Table of Contents

Preface Acknowledgements Introduction: Howard Caygill 1.The Problem of Political Theology 2. Empire and the Katechon 3. Epoch and The Eternal 4. Quis est Katechon? 5. Excursus: ‘Render unto Caesar…’ 6. The Church and the Katechon 7. The Nomos of Satan 8. The Two Cities 9. The Grand Inquisitor 10. The Age of Epimetheus Notes Appendix:The Katechon Archive Bibliography Index

Promotional Information

The first English translation of the political philosophical work of prominent Italian philosopher Massimo Cacciarri with an lengthy introduction by Howard Caygill. The Withholding Power is a provocative interpretation of political theology and Italian leftist thought.

About the Author

Massimo Cacciari is a Italian politician and one of the most influential social philosophers in Italy. He has been Dean of Philosophy at the Universit San Raffaele in Milan and is a former Mayor of Venice. Howard Caygill is Professor of Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University, UK. He is author of the best-selling title On Resistance: A Philosophy of Defiance. Edi Pucci is a journalist and translator based in Italy.

Reviews

Bridging the span between spiritual ontology and the cogs of material politics—two inseparable but warring brothers—across great conceptual distance, Cacciari is a dominant voice in continental philosophy today, a critical link in our understanding of German and Franco-Italian thinking. Extending meditations on Europe to quandaries unsettling the very foundations of contemporary world order, The Withholding Power brings Cacciari’s latest reflections across the oceans in compellingly resonant form.
*Thomas Harrison, Professor of Italian, University of California, Los Angeles, USA*

Massimo Cacciari’s The Withholding power is an essential reading to understand the question of political theology, to move beyond the misleading category of secularization and realize that the apocalyptic-eschatological ideas were intrinsically political since their origin.
*Massimo Lollini, Professor Emeritus of Italian, University of Oregon, UK*

In his discourse on notions of political theology, Massimo Cacciari offers new insights, both on subsequent thinkers on the subject and the tempestuous political and religious phenomena that have occurred since the 1990s. One of the most profound minds of this period, Cacciari re-examines the ineradicable relationship between politics and theology. The Withholding Power offers its readers an acute blueprint of how we might re-consider this last quarter century.
*Anthony Julian Tamburri, Dean and Distinguished Professor of European Languages and Literatures, Queens College, The City University of New York, USA*

In his admirable study on withholding power, on power that prevents the worst from happening here and now, Italian philosopher Massimo Cacciari alerts us to a number of difficulties that we face when trying to activate such power in our times.
*Alexander Düttmann, Professor and Executive Director of the Institute of Art History and Aesthetics, University of the Arts, Berlin*