Abstract

The lesson of twentieth century politics, argues the author, is that for political philosophy and the political order to remain limited to what they properly are, a fundamental openness to that which is more true than the existence of even the best regime is decisive. Universal democracy frequently is said to be this best regime, a thesis with which the celebrated philosopher Jacques Maritain apparently concurred. Concealed within this concurrence, however, is a teaching now largely discarded: universal skepticism as the basis of universal democracy enjoins quietly what the tyrants enact violently.