Charles H T Lesch
Biographic Data
| ID | 959512 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Charles H T Lesch |
| GIVEN NAMES | Charles H T |
| FAMILY NAME | Lesch |
| SIGNATURE | LESCH C H T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Hebrew University of Jerusalem |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6551-0218 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 25 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 9 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Frederick Douglass’s Political Theory of the Powerless
This article draws from Frederick Douglass’s antebellum and wartime writings to reconstruct his approach to natural rights. Douglass admired many elements of the Enlightenment legacy. Yet in the same motion that he echoes European and American thinkers, he subtly qualifies, corrects, and revises their ideas, sometimes in radical ways. In his depictions of slavery, natural rights cease to be metaphysical abstractions and instead become embodied in…
Response to Miguel Vatter’s Review of Solidarity in a Secular Age
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Radical Democracy's Religion
In recent decades, prominent political theorists have responded to perceived flaws in liberalism by proposing more "radical" forms of democracy. What might a radically democratic state look like? I argue that we can find one answer, counterintuitively, by looking back to the thought of Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes' secularized theory of language introduces into political life a new way of conceiving human agency, one in which the commonwealth fills not …
Solidarity in a Secular Age
Liberal democracies need solidarity. They need citizens who sacrifice for their country, rally for justice, and help their neighbors. Yet according to critics of liberalism like Carl Schmitt, the solidarity liberal democracies need comes from sources they cannot themselves produce, like religion. Thus in a time of declining religiosity and rising nationalism, how can we form strong social bonds without racism, demagoguery, and xenophobia? Can we …
Democratic Solidarity in a Secular Age? Habermas and the “Linguistification of the Sacred
Secularization, according to Max Weber's classic theory, shatters social cohesion. But if this is so, what are the prospects for democratic solidarity in a secular age? In this article, I examine the response given by one of democracy's leading intellectual architects, Jürgen Habermas. Whereas Weber thought that rational modernity enfeebles solidarity, Habermas believes that rational discourse itself inherits religion's moral-aesthetic power, a p…
Theopolitics Contra Political Theology
This article recovers Martin Buber's important but neglected critique of Carl Schmitt's political theology. Because Buber is known primarily as an ethicist and scholar of Judaism, his attack on Schmitt has been largely overlooked. Yet as I reveal through a close reading of his Biblical commentaries, a concern about the dangers of political theology threads through decades of his work. Divine sovereignty, Buber argues, is absolute and inimitable; …
What undermines solidarity? Four approaches and their implications for contemporary political theory
Solidarity is crucial for realizing justice, securing public goods, and reducing domination. Yet there have been few theoretical studies of its threats and vulnerabilities. In this paper I fill this lacuna, outlining four approaches to what undermines solidarity and considering their implications for contemporary political theory. I begin by reviewing the empirical literature on solidarity, noting that its focus on diversity and individuation has…
Against Politics
Is politics compatible with the moral life? Recent attempts to revivify democracy have stressed the lived experience of political activity, the democratic character of the spontaneous moment and the popular movement. This article raises some concerns about such agonistic enthusiasm via an original reading of Walter Benjamin's political thought. For Benjamin, politics corrodes our everyday lives and moral conduct. His response is to envision a spa…
Civil Society and Government
In the past two decades, “civil society” has become a central organizing concept in the social sciences. Occupying the middle ground between the state and private life, the civil sphere encompasses everything from associations to protests to church groups to nongovernmental organizations. Interest in the topic exploded with the decline of statism in the 1980s and 1990s, and many of our current debates about politics and social policy are informed…
Theopolitics Contra Political Theology
This article recovers Martin Buber's important but neglected critique of Carl Schmitt's political theology. Because Buber is known primarily as an ethicist and scholar of Judaism, his attack on Schmitt has been largely overlooked. Yet as I reveal through a close reading of his Biblical commentaries, a concern about the dangers of political theology threads through decades of his work. Divine sovereignty, Buber argues, is absolute and inimitable; …
Against Politics
