the Kantian philosophy—and I now have to tell you of a thought I derived from it, which I feel free to do because I have no reason to fear it will shatter you so profoundly and painfully as it has me.—We are unable to decide whether that which we call truth really is truth, or whether it only appears to us to be. If the latter then the truth we assemble here is nothing after our death, and all endeavor to acquire a possession which will follow us to the grave is in vain. —Heinrich von Kleist (in a letter to his fiancée) Contents Preface to the th Anniversary Edition ix Acknowledgments xxi Abbreviations xxv . Negotiating Positions: The Politics of Virtue and Virtù  . Kant and the Concept of Respect for Persons  Beginnings  Respect for the Moral Law  Reverence-Respect for Persons  T eleological Respect for Persons  L iberal Respect for Persons  S etting the Conditions for Moral Improvement  Kant’s Virtue Theory of Politics  . Nietzsche and the Recovery of Responsibility  Three Kinds of Recovery  The Genealogical Recovery of Responsibility  T he Re-covery of Responsibility: Against Remorse  T he Re-covery of Responsibility: Eternal Recurrence  A lternative Responsibilities: The Self as a Work of Art  N ietzsche’s Re-covery of Virtue as Virtù  N ietzsche’s Reverence for Institutions  . Arendt’s Accounts of Action and Authority  Action, Identity, and the Self  Acting through Speech: Promising and Forgiveness  vii viii Contents The Postulates of Action  S tabilizing Performatives: Arendt, Austin, and Derrida  Acting through Writing: Founding the New American Republic  T he Undecidability of the American Declaration of Independence  I ntervention, Augmentation, and Resistibility: Arendt’s Practice of Political Authority  M aking Space for Arendt’s Virtù Theory of Politics  . Rawls and the Remainders of Politics  Reconciliation or Politicization?  The Politics of Originating Positions  The Practice of Punishment  Irresponsible Rogues and Idiosyncratic Misfits  Liberal and Other Alternatives  . Sandel and the Proliferation of Political Subjects  Two Kinds of Dispossession  The Communitarian Subject of Possession  O ccasions for Politics  P olitics as Friendship  M orally Deep Questions  M orally Deep Answers  T he Rawlsian Supplement  . Renegotiating Positions: Beyond the Virtue-Virtù Opposition  Notes  Index  Preface to the th Anniversary Edition Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics, originally published in , has been called a founding text of agonism. 1 Agonism treats contestation not as a regrettably necessary way to correct political imperfections but as a necessary, often joyful feature of democratic life. Agonism rejects efforts by political theorists or philosophers to theorize politics based on justified With thanks for comments and exchange to Alan Finlayson, Sam Chambers, George Shulman, Jill Frank, Samuel Galloway, and Roy Tsao, and to Ayantu Israel-Megerssa for research assistance. . Alan Finlayson, ed., Bonnie Honig: Agonism, Difference & Democratic Care (Routledge Innovators in Political Theory, ); Robert W. Glover, “Games without Frontiers? Democratic Engagement, Agonistic Pluralism and the Question of Exclusion,” Philos­ ophy & Social Criticism , no.  (): –; Mathew Humphrey, David Owen, Joe Hoover, Clare Woodford, Alan Finlayson, Marc Stears, and Bonnie Honig, “Humanism from an Agonistic Perspective: Themes from the Work of Bonnie Honig,” Contempo­ rary Political Theory , no.  (): –; Lida Maxwell, “Introduction,” in “The ‘Agonistic Turn’: Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics in New Contexts,” Contemporary Political Theory , no.  (): –; Lida Maxwell, “The Virago as Democratic Exemplar: Honig’s Feminist Agonism,” in “The ‘Agonistic Turn’”: –; Paulina Tambakaki, “Agonism Reloaded: Potentia, Renewal and Radical Democracy,” Political Studies Review , no.  (): –; Nicholas Tampio, “Bonnie Honig, Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics,” in The Oxford Handbook of Classics in Contemporary Political Theory, ed. Jacob T. Levy (Oxford University Press, ); Mark Wenman, Agonistic Democracy: Constituent Power in the Era of Globalisation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ); Stephen K. White, “Agonism, Democracy, and the Moral Equality of Voice,” Political Theory , no.  (): –; Joanna Fiduccia, “Scale of the Nation: Alberto Giacometti Miniature Monument,” Art History , no.  (): –. ix