Paul R Dehart
Biographic Data
| ID | 3071771 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Paul R Dehart |
| GIVEN NAMES | Paul R |
| FAMILY NAME | Dehart |
| SIGNATURE | DEHART P R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Texas State University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 7 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 7 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Whose Social Contract
Many scholars view political contractarianism as a distinctly modern account of the foundations of political order. Ideas such as popular sovereignty, the right of revolution, the necessity of the consent of the governed for rightful political authority, natural equality, and a pre-civil state of nature embody the modern rupture with classical political philosophy and traditional Christian theology. At the headwaters of this modern revolution sta…
The Return of the Sacral King
In Pagans & Christians in the City, Steven D. Smith argues that in contrast to ancient Rome, ancient Christianity, following Judaism, located the sacred outside the world, desacralizing the cosmos and everything in it—including the political order. It thereby introduced a political dualism and potentially contending allegiances. Although Smith’s argument is right so far as it goes, it underplays the role of Christianity’s immanent dimension in su…
The Christian Roots of Religious Freedom
Robert Louis Wilken's The Christian Roots of Religious Freedom, the published version of his 2014 Père Marquette Lecture, is one of the most important works written on the roots of religious liberty. It demonstrates the utter falsity of the regnant narrative—in both popular and scholarly discussion—concerning when and where religious liberty first appeared. According to the ascendant narrative, religious liberty or toleration was the Enlightenmen…
Leviathan Leashed
Early modern theorists linked the idea of sovereign power to a conception of absolute power developed during the medieval period. Ockham had reframed the already extant distinction between God's absolute and ordained powers in order to argue that God was free of moral constraint in ordaining natural law for human beings. Thus, the natural law could command the opposite of what God had ordained if He wished to make it so. Bodin extended Ockham's a…
Covenantal Realism
In this article I contend that conventional social contract theory is self-referentially incoherent. Conventional contractarianism therefore fails to provide an adequate foundation for the authority of the state and for the obligation of citizens to obey. The insistence on consent for legitimate political authority has usually been rendered in contractarian terms. Thus, the fall of conventional social contract theory seemingly entails that we sho…
Constitutional Illusions & Anchoring Truths
Hadley Arkes has given us a work of brilliance in regards to both argument and style. Few constitutional theorists can be placed in the same class as Arkes. This work demonstrates why Arkes, among that guild, remains unsurpassed. Those working in constitutional theory cannot preserve their intellectual integrity while ignoring his arguments. In this book, Arkes finds the natural law in unexpected places. Take, for instance, his illuminating discu…
The Dangerous Life
Is there a basis in natural justice for sometimes disobeying the edicts of the state. Antigone provides an occasion for considering this question. Ancient skeptics maintained that there is no such thing as natural justice, because laws and morals vary across cultures. Or, if there is natural justice, it is nothing other than the claim that the strong should rule the weak. Or even if there is a natural justice that is more than the rule that the s…
Covenantal Realism
In this article I contend that conventional social contract theory is self-referentially incoherent. Conventional contractarianism therefore fails to provide an adequate foundation for the authority of the state and for the obligation of citizens to obey. The insistence on consent for legitimate political authority has usually been rendered in contractarian terms. Thus, the fall of conventional social contract theory seemingly entails that we sho…
The Dangerous Life
Is there a basis in natural justice for sometimes disobeying the edicts of the state. Antigone provides an occasion for considering this question. Ancient skeptics maintained that there is no such thing as natural justice, because laws and morals vary across cultures. Or, if there is natural justice, it is nothing other than the claim that the strong should rule the weak. Or even if there is a natural justice that is more than the rule that the s…
The Dangerous Life
Is there a basis in natural justice for sometimes disobeying the edicts of the state. Antigone provides an occasion for considering this question. Ancient skeptics maintained that there is no such thing as natural justice, because laws and morals vary across cultures. Or, if there is natural justice, it is nothing other than the claim that the strong should rule the weak. Or even if there is a natural justice that is more than the rule that the s…
Constitutional Illusions & Anchoring Truths
Hadley Arkes has given us a work of brilliance in regards to both argument and style. Few constitutional theorists can be placed in the same class as Arkes. This work demonstrates why Arkes, among that guild, remains unsurpassed. Those working in constitutional theory cannot preserve their intellectual integrity while ignoring his arguments. In this book, Arkes finds the natural law in unexpected places. Take, for instance, his illuminating discu…
Covenantal Realism
In this article I contend that conventional social contract theory is self-referentially incoherent. Conventional contractarianism therefore fails to provide an adequate foundation for the authority of the state and for the obligation of citizens to obey. The insistence on consent for legitimate political authority has usually been rendered in contractarian terms. Thus, the fall of conventional social contract theory seemingly entails that we sho…
Leviathan Leashed
Early modern theorists linked the idea of sovereign power to a conception of absolute power developed during the medieval period. Ockham had reframed the already extant distinction between God's absolute and ordained powers in order to argue that God was free of moral constraint in ordaining natural law for human beings. Thus, the natural law could command the opposite of what God had ordained if He wished to make it so. Bodin extended Ockham's a…
The Christian Roots of Religious Freedom
Robert Louis Wilken's The Christian Roots of Religious Freedom, the published version of his 2014 Père Marquette Lecture, is one of the most important works written on the roots of religious liberty. It demonstrates the utter falsity of the regnant narrative—in both popular and scholarly discussion—concerning when and where religious liberty first appeared. According to the ascendant narrative, religious liberty or toleration was the Enlightenmen…
The Return of the Sacral King
In Pagans & Christians in the City, Steven D. Smith argues that in contrast to ancient Rome, ancient Christianity, following Judaism, located the sacred outside the world, desacralizing the cosmos and everything in it—including the political order. It thereby introduced a political dualism and potentially contending allegiances. Although Smith’s argument is right so far as it goes, it underplays the role of Christianity’s immanent dimension in su…
Whose Social Contract
Many scholars view political contractarianism as a distinctly modern account of the foundations of political order. Ideas such as popular sovereignty, the right of revolution, the necessity of the consent of the governed for rightful political authority, natural equality, and a pre-civil state of nature embody the modern rupture with classical political philosophy and traditional Christian theology. At the headwaters of this modern revolution sta…
Law (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · American Constitutional Law and Politics (5 works) · Law and economics (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Politics (5 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Epistemology (3 works) · Natural law (3 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (3 works)