Work · Political Philosophy & Ethics (20th–21st c.)
The Concept of the Political
The political is the distinction between friend and enemy.
Introduction
Schmitt first published the text in 1927 as an essay in the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik and expanded it into a book in 1932; a version adapted to the new regime followed in 1933. Every domain, he argues, has its own basic distinction – good and evil in morals, beautiful and ugly in aesthetics – and the political is defined by friend and enemy, where the enemy is a public enemy (hostis) and the real possibility of killing is part of the concept. Liberalism tries to dissolve this into economics and ethics but cannot escape it. In 1932 Leo Strauss replied with critical notes arguing that Schmitt’s critique of liberalism remained within the horizon of liberalism.
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