Reconstituting Social Criticism : Political Morality in an Age of Scepticism

In the context of a new global order where the logic of the market reigns virtually unopposed, there is a clear need for original thinking that might reinvigorate a progressive political project. This collection of essays brings together the work of a number of leading scholars who are concerned to construct a convincing basis for incisive criticism today. These contributors represent the most vibrant and influential of contemporary critical perspectives: egalitarian liberalism, socialism, poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, hermeneutics and critical theory. Front Matter....Pages i-ix Introduction: Reconstituting Criticism Today....Pages 1-15 Front Matter....Pages 17-17 Defending Universalism....Pages 19-33 Digging up Marx....Pages 35-49 Studying Equality....Pages 51-64 Front Matter....Pages 65-65 Deconstruction and Criticism....Pages 67-81 The Critical Force of Fictive Theory: Jameson, Foucault and Woolf....Pages 83-102 Reconstituting the Subject of Political Discourse: from Lacan to Castoriadis....Pages 103-120 Front Matter....Pages 121-121 Philosophy, Contingency and Social Criticism....Pages 123-136 A Different Kind of Contract....Pages 137-149 Front Matter....Pages 151-151 Liberalism and the Challenge of Pluralism....Pages 153-170 Are Ethical Conflicts Irreconcilable?....Pages 171-189 Two Conceptions of Cosmopolitan Justice....Pages 191-214 Back Matter....Pages 215-217 In the context of a new global order where the logic of the market reigns virtually unopposed, there is a clear need for original thinking that might reinvigorate a progressive political project. We need to find a convincing set of normative standards that can animate political action and direct us towards a just order. This collection of essay assesses the prospects for reconstituting a vibrant intellectual forum that will facilitate theoretical perspectives that have emerged in response to this crisis of philosophically inspired criticism. The volume gathers together, in a mutually enriching dialogue, critical agendas that have been built on the insights of egalitarians, socialists, critical theorists, poststructuralists, and theorists of psychoanalysis and hermeneutics.