Via Premoderna: Metaphysical-Political Project of John Milbank

Abstract

The article discusses the development of the ideas of John Milbank - contemporary theologian and philosopher, leader of the intellectual movement “Radical Orthodoxy”. Comparison of the ideas presented in his early and later work provides an opportunity of reconstruction of Milbank's ontological conception and its relationship with his socio-political project. Radicalism of Milbank's methodological approach to the relation between “secular" and “religious” is based on deconstruction of ontological and gnoseological foundations of secular metaphysics and identification of its theological nature. Milbank advocates the possibility of bringing the theological discourse to the public sphere through a reinterpretation of the Christian intellectual and social practices. He explains essential connection between metaphysical philosophy and political philosophy as well as between epistemology as “representation” and the idea of “political representation”. He discusses the project of Christian socialism, rooted in the realist Thomistic ontology and aimed at building a democratic society beyond secular political spectrum. This project is presented as going beyond current opposition of liberalism and conservatism.