Does the sovereign exist? Robert Musil’s political theology
The paper discusses a possible political theological interpretation of arguments developed in Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities. What emerges is that Musil (or his characters) pose a fundamental challenge to the possibility of any real analogy between God and the political sovereign, as sugge...
| Veröffentlicht in: | International journal of philosophy and theology |
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| 1. VerfasserIn: | |
| Medienart: | Elektronisch Aufsatz |
| Sprache: | Englisch |
| Verfügbarkeit prüfen: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Lade...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Veröffentlicht: |
Taylor & Francis
2022
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| In: |
International journal of philosophy and theology
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| normierte Schlagwort(-folgen): | B
Musil, Robert 1880-1942, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften
/ Anselm, Canterbury, Erzbischof, Heiliger 1033-1109
/ Herrscher
/ Gott
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| RelBib Classification: | CG Christentum und Politik KAE Kirchengeschichte 900-1300; Hochmittelalter KAJ Kirchengeschichte 1914-; neueste Zeit ZA Sozialwissenschaften |
| weitere Schlagwörter: | B
Sovereignty
B Robert Musil B Political Theology B Carl Schmitt |
| Online Zugang: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Zusammenfassung: | The paper discusses a possible political theological interpretation of arguments developed in Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities. What emerges is that Musil (or his characters) pose a fundamental challenge to the possibility of any real analogy between God and the political sovereign, as suggested by Carl Schmitt. At stake is Austria as a yet-to-be-born modern sovereign. However, the novel shows why attempts to conceive it in an image of God all fail. After surveying four such attempts, the main focus will be the discussion of Anselm of Canterbury’s existential argument in this secular context. At Diotima’s inspiration it is General von Bordwehr, a largely neglected figure, who makes the most serious attempt to argue for the political sovereign as the greatest conceivable thing. The argument is that greatness entails containing every idea and its opposite, and this yields the concept of order. But order means the frozen end of everything. Hence, instead of a living God, we end up with a political sovereign marked by death. |
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| ISSN: | 2169-2335 |
| Enthält: | Enthalten in: International journal of philosophy and theology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/21692327.2022.2127420 |