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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles A Political Theory of Wonder: Feelings of Order in Modern Political Thought A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science by Kye Anderson Barker 2019 © Copyright by Kye Anderson Barker 2019 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION A Political Theory of Wonder: Feelings of Order in Modern Political Thought by Kye Anderson Barker Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science University of California, Los Angeles, 2019 Professor Joshua F. Dienstag, Chair How has wonder, an emotion tied to religion and philosophy in premodern European political thought, been used in the context of a modern, supposedly disenchanted politics? The past few decades have seen a dramatic reassessment of the importance of the emotions in the history of political thought. However, this broad reassessment has yet to address how canonical political thinkers conceptualized and deployed wonder in their theories of politics. I argue that we find in the writings of Thomas Hobbes, Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, and Hannah Arendt a subterranean debate on the proper conceptualization and political use of wonder in modernity. When Western political thought departed from a vision of the world as pre-structured by a divine, admirable order, there was no longer a readily available interpretation of the meaning of the potentially disruptive experience of wonder. Competing individuals and groups could make claims for wonder to be directed towards emerging aspects of political life as the foundation of political order. By using wonder to channel disruptive feelings of novelty into the cognition of order, these claims could structure the realm of possible actions. Moreover, a feeling of wonder ii could be used to secure temporal stability within the fundamentally precarious conditions of modernity. Thus, I argue that Hobbes responded to the political use of divine signs during the English Civil War by incorporating wonder into his design for the emotional apparatus of the sovereign state; that Kant argued for a transformation of the feeling experienced by political and religious enthusiasts into a form of wonder befitting a republican and cosmopolitan order which became possible after the French Revolution; that Marx argued that the rise of capitalism was accompanied by a re-enchantment of political life through an affective attachment to the commodity form; and that Arendt attempted to redirect the wonder of political theorists and citizens towards the unexpected events and deeds of political life. In each of these political interventions, ancient Greek and Roman texts were used as a resource for rethinking wonder. Understanding this history helps us navigate the wonders of modern political life. iii The dissertation of Kye Anderson Barker is approved Davide Panagia Sarah Tindal Kareem Joshua F. Dienstag, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2019 iv To the memory of my grandparents v TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………………..viii Vita……………………………………………………………………………………………………………xi Introduction. The Problem of Wonder in Modern Politics……………………………………1 1. From Signs to Wonder 1 2. Wonder in Modernity 6 3. Wonder in the History of Political Thought, Secularization Studies, and the Study of the Emotions 15 4. Outline of the Dissertation 28 Chapter One. The Admirable Order of Leviathan: Hobbes and the Sovereign State…….. 37 1. Wonder, What 37 2. Thaumazein in Ancient Greek Philosophy 43 3. Hobbes and Modern Wonder 48 a. De Mirabilibus Pecci 53 b. The Elements of Law 55 c. Leviathan 59 Chapter Two. Wonder Taken for a Sign: Kant and an Order of Freedom………………... 73 1. A War of Spirits 73 2. Enthusiasm, From Then to Kant 84 3. Nothing Great Was Ever Accomplished Without Enthusiasmus: Pre-Critical Kant 91 4. A Sign of the Times: Post-Critical Wonder 101 5. Enduring Wonder, From Kant to Now 120 Chapter Three. The Whole Mystery of Commodities: Marx’s Critique of Wonder……...123 1. Feeling Order After the Revolution(s) 123 2. Enchantment, Political Economy, and Socialism 130 3. Nil Admirari: Marx’s Early Work 142 a. Epicurean Enlightenment 145 b. The Humanism of a German Aristotle 149 c. Hegel and History 154 4. Marx’s Dialectical Critique of Philosophical Wonder 160 5. The Whole Mystery of Commodities 170 Chapter Four. Thinking Out of Order: Arendt and Political Wonder…………………… 173 1. Seeing the World as it Isn’t in the Twentieth Century 173 2. Goodbye to All That: Arendt and German Philosophy 181 vi a. From German Historicism… 183 b. …to Ancient Greek History 194 3. Wonders and Miracles: The Passion of Political Theory 199 4. Novus Ordo Saeclorum: Wonder and Political Time 211 5. Wonder for the World 221 Conclusion. Politics and Wondering: From the Rainbow to the Tempest………………... 225 1. An Ethic of Political Wondering? 