Anthony J. Parel's Books

The Machiavellian Cosmos

By: Anthony Parel,Emeritus Professor of Political Science Anthony J Parel

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The Machiavellian Cosmos

By: Anthony Parel,Emeritus Professor of Political Science Anthony J Parel

In this highly original interpretation of Machiavelli's thought, Anthony J. Parel identifies a theme generally neglected in the scholarship of this sixteenth-century political thinker: Machiavelli's belief in the occult forces of heaven and humors. Challenging the current tendency to view Machiavelli as a pioneer of modern political science, Parel argues instead that a premodern cosmology and anthropology underlie Machiavelli's political works. Parel shows that Machiavelli's world picture owes more to the astrological cosmology prevalent in the Renaissance than to the Aristotelian or Platonic or Christian world picture. This astrological determination significantly affects Machiavelli's conceptions of history, politics, and religion and shapes his notions of virtu and fortuna. It also has considerable impact on his ethical ideas: the Machiavellian cosmos has no room for a Ruling Mind or for the Sovereignty of the Good, and humans are left to pursue their appetites for riches and glory as best they can. In a similar fashion, says Parel Machiavelli's political anthropology is influenced by the ancient idea that body humors determine a person's temperament and behavior, for he believes that humors compromise human autonomy and rationality. According to Parel, the theory of humors also affects Machiavelli's view of the body politic and his characterization of republics, princedoms, and licenzia, and Parel explicates this in new readings of The Prince, the Discourses, and the Florentine Histories.

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Page Count

228

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300051697

ISBN 13

9780300051698

Gandhi's Philosophy and the Quest for Harmony

By: Anthony Parel

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Gandhi's Philosophy and the Quest for Harmony

By: Anthony Parel

This book presents an interpretation of Gandhi's political philosophy, and how he strove to connect it with the four goals of life (purushartha). Anthony Parel argues that Gandhi's aim was the restoration of harmony and the removal of any opposition between the spiritual and the temporal, the political and the ethical.

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Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0521867150

ISBN 13

9780521867153

Pax Gandhiana

The Political Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi

By: Anthony J Parel

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Pax Gandhiana

The Political Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi

By: Anthony J Parel

Notwithstanding his contributions to religion, nonviolence, civil rights, and civil disobedience, among other areas, Gandhi's most significant contribution is that as a political philosopher. While he is not often treated as such, Gandhi was, as Anthony J. Parel argues, a political philosopher sui generis, both in his philosophical method of constant self-criticism and his framework of philosophical analysis. Gandhi wrote daily on politics, but he did so as an activist; political philosophy was to him not just a way of understanding truths of political phenomena but was directly related to understanding those truths in action. If realized in action these truths would give rise to new political institutions, which in turn would create a corresponding peaceful political and social order. Parel dubs this order Pax Gandhiana. The main contention of Pax Gandhiana is that peace cannot be achieved by politics alone. Peace requires the confluence of the canonical ends of life: politics and economics (artha), ethics (dharma), forms of pleasure (kama), and the pursuit of spiritual transcendence (moksha). Modern political philosophy isolates politics from the other three ends, but Gandhi's originality, according to Parel, lies in the way that he brings all four together. In fact Gandhi's political philosophy is relevant not only to India but also to the rest of the world: it is a new type of sovereignty that harmonizes the interest of individual states with the community of states. Arguing against scholars who dispute a theoretical unity in Gandhi's writings, Parel suggests that Gandhi is the preeminent non-western political philosopher, and in this book he seeks to identify the conceptual framework of Gandhi's political philosophy, the Pax Gandhiana.

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Page Count

238

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0190867477

ISBN 13

9780190867478

Gandhi's Philosophy and the Quest for Harmony

By: Anthony Parel

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Gandhi's Philosophy and the Quest for Harmony

By: Anthony Parel

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Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0521867150

ISBN 13

9780521867153

The Machiavellian Cosmos

By: Anthony Parel

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The Machiavellian Cosmos

By: Anthony Parel

In this highly original interpretation of Machiavelli's thought, Anthony J. Parel identifies a theme generally neglected in the scholarship on this sixteenth-century political thinker: Machiavelli's belief in the occult forces of heaven and humours. Challenging the current tendency to view Machiavelli as a pioneer of modern political science, Parel argues instead that a premodern cosmology and anthropology underlie Machiavelli's political works. Parel shows that Machiavelli's world picture owes more to the astrological cosmology prevalent in the Renaissance than to the Aristotelian or Platonic or Christian world picture. This astrological determination significantly affects. Machiavelli's conceptions of history, politics and religion and shapes his notions of virtu and fortuna. It also has considerable impact on his ethical ideas: the Machiavellian cosmos has no room for a Ruling Mind or for the Sovereignty of the Good, and humans are left to pursue their appetites for riches and glory as best they can. In a similar fashion, says Parel, Machiavelli's political anthropology is influenced by the ancient idea that body humours determine a person's temperament and behaviour, for he believes that humours compromise human autonomy and rationality. The theory of humours also affects Machiavelli's view of the body politic and his characterization of republics, princedoms and licenzia, and Parel explicates this in his new readings of The Prince, the Discourses and the Florentine Histories.

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Page Count

203

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300157207

ISBN 13

9780300157208

Book's by Anthony J. Parel

The Machiavellian Cosmos

The Machiavellian Cosmos

Gandhi's Philosophy and the Quest for Harmony

Gandhi's Philosophy and the Quest for Harmony

Pax Gandhiana

Pax Gandhiana

Gandhi's Philosophy and the Quest for Harmony

Gandhi's Philosophy and the Quest for Harmony

The Machiavellian Cosmos

The Machiavellian Cosmos

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