Augustine and the Limits of Politics (Catholic Ideas for a Secular World)

Now with a new foreword by Patrick J. Deneen. Jean Bethke Elshtain brings Augustines thought into the contemporary political arena and presents an Augustine who created a complex moral map that offers space for loyalty love and care as well as a chastened form of civic virtue. The result is a controversial book about one of the worlds greatest and most complex thinkers whose thought continues to haunt all of Western political philosophy. What is our business “within this common mortal life?” Augustine asks and bids us to ask ourselves. What can Augustine possibly have to say about the conditions that characterize our contemporary society and appear to put democracy in crisis? Who is Augustine for us now and what do his words have to do with political theory? These are the underlying questions that animate Jean Bethke Elshtains fascinating engagement with the thought and work of Augustine the ancient thinker who gave no political theory per se and refused to offer up a positive utopia. In exploring the questions Why Augustine why now? Elshtain argues that Augustines great works display a canny and scrupulous attunement to the here and now and the very real limits therein. She discusses other aspects of Augustines thought as well including his insistence that no human city can be modeled on the heavenly city and further elaborates on Hannah Arendts deep indebtedness to Augustines understanding of evil. Elshtain also presents Augustines arguments against the pridefulness of philosophy thereby linking him to later currents in modern thought including Wittgenstein and Freud.