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The book consists of five essays plus critical commentaries that try to "understand and resuscitate the political dimension of human existence" and to give a "philosophical defense of a politics conceived as a public and reasoned collective action". The authors think that the contemporary tendency to split wisdom (sophia) from action (praxis) has led to a situation where a politics of common sense and citizen involvement has largely been replaced by the image and reality of politics as a technical activity for specialists. By exploring the "various ways that sophia and praxis are related in a true politics", it may be within reach to unearth the primordial meanings of politics along with the original human experiences that make politics possible. The book rests on some fundamental premises, namely, that persons become fully human by virtue of their capacity to be political ; that politics is the necessary precondition for the development of moral character for the individual and the community ; and that politics rightly understood expresses the life of reason only when sophia and praxis maintain their organic, living relationship.

Political science