Description

Translated by Kathy Ackerman.

In the fall of 2002, one of Carl Schmitt’s most famous books, The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes, was published in France. At first, like so many others, it was met with indifference until Le Monde, in lieu of a review, published a lead article by Yves Charles Zarka titled “Carl Schmitt, Nazi Philosopher?” Obviously, the question mark is a matter of form, and Zarka does not say much about the book, but he does comment that Hobbes’ thought is “distorted” by a “stupid” interpretation of “an anti-Semitic reading of Western political history.” The main brunt of the article is to claim that Schmitt is a “Nazi philosopher.” This is a ridiculous characterization for two reasons: first, Schmitt was not a Nazi theoretician; second, Schmitt was not a philosopher, but a jurist.