Paradigms of Social Order : From Holism to Pluralism and Beyond

No social life is possible without order. Order being the most constituent element of society, it is not surprising that so many theories have been developed to explain what social order is and how it is possible, as well as to explore the features that social order acquires in its different dimensions. The book leads these many theories of social order back to a few main matrices for the use of theoretical and practical reason, which are defined as 'paradigms of order'. The plurality of conceptual constructs regarding social order is therefore reduced to a manageable number of theoretical patterns and an intellectual map is produced in which the most significant differences between paradigms are clearly outlined. Furthermore, the 'paradigmatic revolutions' are addressed that marked the most relevant turning points in the way in which a 'well-ordered society' should be understood. Against this background, the question is discussed on the theoretical and practical perspectives for a cosmopolitan society as the only suitable possibility to meet the global challenges with which we are all presently confronted. Sergio Dellavalle is Professor of Public Law and State Theory, University of Turin, Italy, and Senior Research Affiliate at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg, Germany Series Editor’s Preface Foreword Notes Acknowledgements Contents 1 Social Order and Its Paradigms, Or: What Is a Paradigm of Order? 1.1 The Concept of Order and the Well-Ordered Society 1.2 Theories and Paradigms 1.3 The Contents of the Paradigms of Order: Continuity and Revolutions 1.4 The Structure of the Book 2 Holistic Particularism as the First Paradigm of Order, Or: On the Order of Limited and Single Polities and the Exclusion of Inter-state Order 2.1 The First Appearance of the Paradigm in Ancient Greece 2.1.1 The Justification of Particularism in Thucydides 2.1.2 The Holistic Understanding of Society in Ancient Political Philosophy 2.1.2.1 Plato: The Unconditional Identification Between Citizens and Polis 2.1.2.2 Aristotle: The Enlarged Family as Social Basis of the Political Community 2.2 The Revival of the Paradigm in Early Modern Ages 2.2.1 The Independence of Politics from Moral and Religion in Machiavelli’s Realism 2.2.2 Bodin’s Concept of Sovereignty 2.2.3 The Decline of the Familistic Conception of the Polity in Filmer’s Patriarcha 2.3 Adam Müller, Or: The Forging of the Nation in Political Romanticism 2.4 The Struggle Between Friend and Enemy as the Justification for the Striving for Hegemony in Carl Schmitt 2.5 Three Variants of Holistic Particularism: Realism, Nationalism, Hegemonism 2.6 The Re-foundation of Realism, or the Neo-Realism of the Theory of International Relations 2.7 The Defence of the Nation in the Globalization Era 2.8 Contemporary Hegemonism and Beyond 2.8.1 The Theory of the Clash of Civilizations 2.8.2 Particularism Going Global in the Neo-Conservative Approach 2.9 The Dialectics of Holistic Particularism 2.9.1 Rational Choice Theory 2.9.2 Communitarianism 3 Holistic Universalism as the Second Paradigm of Order 3.1 Universal Logos and World Nomos in the Stoic Philosophy 3.2 The Christian-Catholic Conception of Universalism 3.2.1 The Idea of the City of God in Augustine 3.2.2 The Shaping of Political Universalism 3.2.2.1 Dante’s Apology of the Universal Monarchy 3.2.2.2 Francisco Suárez: The Attempt to Reconcile Unity and Diversity in the First Multilevel Conception of Legal Order 3.2.3 On Discrimination, Persecution and the Defence of the Status Quo, Or: Can Universalism Be Based on Religion? 3.2.3.1 The Subjugation of the “Others” 3.2.3.2 A Backward-Oriented Conception of Political Order 3.2.4 Bartolomé de Las Casas and the Way Beyond Discrimination 3.2.5 The Inclusion of the “Other” in the Doctrine of the Second Vatican Council 3.2.6 Faith and Logos in the Resumption of Catholic Exceptionalism 3.2.7 Towards a “Global Ethic”? 3.2.8 The New Frontier of Catholic Theology 3.3 The Universalism of Natural Law 3.3.1 From the Law of God to the Law of Humanity: On the Natural Law Theory from the Middle Ages to the Reformation 3.3.2 Human Sociability and the Law of Nations 3.3.2.1 Johannes Althusius: Sociability and Universal Federalism 3.3.2.2 Samuel Pufendorf: The Law of Nations as Pure Natural Law 3.3.2.3 Christian Wolff: The Apotheosis of the Civitas Maxima 3.3.3 The New Natural Law 3.3.4 The Constitutionalization of International Law 4 Universalistic Individualism as the Third Paradigm of Order 4.1 The Individualistic Turn in the Western Theory of Knowledge 4.2 Thomas Hobbes’s Contractualist Theory of State 4.3 Individual Rights and State Power 4.3.1 John Locke’s Liberalism 4.3.2 Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Democratic “Social Contract” 4.4 The Universalistic Turn of Contractualism and the Cosmopolitan Order in Immanuel Kant 4.5 Hans Kelsen and the Priority of International Law 4.6 The World Federal Republic as the Only Possibility for Cosmopolitan Order 5 The Failed Paradigmatic Revolution: Particularistic Individualism, or the Spontaneous Order of Transnational Economic Actors, as a Possible Fourth Paradigm of Order 5.1 Trade as Instrument of World Order 5.1.1 The Hellenist Doctrine of the Universal Economy 5.1.2 The Lex Mercatoria of the Middle Ages 5.2 The Free Trade Theory 6 The Post-unitary Paradigms of Order I: Systems Theory and the New Lex Mercatoria 6.1 Niklas Luhmann and the Plurality of Systemic Rationalities 6.2 The Law of Globalization and Fragmentation 6.3 The Lex Mercatoria of Systems Theory 6.4 Supra-Systemic Rationality and the Inescapability of the Public Realm 7 The Post-unitary Paradigms of Order II: From Modernity to Post-modernity 7.1 The Philosophical Foundations of Post-modernism 7.1.1 Discovering Contextuality 7.1.2 Beyond Modern Subjectivism 7.2 Order as Oppression 7.2.1 Against Empire 7.2.2 The Third World Approach to International Law 7.2.3 Feminist Theory 7.3 The Break of Unitary Order as a Chance for Individual Self-realization 7.3.1 Legal Pluralism 7.3.2 Neo-Liberalism in the Theory of International Relations and in International Law 7.3.3 Global Governance 7.3.4 Legal Formalism 7.4 The Decline of Normativity and Legitimacy 8 The Post-unitary Paradigms of Order III: The Communicative Paradigm 8.1 From Subjectivity to Intersubjectivity—and Back? 8.1.1 The Struggle for Recognition and the Hypostasis of Subjectivity in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 8.1.2 Karl Marx: From the Overcoming of Alienation to the Necessary Dynamics of Historical Evolution 8.2 The Intersubjectivity of Political Life 8.2.1 The Social and Democratic Dimension of Individual Freedom in John Dewey’s Pragmatism 8.2.2 Hannah Arendt’s Theory of Political Action 8.3 The Rationality of Communication 8.3.1 The Theory of Language 8.3.2 Gnoseology 8.3.3 The Communicative Use of Practical Reason 8.3.4 Systems and Lifeworld 8.3.5 Plurality and the Unity of Rationality 8.3.6 Communication in the Political and Legal Dimension 8.4 The Conception of Order According to the Communicative Paradigm 8.5 The Perspective of a Cosmopolitan Order of Freedom and Justice in Difficult Times Index