Raymond Geuss Research Articles

After Marx, the Deluge

Abstract ‘After Marx’ or ‘According to Marx’. Thus translates the intentionally ambiguous title of ‘Nach Marx’, an international collection of twenty diverse essays in German on Marx and social philosophy today. ‘Nach Marx’ contains over five hundred pages of contributions from twelve prominent German philosophers and sociologists (Hauke Brunkhorst, Alex Demirović, Rainer Forst, Axel Honneth, Rahel Jaeggi, Daniel Loick, Andrea Maihofer, Oliver Marchart, Christoph Menke, Hartmut Rosa, Michael Quante, Titus Stahl), six American political philosophers, German idealists, and historians (Wendy Brown, Daniel Brudney, Raymond Geuss, Frederick Neuhouser, Terry Pinkard, Moishe Postone), along with a British Hegelian philosopher (Andrew Chitty) and a French political thinker (Étienne Balibar). Although the book is divided into six themed parts (I. Freedom and Community, II. Normativity and Critique, III. Truth and Ideology, IV. Right and Subjectivity, V. Critique of Capitalism and Class Struggle, VI. Political Praxis), the essays are mostly individual excurses in Marx scholarship.

Impure theorizing in an imperfect world: Politics, utopophobia and critical theory in Geuss’s realism

An “impure” realism that draws extensively on non-philosophical sources has challenged mainstream political theory in recent years. These “new realists” reject the “political moralism” of “ethics-first” approaches, holding that theory should start from disagreement and conflict. My basic thesis is that its focus on “the political” and its utopophobia prevent realism from developing normative foundations that can ground social criticism. Many realists, including one of its primary progenitors, Raymond Geuss, recognize this problem. Interestingly, Geuss turns to critical theory to address this concern. While I welcome realism’s desire to make political theory more relevant to politics, I argue that Geuss’s attempt to address the status quo bias by importing ideology critique from the Frankfurt School is ultimately unsuccessful. In my reading the critical theory of the Frankfurt School thus emerges as a more plausible approach to grounding critique of the pathologies of the present.

The Lesson of Carl Schmitt’s Realism

Political realism claims that politics should be understood as politics and not as a derivative of any other field of human activity. While contemporary realists often argue for the autonomy of politics, this article suggests that only the primacy of politics can be the starting point of political realism. The aim of the article is to expose a conceptual deficiency, namely, the unclear difference between the autonomy and the primacy approach in contemporary realist theory by going back to Carl Schmitt’s contribution to political realism. It will be argued that Schmitt’s concept of the political foreshadowed the ambiguities of contemporary realist theory, exemplified by key authors such as Bernard Williams, Raymond Geuss and Mark Philp.

Hope Abjuring Hope: On the Place of Utopia in Realist Political Theory

This essay reconstructs the place of utopia in realist political theory, by examining the ways in which the literary genre of critical utopias can productively unsettle ongoing discussions about “how to do political theory.” I start by analyzing two prominent accounts of the relationship between realism and utopia: “real utopia” (Erik Olin Wright et al.) and “dystopic liberalism” (Judith Shklar et al.). Elaborating on Raymond Geuss’s recent reflections, the essay then claims that an engagement with literature can shift the focus of these accounts. Utopian fiction, I maintain, is useful for comprehending what is (thus enhancing our understanding of the world) and for contemplating what might be (thus nurturing the hope for a better future). Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel The Dispossessed deploys this double function in an exemplary fashion: through her dynamic and open-ended portrayal of an Anarchist community, Le Guin succeeds in imagining a utopia that negates the status quo, without striving to construct a perfect society. The book’s radical, yet ambiguous, narrative hence reveals a strategy for locating utopia within realist political theory that moves beyond the positions dominating the current debate. Reading The Dispossessed ultimately demonstrates that realism without utopia is status quo–affirming, while utopia without realism is wishful thinking.

