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Book synopsis

Philosophy is often depicted as generically distinct from literature, myth, and history, as a discipline that eschews narration and relies exclusively on abstract reason. This book takes issue with that assumption, arguing instead that political philosophers have commonly presented their readers with a narrative, rather than a logic, of politics. The book maintains that philosophical texts frequently persuade through the creation of a role that they invite their audience to inhabit. Political theory is most powerful not when it erects timeless principles, but when it alters readers' understanding of their own past and future. By this the author means that a theorist's account of history or of time itself is in many instances the center of (and not merely an addendum to) an account of human nature and politics; political theory seeks not so much to reform our morals as to reshape our memories.

Book details

Book category Books in English Literature & literary studies Literature: history & criticism Literary theory

• Full title: Dancing in Chains
• Subtitle: Narrative and Memory in Political Theory
• Author: Joshua Foa Dienstag
• Language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 284
• EAN: 9780804729246
• ISBN: 0804729247
• ID: 04716599
• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Weight: 402 g
• Dimensions: 155 × 229 × 27 mm
• Date of publishing: 01. April 1997

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