The Withholding Power: An Essay on Political Theology

Description

The first English translation of his work, The Withholding Power, offers a fascinating introduction to the thought of Italian philosopher Massimo Cacciari. Cacciari is a notoriously complex thinker but this title offers a starting point for entering into the very heart of his thinking. The Witholding Power provides a comprehensive and synthetic insight into his interpretation of Christian political theology and leftist Italian political theory more generally. The theme of katechon - originally a biblical concept which has been developed into a political concept - has been absolutely central to the work of Italian philosophers such as Agamben and Eposito for nearly twenty years. In The Withholding Power, Cacciari sets forth his startlingly original perspective on the influence the theological-political questions have traditionally exerted upon ideas of power, sovereignty and the relationship between political and religious authority. With an introduction by Howard Caygill contextualizing the work within the history of Italian thought, this title will offer those coming to Cacciari for the first time a searing insight into his political, theological and philosophical milieu.

Massimo Cacciari is a Italian politician and one of the most influential social philosophers in Italy. He has been Dean of Philosophy at the Universit San Raffaele in Milan and is a former Mayor of Venice. Howard Caygill is Professor of Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University, UK. He is author of the best-selling title On Resistance: A Philosophy of Defiance. Edi Pucci is a journalist and translator based in Italy.

Bridging the span between spiritual ontology and the cogs of material politics-two inseparable but warring brothers-across great conceptual distance, Cacciari is a dominant voice in continental philosophy today, a critical link in our understanding of German and Franco-Italian thinking. Extending meditations on Europe to quandaries unsettling the very foundations of contemporary world order, The Withholding Power brings Cacciari's latest reflections across the oceans in compellingly resonant form. -- Thomas Harrison, Professor of Italian, University of California, Los Angeles, USA Massimo Cacciari's The Withholding power is an essential reading to understand the question of political theology, to move beyond the misleading category of secularization and realize that the apocalyptic-eschatological ideas were intrinsically political since their origin. -- Massimo Lollini, Professor Emeritus of Italian, University of Oregon, UK In his discourse on notions of political theology, Massimo Cacciari offers new insights, both on subsequent thinkers on the subject and the tempestuous political and religious phenomena that have occurred since the 1990s. One of the most profound minds of this period, Cacciari re-examines the ineradicable relationship between politics and theology. The Withholding Power offers its readers an acute blueprint of how we might re-consider this last quarter century. -- Anthony Julian Tamburri, Dean and Distinguished Professor of European Languages and Literatures, Queens College, The City University of New York, USA In his admirable study on withholding power, on power that prevents the worst from happening here and now, Italian philosopher Massimo Cacciari alerts us to a number of difficulties that we face when trying to activate such power in our times. -- Alexander Duttmann, Professor and Executive Director of the Institute of Art History and Aesthetics, University of the Arts, Berlin