Ethics and politics from a Leninist perspective: Raymond Geuss. Philosophy and real politics

No abstractRealidad: Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades No. 124, 2010: 335-338

Book Review: Raymond Geuss, Reality and Its Dreams

Book Review: Raymond Geuss, <i>Reality and Its Dreams</i>

Ethics, morality and the case for realist political theory

A common trait of all realistic political theories is the rejection of a conception of political theory as applied moral philosophy and an attempt to preserve some form of distinctively political thinking. Yet the reasons for favouring such an account of political theory can vary, a point that has often been overlooked in recent discussions by realism’s friends and critics alike. While a picture of realism as first-and-foremost an attempt to develop a more practical political theory which does not reduce morality to politics is often cited, in this paper we present an alternative understanding in which the motivation to embrace realism is grounded in a set of critiques of or attitudes towards moral philosophy which then feed into a series of political positions. Political realism, on this account, is driven by a set of philosophical concerns about the nature of ethics and the place of ethical thinking in our lives. This impulse is precisely what motivated Bernard Williams and Raymond Geuss to their versions of distinctively realist political thought and is important to emphasise because it demonstrates that realism does not set politics against ethics (a misunderstanding typically endorsed by realism’s critics) but is rather an attempt to philosophise about politics without relying on understandings of morality which we have little reason to endorse.

The Invention of God. By Thomas Römer; translated by Raymond Geuss. Cambridge/London, Harvard University Press, 2015, £25.00.

The Invention of God. By Thomas Römer; translated by Raymond Geuss. Cambridge/London, Harvard University Press, 2015, £25.00.

WHO WAS THE FIRST PHILOSOPHER? OR, HOW MANY PHILOSOPHERS DOES IT TAKE?

The first philosopher is usually said to have been Thales. Raymond Geuss has recently suggested that it was not Thales but Oedipus (and the Sphinx), on the grounds that ‘It takes two’ for philosophy to exist. Slavoj Žižek, on the other hand, has suggested that ‘It takes one’: in which case the first philosopher may well have been Thales. Here I argue that ‘It takes three’ and that the first philosopher was not the first to have a vision, and not the first to answer a riddle, but the first to hear two sides of a question and make sense of both.

What Makes a Utopia Inconvenient? On the Advantages and Disadvantages of a Realist Orientation to Politics

Contemporary politics is often said to lack utopias. For prevailing understandings of the practical force of political theory, this looks like cause for celebration. As blueprints to apply to political practice, utopias invariably seem too strong or too weak. Through an immanent critique of political realism, I argue that utopian thought, and political theory generally, is better conceived as supplying an orientation to politics. Realists including Bernard Williams and Raymond Geuss explain how utopian programs like universal human rights poorly orient their adherents to politics, but the realists wrongly conclude that utopias and other ideal theories necessarily disorient us. As I show through an analysis of utopian claims made by Michel Foucault, Malcolm X, and John Rawls, utopias today can effectively disrupt entrenched forms of legitimation, foster new forms of political identity, and reveal new possibilities within existing institutions. Utopias are needed to understand the political choices we face today.

Raymond Geuss’ radicalization of realism in political theory

Raymond Geuss has been viewed as one of the figureheads of the recent debates about realism in political theory. This interpretation, however, depends on a truncated understanding of his work of the past 30 years. I will offer the first sustained engagement with this work (in English and German) which allows understanding his realism as a project for reorienting political theory, particularly the relationship between political theory and politics. I interpret this reorientation as a radicalization of realism in political theory through the combination of the emphasis on the critical purpose of political theory and the provision of practical, contextual orientation. Their compatibility depends on Geuss’ understanding of criticism as negative, of power as ‘detoxified’ and of the critical purchase of political theory as based on the diagnostic engagement with its context. This radicalization particularly challenges the understanding of how political theory relates to its political context.

