‘Sovereignties’ provides clear insights in various aspects of sovereignty, but Waltermann’s approach hides certain issues from view.

In this article I develop a political realist notion of public reason. It may be thought that a notion of public reason is simply incompatible with the position of the political realist. But this article claims that a realist notion of public reason, different from the familiar political liberal idea of public reason, can be reconstructed from ancient texts on rhetoric and dialectic, particularly Aristotle's. The specification of this notion helps us understand the differences between contemporary liberal and realist positions.

Bertjan Wolthuis’ book review of Luuk van Middelaar, De passage naar Europa. Geschiedenis van een begin

Bertjan Wolthuis, book review of Jon Elster, Reason and Rationality, translated by Steven Rendall. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009