Political Realism

Since time immemorial, man has sought to subordinate what is to what ought to be. This is why moralists, clergy, idealists, and technocrats are often tempted to subject the 'art of the possible' - that is, politics - to their own laws. Yet politics remains a perpetual source of disappointment for them, as it never conforms to their expectations. Obeying only its own laws, politics resists being ensnared in the net of ideals. It is from the recognition of the heterogeneity of ends between morality and politics that political realism emerges. This realism is not, strictly speaking, a unified doctrine or school of thought but rather a kind of habitus - a disposition of mind aimed at shedding light on the rules that politics follows. Drawing on the key insights of Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, and Carl Schmitt, Antoine Dresse's aim in this book is not to impose dogmatically any particular political doctrine. Rather, it is to illuminate the presuppositions without which political thought is impossible, and to offer an approach that enables one to discern the stakes that are proper to it.

Since time immemorial, man has sought to subordinate what is to what ought to be. This is why moralists, clergy, idealists, and technocrats are often tempted to subject the 'art of the possible' - that is, politics - to their own laws. Yet politics remains a perpetual source of disappointment for them, as it never conforms to their expectations. Obeying only its own laws, politics resists being ensnared in the net of ideals. It is from the recognition of the heterogeneity of ends between morality and politics that political realism emerges. This realism is not, strictly speaking, a unified doctrine or school of thought but rather a kind of habitus - a disposition of mind aimed at shedding light on the rules that politics follows. Drawing on the key insights of Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, and Carl Schmitt, Antoine Dresse's aim in this book is not to impose dogmatically any particular political doctrine. Rather, it is to illuminate the presuppositions without which political thought is impossible, and to offer an approach that enables one to discern the stakes that are proper to it.