A World Without Why

A World Without Why

The Invention of God by Thomas Römer

Reviewed by: The Invention of God by Thomas Römer Pieter W. van der Horst The Invention of God By Thomas Römer. Translated by Raymond Geuss. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. xii + 303 pp. Ever since 1990, when my colleagues and I at Utrecht University started working on the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (1999), I have had a great interest in the origins of monotheism and of Israel’s belief in the one and only God. The book reviewed here is concerned with precisely that topic. [End Page 106] Originally published in French as L’invention de Dieu (2014), the French origin of the book still betrays itself in the unusually high number of references to French publications as compared to other books in this field of study. The book itself considers how the original storm and warrior god of a nomadic desert tribe to the south of ancient Palestine became Israel’s one and only God, the creator of Heaven and Earth. This fascinating theme has certainly delivered a fascinating book. At every page Römer displays his mastery of a wide range of ancient sources and scholarly literature. In what follows I give a succinct overview of the book’s contents, but I am afraid I will be unable to do justice to its richness. In a lengthy introduction, problems that the ancient evidence poses to the scholar are described as Römer argues that the way the final editors of the Bible presented matters often look different than historians’ perspectives. Römer steers a middle course between maximalist and minimalist positions, and though he is occasionally inclined to follow a more minimalist approach, he never shows sympathy for the extreme historical skepticism of the so-called Copenhagen School. Chapter 1 deals with God’s name, YHWH, its origin and meaning, and the avoidance of its pronunciation. Here Römer could have benefited from the recent study by F. Shaw, The Earliest Non-Mystical Jewish Use of Iaô (2015), but that book was published too late to be taken into account in this work. Chapter 2 offers a discussion of the geographic origin of YHWH and argues that there can be little doubt that originally he was a tribal god of one of the nomadic groups in the south (Teiman, Edom, Seir, Midian), such as the Sashu and Hapiru/’apiru, who worshipped him as a war god and a storm god. In fact, many traces of these functions are still visible in the Hebrew Bible. In chapter 3 Römer unravels the biblical stories of Moses and the identity of the Midianites and the role the latter may have played in the spread of the cult of YHWH: “Moses was perhaps the leader of a group ‘apiru’ who, when they had left Egypt, encountered YHWH in Midian and passed on the knowledge of him to other tribes in the south.” Chapter 4 raises the question of how YHWH became the God of Israel. Again, the possibly pivotal role of the southern nomadic Sashu and Hapiru is highlighted. The much-debated meaning of the name Israel and the various names of God in the Bible are discussed (El Olam, El-Roï, El Shadday, El Elyon, etc.). As the tutelary deity of Saul and David, who introduced him into Jerusalem, YHWH rose to a high position at the beginning of the first millennium. YHWH’s complicated move to Jerusalem is the subject of chapter [End Page 107] 5, where Römer argues that “the older sanctuary there was first of all that of a sun god and that YHWH was added as an associate god,” so YHWH was not immediately the principal god there. The cult of YHWH in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, the subject of chapter 6, was of quite a different nature than that in Judah. He was worshipped in the Northern Kingdom of Israel in several temples and at several “high places,” often in the form of a bull (or, identified with the Canaanite god Ba’al [Lord]), but nevertheless to his worshippers he was no one other than YHWH, quite contrary to the opinion of the...

Lüge, Ideologie und Menschenliebe

According to Raymond Geuss, the focus on politician untruthfulness distracts our attention from the political questions that really matter. This tendency is, for Geuss, a sign of our time showing the »persistence of bog-Christian attitudes«. Ancient Greek society, Geuss argues, had a different view on mendacious behavior and political untruthfulness. In this paper, I give a comparative approach to Greek and Christian politics of mendaciousness via the notion of ideology – vindicating to some extend the present-day focus on political untruthfulness.

IN WHAT SENSE MUST POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY BE POLITICAL?

Abstract:Political philosophy appears to have recovered from its alleged death in the middle of the last century, but now faces the realist charge that in the work of John Rawls and those influenced by him it fails to be political in the right way; it is merely “applied moral philosophy.” I dismiss the hyper-realist position of authors such as Raymond Geuss for taking an implausibly narrow view of politics. There is more merit in Bernard Williams’s claim that legitimacy, not justice, is the central problem of political philosophy. Yet we cannot understand the significance of legitimation without referring to the moral values that are realized when it succeeds. Thus, Williams fails to show that political normativity can be detached entirely from ethics. Moreover the legitimacy requirements of a liberal state, according to Williams, are substantively close to the requirements of justice according to Rawls. In light of the latter’s turn to “political liberalism,” they appear also to hold convergent views about the status of the theories they are advancing. I conclude by suggesting that the “applied moral philosophy” charge would apply only to philosophers who believe that general moral principles, like utility or rights, can do all the work of political evaluation. Politics does indeed have special features that impose distinctive justificatory requirements on its procedures and the outcomes they produce.

