Groundless Existence

Michael Marder is Ikerbasque Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country, Vitoria-Gasteiz. He is the Associate Editor of Telos: A Quarterly Journal of Critical Thought and the author of The Event of The Thing: Derrida's Post-Deconstructive Realism (2009).

• List of Abbreviations: The Works of Carl SchmittIntroduction: On the Possibility of a Non-Objectivist Political OntologyPart I - The ElementsChapter 1 - Geometry of the Exception: The Point and The LineTo the PointBeyond the LineThe Extremism of the Middle PointChapter 2 - The Danger: Unavoidability of RiskA Taxonomy of Risk Whence Political Risk? The Anthropological Minus the EconomicRisky RecognitionsRisky DecisionsChapter 3 - The Non-Ground: From the Concept of the Political to the Event of PoliticsA Philosophical Primer: Snapshots of the Event in Heidegger and DerridaThere is no Such a Thing as the "Political Sphere"!Schmitt's Anti-Economism Revisited: Nomos / Appropriation, Politics / ExpropriationHow to Remain Faithful to the Event of Politics?Chapter 4 - Politics in QuestionPrelude: Questioning the QuestionPosing the QuestionInterlude: Yes or No?In Place of a Response...Part II - The CritiqueChapter 5 - Metonymic Abuses of ModernityIn the Name of the Law...Constitutional Unity, Constitutional DetailsThe Fragility of the Status and the Irreducibility of the PoliticalChapter 6 - Political Reduction to Constitutive SubjectivitySchmitt and Husserl: From the CrisisThe Ontology of Political WillP.S.: On Political ConsciousnessPart III - On the GroundChapter 7 - Living Forms: Culture, Multiculturalism and the Complexio Oppositorum Disentangling Complexio OppositorumThe Living Forms of PoliticsA Virtuous Circle: The Mutual Invigoration of Culture and PoliticsMulticulturalism: A New Complexio OppositorumChapter 8 - Political Hermeneutics: The Necessity of InterpretationSchmitt and Gadamer: Decision and InterpretationPolitics as InterpretationInterpreting the Meaning of the Political Political Theology as a Hermeneutic Endeavor

In this marvelous book, Marder set out to expose the hermeneutic nature of Schmitt's political ontology as no one has ever done before. Through a deconstructive reading, Schmitt's political philosophy is put in a dialogue with contemporary thought, giving politics new ontological vitality. Not only Schmitt scholars but also all those interested in the meaning of politics after deconstruction will find this book to be an indispensable text. A genuine "must read."  --Gianni Vattimo and Santiago Zabala, authors of Hermeneutic Communism