1st Edition
Authority and the Metaphysics of Political Communities
Introduction. Metaphysics and Politics
Part I: Substance
1. Direct Realism and Substances
2. Degrees of Unity and Substance Gradualism
Part II: Practical Reason
3. Human Action, Reasons, and the Good
4. Reasons for Action, Human Nature and Morality
5. Practical Reason and the Problem of Fit
Part III: Authority
6. Human Action, the Political Community and the Common Good
7. Authority and the Unity of the Political Community
Biography
Gabriele De Anna teaches philosophy at the Universities of Udine, Italy, and Bamberg, Germany. He was Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Cambridge (UK) and Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Philosophy of Science (Pittsburgh University, USA). He authored six books in Italian, edited eleven volumes (including Evolutionary Ethics and Contemporary Biology), and published over seventy articles and chapters on metaphysics, action theory political philosophy.
"This book is a scholarly and mature attempt to make analytical Thomism and Aristotelian naturalism relevant for the diagnosis of political communities and their substantial nature as depending on political authority and the common good. This book makes brings metaphysics back into reflections on the common good, which should be of great relevance to students in political philosophy, political theory, social ontology, and the social theory of action." – Harald Wydra, University of Cambridge, UK