Horkheimer, Religion, and the Normative Grounds of Critical Theology

Abstract This essay examines how the legacy of Marx’s emancipatory commitments continues to be intertwined with his critique of religion. This is illustrated with reference to Raymond Geuss’s claim that Marxism’s political failure is related its lack of an adequate moral theory, a view that leads him to suggest that Marxism needs to function more like a ‘pseudo-religion’. These issues are analysed by drawing from Max Horkheimer’s writing on Christianity, which imply that materialist critical theory will be resourced by attention to particular historical expressions of religion. The; paper argues that such an approach requires a distinction between two strands of Marx’s critique of religion-an ‘eliminationist’ and a ‘descriptive functionalist’ perspective- and involves privileging the second strand over the first. The implication is not that religion resolves the question of the ground of Marxism’s normative critique; rather, what is advanced is view that the critical theory can be supported and resourced by a critique of the ‘religion of everyday life’.

A world without why: A Review

A World Without Why collects essays, of which some are new, others already published, on topics that interest Raymond Geuss, including architecture, theology, Marxism, tragedy, ethics and the (lack of) unity of academic philosophy as a discipline. A theme running through the essays is a critical, or at least skeptical, stance towards the ‘Enlightenment project’ of explanation and rationalisation, familiar from the Frankfurt School. In Geuss, that stance may in the end express, despite everything, a thwarted Kantian hope: that reason, and it alone, can make things make sense.

Two Contemporary Approaches to Political Theory

Broadly speaking, the form that contemporary Anglo-American political theory has taken since the 1970s, with its reinvigoration in the seminal work of John Rawls, can largely be described as Platonic and Kantian, focusing on the formulation, comparison, and evaluation of abstract principles of justice, and only subsequently looking to their application in the real world. Concerned about this, a number of critics of the contemporary paradigm in political theory have emerged to offer their own alternatives. This article will discuss two of them: Raymond Geuss and Amartya Sen. This article does three things. Its first section lays out the realist approach to political theory advocated by Raymond Geuss and the comparative approach advocated by Amartya Sen, respectively. Here I argue that Sen's comparative approach can best be understood as a kind of realism. In the second section of this article, I explore what I take to be an underlying concern behind the work of both Sen and Geuss, and which, although it is rarely explicitly mentioned (and certainly never fully developed), I think we should bear in mind: namely, a strand of anti-Platonism in political theory. Third and finally, I present three arguments for why a realist approach to political theory is likely to be superior to those of their contemporary adversaries: the argument from efficacy claims that realist approaches are more likely to impact real politics; the argument from cognitive distortions claims that realist approaches are better equipped to notice and critically evaluate and revise undue assumptions and distortions of various kinds; and the argument from abstractness claims that since such distortions are likely to increase with a theory's degree of abstractness, and since realist theories tend to be less abstract than their competitors, a realist approach will likely be less susceptible to such distortions to begin with.

‘A habitual disposition to the good’: on reason, virtue and realism

Amidst the crisis of instrumental reason, a number of contemporary political philosophers including Jürgen Habermas have sought to rescue the project of a reasonable humanism from the twin threats of religious fundamentalism and secular naturalism. In his recent work, Habermas defends a post-metaphysical politics that aims to protect rationality against encroachment while also accommodating religious faith within the public sphere. This paper contends that Habermas’ post-metaphysical project fails to provide a robust alternative either to the double challenge of secular naturalism and religious fundamentalism or to the ruthless instrumentalism that underpins capitalism. By contrast with Habermas and also with the ‘new realism’ of contemporary political philosophers such as Raymond Geuss or Bernard Williams, realism in the tradition of Plato and Aristotle can defend reason against instrumental rationality and blind belief by integrating it with habit, feeling and even faith. Such metaphysical–political realism can help develop a politics of virtue that goes beyond communitarian thinking by emphasising plural modes of association (not merely ‘community’), substantive ties of sympathy and the importance of pursuing goodness and mutual flourishing.

Political philosophy and the attraction of realism

The progressive abstraction and professionalisation of political philosophy over the last few decades has invited a ‘realist’ backlash. This turn to realism has been promoted and defended by various philosophers for a variety of reasons. This article distinguishes the components of the realist challenge to contemporary normative political theory by contrasting the typology of realist theories developed by Michael Doyle with another set out by Raymond Geuss. The resulting categorisation of ‘realisms’ allows for an indirect critique of a univocal realist challenge to normative political philosophy because many of the claims upon which these ‘realisms’ rely are as abstract and theory-laden as the position they challenge.