In this book Fred Dallmayr lays the groundwork for a new understanding of democracy. He argues that democracy is not a stable system anchored in a manifest authority (like monarchy), but is sustained by the recessed and purely potential rule of the "people". Hence, democracy has to constantly reinvent itself, resembling theologically a creatio continua. Like one of Calder's mobiles, democracy for him involves three basic elements that must be balanced constantly: the people, political leaders, and policy goals. Where this balance is disrupted, democracy derails into populism, Bonapartism, or messianism. Given this need for balance, democratic politics is basically a "relational praxis." In our globalizing age, democracy cannot be confined domestically. Dallmayr rejects the idea that it can be autocratically imposed abroad through forced regime change, or that the dominant Western model can simply be transferred elsewhere. In this respect, he challenges the equation of democracy with the pursuit of individual or collective self-interest, insisting that other, more ethical conceptions are possible and that different societies should nurture democracy with their own cultural resources. Providing examples, he discusses efforts to build democracy in the Middle East, China, and India (respectively with Islamic, Confucian and Hindu resources). In the end, Dallmayr's hope is for a "democracy to come", that is, a cosmopolitan community governed not by hegemonic force but by the spirit of equality and mutual respect.

Democracy to Come: Politics as Relational Praxis

Dallmayr, Fred

Legal Theory & Systems

Oxford University Press

Liberal democracy is the dominant political ideology in the West today. Taken at face value it suggests an equivalency between its two central components--liberalism and democracy--but as Fred Dallmayr argues here, the two operate in very different registers. The two frequently conflict, endangering our public life.This is evident in the rise of self-centered neo-liberalism as well as autocratic movements in our world today. More specifically, the conflict within liberal democracy is between the pursuit of individual or coporate interest, on the one hand, and a "people" increasingly fractured by economic and cultural clashes, on the other. Dallmayr asks whether there is still room for genuine privacy and authentic democracy when all public goods, from schools to parks, police, and armies, have been made the target of privatization. In this book, Dallmayr sets out to rescue democracy as a shared public and post-liberal regime. Nonetheless, "post-liberalism" does not involve the denial of human freedom nor does it suggest the endorsement of illiberal collectivism or nationalism. Drawing on a wide range of contemporary political, religious, and secular thought, Dallmayr charts a possible path to a liberal socialism that is devoid of egalitarian imperatives and a private sphere free from acquisitiveness.

Post-Liberalism: Recovering a Shared World

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Critical Encounters: Between Philosophy and Politics

Critical Encounters, a study of contemporary philosophy and political and social theory, inserts itself into ongoing conversation at the junctures of philosophy and political thought, and modernity and post-modernism. Through dialogue and critique Fred R. Dallmayr seeks to find a viable path for political theory in the midst of contemporary discussions in philosophy and the social sciences, shadowed by twentieth-century phenomenology, hermeneutics, critical theory, structuralism, pragmatism, and deconstruction.

University of Notre Dame Press

God, Mystery, and Mystification

In his Complaint of Peace, the great sixteenth-century humanist Erasmus allows Peace to talk. Peace speaks as a plaintiff, protesting her shabby treatment at the hands of humankind and our ever-ready inclination to launch wars. Against this lure of warfare, Erasmus pits the higher task of peace-building, which can only succeed through the cultivation of justice and respect for all human life. First articulated in 1517, the complaint of Peace has echoed through subsequent centuries and down to our age - an age convulsed by world wars, holocausts, and ethnic cleansings. the writings of Erasmus through the evolution of the law of nations to recent and contemporary co-plaintiffs in the West. He also highlights the role of non-Western thinkers and teachings in giving voice to Peace. In addition to Erasmus, Dallmayr engages major thinkers such as Francisco de Vitoria, Hugo Grotius, Immanuel Kant, Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger, Mahatma Ghandi, the Dalai Lama, John Rawls, and Martha Nussbaum. This timely book urgently pleads for greater attentiveness to Peace's complaint as an antidote to the prevailing culture of violence and the escalating danger of nuclear catastrophe. Dallmayr offers not only a compelling historical narrative, but powerful ethical and religious arguments vindicating the primacy of peace over violence and war.

Peace Talks―Who Will Listen?

