Between Eternities ─ On the Tradition of Political Philosophy, Past, Present, And Future

In this wide-ranging work, Smith (political science and philosophy, Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut) grapples with the question of whether political philosophy can be refashioned as "temporally ecstatic," by which he means whether political philosophy can be made into a project of a history-making being projected between past and future. Dealing with classical, modern, and postmodern thinkers from Plato and Socrates to Leo Strauss and Martin Heidegger, he argues that political philosophy can be refashioned as such if aided by a Christianity which maintains its linear notion of time but has abandoned its expectations of the Second Coming. This means that the future will necessarily be both religious and scientific. The primary political actors will remain large nations and the primary basis of morality will maintain conceptions of higher and lower. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Gregory B. Smith is professor of political science and philosophy affiliated with the Departments of Political Science and Philosophy at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.