Is politics compatible with the moral life? Recent attempts to revivify democracy have stressed the lived experience of political activity, the democratic character of the spontaneous moment and the popular movement. This article raises some concerns about such agonistic enthusiasm via an original reading of Walter Benjamin's political thought. For Benjamin, politics corrodes our everyday lives and moral conduct. His response is to envision a spa…
Democratic Solidarity in a Secular Age? Habermas and the “Linguistification of the Sacred
Secularization, according to Max Weber's classic theory, shatters social cohesion. But if this is so, what are the prospects for democratic solidarity in a secular age? In this article, I examine the response given by one of democracy's leading intellectual architects, Jürgen Habermas. Whereas Weber thought that rational modernity enfeebles solidarity, Habermas believes that rational discourse itself inherits religion's moral-aesthetic power, a p…
Civil Society and Government
In the past two decades, “civil society” has become a central organizing concept in the social sciences. Occupying the middle ground between the state and private life, the civil sphere encompasses everything from associations to protests to church groups to nongovernmental organizations. Interest in the topic exploded with the decline of statism in the 1980s and 1990s, and many of our current debates about politics and social policy are informed…
Against Politics
Is politics compatible with the moral life? Recent attempts to revivify democracy have stressed the lived experience of political activity, the democratic character of the spontaneous moment and the popular movement. This article raises some concerns about such agonistic enthusiasm via an original reading of Walter Benjamin's political thought. For Benjamin, politics corrodes our everyday lives and moral conduct. His response is to envision a spa…
What undermines solidarity? Four approaches and their implications for contemporary political theory
Solidarity is crucial for realizing justice, securing public goods, and reducing domination. Yet there have been few theoretical studies of its threats and vulnerabilities. In this paper I fill this lacuna, outlining four approaches to what undermines solidarity and considering their implications for contemporary political theory. I begin by reviewing the empirical literature on solidarity, noting that its focus on diversity and individuation has…
Democratic Solidarity in a Secular Age? Habermas and the “Linguistification of the Sacred
Secularization, according to Max Weber's classic theory, shatters social cohesion. But if this is so, what are the prospects for democratic solidarity in a secular age? In this article, I examine the response given by one of democracy's leading intellectual architects, Jürgen Habermas. Whereas Weber thought that rational modernity enfeebles solidarity, Habermas believes that rational discourse itself inherits religion's moral-aesthetic power, a p…
Theopolitics Contra Political Theology
This article recovers Martin Buber's important but neglected critique of Carl Schmitt's political theology. Because Buber is known primarily as an ethicist and scholar of Judaism, his attack on Schmitt has been largely overlooked. Yet as I reveal through a close reading of his Biblical commentaries, a concern about the dangers of political theology threads through decades of his work. Divine sovereignty, Buber argues, is absolute and inimitable; …
Solidarity in a Secular Age
Liberal democracies need solidarity. They need citizens who sacrifice for their country, rally for justice, and help their neighbors. Yet according to critics of liberalism like Carl Schmitt, the solidarity liberal democracies need comes from sources they cannot themselves produce, like religion. Thus in a time of declining religiosity and rising nationalism, how can we form strong social bonds without racism, demagoguery, and xenophobia? Can we …
Response to Miguel Vatter’s Review of Solidarity in a Secular Age
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Radical Democracy's Religion
In recent decades, prominent political theorists have responded to perceived flaws in liberalism by proposing more "radical" forms of democracy. What might a radically democratic state look like? I argue that we can find one answer, counterintuitively, by looking back to the thought of Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes' secularized theory of language introduces into political life a new way of conceiving human agency, one in which the commonwealth fills not …
Frederick Douglass’s Political Theory of the Powerless
This article draws from Frederick Douglass’s antebellum and wartime writings to reconstruct his approach to natural rights. Douglass admired many elements of the Enlightenment legacy. Yet in the same motion that he echoes European and American thinkers, he subtly qualifies, corrects, and revises their ideas, sometimes in radical ways. In his depictions of slavery, natural rights cease to be metaphysical abstractions and instead become embodied in…
Law (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Democracy (4 works) · Political philosophy (4 works) · Political Theology and Sovereignty (4 works)