Reference

In Spiritual Guides: Pathfinders in the Desert, Fred Dallmayr challenges the "desert character" of modern culture. Political and economic corruption, incessant warmongering, spoliation of natural resources, and, above all, mindless consumerism and greedy self-satisfaction are all symptoms of what he contends is an expanding wasteland or desert where everything creative and nourishing decays and withers. Through an alternative interpretation of Nietzsche's saying "the desert grows," this book calls for spiritual renewal, invoking in particular four prominent guides or pathfinders in the desert: Paul Tillich, Raimon Panikkar, Thomas Merton, and Pope Francis. What links all four guides together is the view of spiritual life as an itinerarium, a pathway along difficult and often uncharted roads. Dallmayr begins by drawing a connection between Nietzsche's characterization of the desert in Thus Spoke Zarathustra and the present culture of consumerism, in which a nearly-exclusive emphasis on productivity, efficiency, profitability, and the transformation of everything valuable into a useful resource prevails over all other goals. He also draws attention to another sense of "desert," namely, as a place of solitude, meditation, and retreat from affliction. Aptly defined, it becomes a place where spirituality arises from a painful "turning-about": a wrenching effort to extricate human life from the decay of late modernity. Spirituality is not a possession or property but rather the contemplation and radical mindfulness that we develop through engaged practices as we search for pathways to recovery. Spirituality becomes critical in the dominant political and cultural wasteland because it provides a bond linking humanity together. In the spirit of global ecumenism, Spiritual Guides also includes a discussion of Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist forms of spirituality. This book will interest students and scholars of philosophy, political theory, and religion.

Spiritual Guides: Pathfinders in the Desert

Horizons of Difference: Engaging with Others

In his latest book, Horizons of Difference: Engaging with Others, Fred Dallmayr argues that the dialogue between religious and secular commitments, between faith and reason, is particularly important in our time because both faith and reason can give rise to dangerous and destructive types of extremism, fanaticism, or idolatry. In this interdisciplinary and cross-cultural synthesis of philosophy, religious thought, and political theory, Dallmayr neither accepts the "clash of cultures" dichotomy nor denies the reality of cultural tensions. Instead, operating from the standpoint of philosophical hermeneutics, he embraces cultural difference as a necessary condition and opportunity for mutual cross-cultural dialogue and learning. In part 1, "Relationality and Difference," Dallmayr explores the emergence of diverse loyalties and attachments in different social and cultural contexts. The assumption is not that different commitments are necessarily synchronized or "naturally" compatible but rather that they are held together precisely by their difference and potential antagonism. Part 2, "Engagement through Dialogue and Interaction," dwells on the major means of mediating between the alternatives of radical separation and radical sameness: dialogue and hermeneutical interpretation of understanding. In this respect, the emphasis shifts to leading philosophers of dialogue such as Hans-Georg Gadamer, Bernhard Waldenfels, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In a world where the absolutizing of the ego encourages selfish egotism that can lead to aggressive warmongering, Horizons of Difference shows how the categories of "difference" and "relationality" can be used to build a genuine and peaceful democracy based on dialogue and interaction instead of radical autonomy and elitism.

Marc Chagall: The Artist as Peacemaker (Peacemakers)

This book follows Chagall's life through his art and his understanding of the role of the artist. It takes the reader through the different milieus of the nineteenth and the twentieth century -- including the the World Wars and the holocaust -- to present a unique understanding of Chagall's artisitc vision. At a time when all identities are being subsumed into a 'national' identity, this book makes the case for a larger understanding of art as a way of transcending materiality. The volume explores in Chagall's work the Platonic notions of truth, goodness, and beauty are linked and mutually illuminating.A "spiritual-humanist" interpretation of his life and work renders Chagall's work more transparent and accessible to the general reader. It will be essential reading for students of art and art history, and political philosophy.

Routledge India

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Books by Dallmayr, Fred

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Dallmayr, Fred. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Democracy to Come: Politics as Relational Praxis

Post-Liberalism: Recovering a Shared World

Critical Encounters: Between Philosophy and Politics

Critical Encounters: Between Philosophy and Politics

Peace Talks―Who Will Listen?

Spiritual Guides: Pathfinders in the Desert

Horizons of Difference: Engaging with Others

Horizons of Difference: Engaging with Others

Marc Chagall: The Artist as Peacemaker (Peacemakers)

Marc Chagall: The Artist as Peacemaker (Peacemakers)