The Politics of Postmodernity: Essays in Applied Hermeneutics / Edition 1

by Gary Brent Madison

Overview

The Politics of Postmodernity outlines in a clear and coherent manner the implications for political theory that are inherent in philosophical hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is not only a general theory of human understanding, it is also, in terms of its practical consequences, a general Theory of Democracy. This book demonstrates, with reference to current debates, how hermeneutical theory provides the ultimate philosophical justification for democratic practice and universal human rights. One of the book's most significant features is the way in which it attempts to work through postmodernism and the way in which throughout it shows how hermeneutics, while fully a form of 'postmodern' thought, is nevertheless distinctive in this regard in eschewing all forms of relativism and in resolutely defending a nonessentialist universalism. This book will be of interest to all those concerned with the fate of the core values traditionally defended by philosophy and, indeed, with the future of philosophy itself after postmodernity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780792368595
Publisher:	Springer Netherlands
Publication date:	04/30/2001
Series:	Contributions to Phenomenology , #42
Edition description:	2001
Pages:	277
Product dimensions:	6.69(w) x 9.61(h) x 0.03(d)

Table of Contents

Preface.- by Ingrid Harris.- Notes.- POSTMODERNITY AND BEYOND.- Notes.- One: Philosophical Reason.- 1 COPING WITH NIETZSCHE'S LEGACY RORTY, DERRIDA, GADAMER.- 2 HERMENEUTICS, THE LIFEWORLD, AND THE UNIVERSALITY OF REASON (THE CASE OF CHINA).- 3 PHILOSOPHY WITHOUT FOUNDATIONS.- 4 THE NEW PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC.- 5 THE PRACTICE OF THEORY/THE THEORY OF PRACTICE.- Two: Social Reason.- 6 THE POLITICS OF POSTMODERNITY.- 7 HERMENEUTICAL LIBERALISM.- 8 AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS AND PHILOSOPHICAL HERMENEUTICS FROM HAYEK TO GADAMER.- 9 REINTERPRETING CIVIL SOCIETY.- PROLEGOMENA TO A HERMENEUTICAL ECOLOGY.- Notes.- Acknowledgments.- Name index.