Who is the political actor?

An existential phenomenological approach

Steven Crowell

pp. 11-28

in: Kevin Thompson, Lester Embree (eds), Phenomenology of the political, Berlin, Springer, 2000

Abstract

Two dangers seem to plague many attempts to talk about the political philosophically. One is the danger of overestimation, epitomized in the claim that "everything is political," hence that only political criteria of judgment can be employed without bad faith. The other is the danger of underestimation, failure to distinguish what is properly political from concomitant phenomena such as economic calculation, social engineering, or individual psychology. The tricky thing is to get the political clearly in view, to distinguish it from other facets of life with which it is always entangled and often confused, and to keep the terms that articulate it from becoming a "final vocabulary" or ultimate arbiter in nonpolitical matters as well.