“A definition of the political can be obtained only by discovering and defining the specifically political categories.”

—  Carl Schmitt, book The Concept of the Political

The Concept of the Political (1927)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A definition of the political can be obtained only by discovering and defining the specifically political categories." by Carl Schmitt?
Carl Schmitt photo
Carl Schmitt36
German jurist, political theorist and professor of law 1888–1985

Related quotes

Robert LeFevre photo

“Politics may be defined as: the method adopted in governments for obtaining motivation toward a monopoly. In all political actions, a monopoly of control and method is sought.”

Robert LeFevre (1911–1986) American libertarian businessman

Rampart Institute, p.411
The Fundamental of Liberty (1988)

Carl Schmitt photo

“The specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy.”

Carl Schmitt book The Concept of the Political

The Concept of the Political (1927)

Robert LeFevre photo

“In brief, let us define the anarchist as a political individualist and an economic socialist. In contrast, the libertarian can be defined as an individualist, both politically and economically.”

Robert LeFevre (1911–1986) American libertarian businessman

Anarchy (1959)

“Legally defined categories for race differ from one country to another, and they change over time depending largely on the social and political realities of a particular society or nation”

Daniel J. Fairbanks (1956) American artist

Source: Everyone is African: How Science Explodes the Myth of Race (2015), p. 11.
Context: Classification is real, but it is based much more on a set of social definitions than on genetic distinctions. Legally defined categories for race differ from one country to another, and they change over time depending largely on the social and political realities of a particular society or nation. The notion of discrete racial categories arose mostly as an artifact of centuries-long immigration history coupled with overriding worldviews that white superiority was inherent, a purported genetic destiny that has no basis in modern science.

Angela Davis photo

“The political prisoner’s words or deeds have in one form or another embodied political protests against the established order and have consequently brought him into acute conflict with the state. In light of the political content of his act, the “crime” (which may or may not have been committed) assumes a minor importance. In this country, however, where the special category of political prisoners is not officially acknowledged, the political prisoner inevitably stands trial for a specific criminal offense, not for a political act.”

Angela Davis (1944) American political activist, scholar, and author

If They Come in The Morning (1971)

“It only makes sense in an academic culture in which transgression is by definition political and in which any kind of rage against society can be considered radical.”

Nick Turse (1975) American writer

David Farber, on Turse's views about Columbine High School massacre. The Martyrs of Columbine: Faith and the Politics of Tragedy, p. 25.

Daniel O'Connell photo

“The principle of my political life …. is, that all ameliorations and improvements in political institutions can be obtained by persevering in a perfectly peaceable and legal course, and cannot be obtained by forcible means, or if they could be got by forcible means, such means create more evils than they cure, and leave the country worse than they found it.”

Daniel O'Connell (1775–1847) Irish political leader

Writing in The Nation (Irish newspaper), 18 November, 1843.

Saul Bellow photo

“Writers, poets, painters, musicians, philosophers, political thinkers, to name only a few of the categories affected, must woo their readers, viewers, listeners, from distraction.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

"The Distracted Public" (1990), p. 167
It All Adds Up (1994)
Context: Writers, poets, painters, musicians, philosophers, political thinkers, to name only a few of the categories affected, must woo their readers, viewers, listeners, from distraction. To this we must add, for simple realism demands it, that these same writers, painters, etc., are themselves the children of distraction. As such, they are peculiarly qualified to approach the distracted multitudes. They will have experienced the seductions as well as the destructiveness of the forces we have been considering here. This is the destructive element in which we do not need to be summoned to immerse ourselves, for we were born to it.

J.M. Coetzee photo

“Erasmus dramatizes a well-established political position: that of the fool who claims license to criticize all and sundry without reprisal, since his madness defines him as not fully a person and therefore not a political being with political desires and ambitions. The Praise of Folly, therefore sketches the possibility of a position for the critic of the scene of political rivalry, a position not simply impartial between the rivals but also, by self-definition, off the stage of rivalry altogether.”

J.M. Coetzee (1940) South African writer

“Erasmus’s Praise of Folly: Rivalry and Madness,” Neophilologus 76 (1992), p. 1

Related topics