From the first democracy in Athens to the United Nations, a golden thread runs through world history. It combines humanity’s expectations of itself with its expectations of politics. Socrates believed that there could only be a just social order if free people were ruled by free people. Plato enumerated the virtues and obligations of the state and, like Aristotle, offered a wealth of insights which are still relevant to this day. With the humanity to which all human beings are entitled (and for which all human beings are also responsible in their own actions), a new and ultimately global dimension to the political emerges. But in his tour through the history of philosophy, Gerhardt also turns his attention to the opponents of democracy. At the end of the book, he assesses the chances of humanity ever being able to create the kind of democratically organised global community without which we will be unable to solve the increasingly acute problems our future holds.

*Democracy and humanity – the history of a philosophical relationship

*Lays the philosophical foundations of democracy

*A response to the authoritarian challenges of the present day

*By one of Germany’s most important philosophers