Metapolitics (sometimes written meta-politics) is
metalinguistic talk about
politics
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...
; a political dialogue about politics itself. In this mode, metapolitics takes on various forms of inquiry, appropriating to itself another way toward the discourse of politics and the political. It assumes a self-conscious role of mediating the analytic, synthetic, and normative language of political inquiry and politics itself.
The language used for studying, analyzing, and describing a language is a ''
metalanguage
In logic and linguistics, a metalanguage is a language used to describe another language, often called the ''object language''. Expressions in a metalanguage are often distinguished from those in the object language by the use of italics, quota ...
''. In current usage and
praxis
Praxis may refer to:
Philosophy and religion
* Praxis (process), the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, practised, embodied, or realised
*Praxis model, a way of doing theology
* Praxis (Byzantine Rite), the practice of fai ...
, the term ''metapolitics'' is often used in relation to
postmodern theories of the
Subject
Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to:
Philosophy
*''Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing
**Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective cons ...
and their relation to
political theory
Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, l ...
. In its broadest definition, ''metapolitics'' is a discipline that studies the relationship between the state and the individual.
[Other "meta-" discourses: Since ''Metapolitics'' in its current usage takes on inter-disciplinary characteristics, it is often discussed in relation to other disciplines, including mathematics (science) and art. When mathematicians are concerned with utilizing the formula, signs, and language of mathematics in order to talk about the formal system itself they are engaging in a metalanguage. To discuss the system of axioms which constitutes the foundation of mathematical talk (ie., ]calculus
Calculus, originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the calculus of infinitesimals", is the mathematics, mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizati ...
or set theory
Set theory is the branch of mathematical logic that studies sets, which can be informally described as collections of objects. Although objects of any kind can be collected into a set, set theory, as a branch of mathematics, is mostly concer ...
), mathematicians (or any lay person) would occupy themselves with ''metamathematics'' (talk about mathematical talk). Those who occupy themselves with the examination, analysis, and description of the language of science, occupy themselves with ''metascience''.
Contemporary views
Two important contemporary thinkers in the field of metapolitics are
Alain Badiou
Alain Badiou (; ; born 17 January 1937) is a French philosopher, formerly chair of Philosophy at the École normale supérieure (ENS) and founder of the faculty of Philosophy of the Université de Paris VIII with Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucaul ...
and
Jacques Rancière. Discussing Badiou's ''Metapolitics'', Bruno Bosteels asserts that:
See also
*
Metaphilosophy
Metaphilosophy, sometimes called the philosophy of philosophy, is "the investigation of the nature of philosophy". Its subject matter includes the aims of philosophy, the boundaries of philosophy, and its methods. Thus, while philosophy characte ...
References
Further reading
*Carlo Gambescia, ''Metapolitica. L’altro sguardo sul potere'', Edizioni Il Foglio Letterario 2009, .
External links
*A. J. Gregor. Metascience and Politics
Dictionary definition*
Peter Viereck,
Metapolitics: From Wagner and the German Romantics to Hitler', 2003. .
Peter Viereck, Metapolitics RevisitedCommentary on Alain Badiou's book ''Metapolitics''Leo Zaibert, ''Toward Meta-politics''
*Igor Efimov
Igor Markovich Yefimov or Igor Efimov (Russian: И́горь Ма́ркович Ефи́мов; August 8, 1937 – August 12, 2020) was an American philosopher, historian, writer and publisher of Russian origin. Some of his works were published und ...
.
Metapolitics: our choice and history
' (in Russian). Leningrad, 1991. 224 pages.
Political terminology
{{Poli-term-stub