225 2. From the Rainbow to the Tempest 232 Appendix - Abbreviations of Works…………………………………………………………… 241 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………………… 242 vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation is the result of the support and guidance of many people. To my committee, I owe an enormous debt. Sarah Kareem, Kirstie McClure, and Davide Panagia shaped this work through the example of their scholarship, the insights of their criticism, and their faith in the project. My advisor and chair, Joshua Dienstag, has mentored me since I first arrived at UCLA. His wisdom, humor, and kindness have been an inspiration, and his confidence has motivated me to become a better scholar. For all this and more, I thank them. I have also been fortunate to have received support from a community of faculty members at UCLA beyond my committee. For their conversations, written feedback, and piercing insight, I thank Bryant Kirkland, Anthony Pagden, Melvin Rogers, Giulia Sissa, and Peter Stacey. At the graduate office of the UCLA political science department, I owe thanks to Joseph Brown, without whom I would have been completely lost during my first few years at UCLA. I also owe a debt to my advisors and professors from the University of Chicago and the University of Kansas. Patchen Markell, who advised my master’s thesis at the University of Chicago, demonstrated how electric that a seminar room could be and set a standard of academic generosity. Benjamin Sax, who advised my undergraduate honors thesis at the University of Kansas, taught me the importance of ideas in history and provided a staggering example of erudition. Allan Cigler, during one of the many times that I wandered into his office as an undergraduate who was unsure of his future, was the first to say that he could see me as a political scientist. Even though I ultimately decided to study political theory rather than American politics, I would like to consider myself a part of his legacy of mentorship. The community of political theory graduate students at UCLA was the chief reason that I moved to Los Angeles and becoming a part of that community has been a gift. For their viii friendship and support, I thank Micah Akuezue, Kristofer Armstrong, Jason Ball, Anuja Bose, John Branstetter, Arash Davari, Alex Diones, Mack Eason, Aerik Francis, Jenn Joines, Jared Loggins, Anthony Norton, Roey Reichert, Michelle Rose, Anna Scheidt, Will Stahl, and Rui Zhou. For their feedback on individual chapters of this dissertation at various stages of its development, I want to thank Steve Cucharo, Ziyaad Bhorat, Scott Dodds, Will Levine, Sean Monahan, Clara Picker, Alicia Steinmetz, and Lucy Williams. Finally, I wish to specially thank my friends Naveed Mansoori and Cody Trojan, who both read drafts of every chapter and never failed to offer helpful suggestions. Without them, I simply could not have written this dissertation or have made it through graduate school. I could not have hoped for a better community of friends to provide support and sanity during my time in Los Angeles. I especially want to thank Libby Barringer, Tracey Brown, Courtney Cecale, Megan Gallagher, Angie Gutierrez, Roni Hirsch, Ioannis Kospentaris, Imil Nurutdinov, Francesca Parente, John Ray, Tyler Reny, Aaron Rudkin, Miranda Sklaroff, Michael Stenovec, Luke Sonnet, and Joy Wilke. For feedback on various drafts of the chapters of this dissertation, I thank the anonymous reviewers for Political Theory, participants of my panel at the 2019 WPSA conference, participants of my panel at the 2018 APSA conference, and attendees of my 2019 Swarr Prize lecture. Here I would like to emphasize the feedback that I received from the discussants at my APSA 2018 and WPSA 2019 panels, Elizabeth Wingrove and William Clare Roberts, who offered careful and incisive comments that exemplified the best of academia. An earlier version of the first chapter appeared as “Of Wonder: Thomas Hobbes’s Political Appropriation of Thaumazein” Political Theory, 45, (3) 2017, pgs 362-384. ix Finally, I cannot adequately thank my family for their unwavering support and love. For their acceptance of my strange decision to spend my twenties reading old books in Chicago and Los Angeles, I thank my parents and sister; and my cousin and uncles. I dedicate this dissertation to the memory of my grandparents, whom I miss every day. x VITA Kye Anderson Barker graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Kansas in May 2010 with a B.A. in Political Science and History, with departmental honors in History. From 2010 to 2011, he served as an AmeriCorps VISTA member at the Habitat for Humanity affiliate in Lawrence, Kansas. In August 2012, he earned an A.M. from the Social Sciences Division of the University of Chicago. As a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, he was the coordinator for Ethos, the association of UCLA political theory graduate students, from 2014 to 2016; a co-president of the UCLA Political Science Graduate Student Association from 2016 to 2017; a campus steward of the UC Student Workers Union in 2017; and the Assistant Book Review Editor for the journal Political Theory from 2017 to 2019.

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