The Specter of Babel : A Reconstruction of Political Judgment

In an age of rising groupthink, reactionary populism, social conformity, and democratic deficit, political judgment in modern society has reached a state of crisis. In The Specter of Babel , Michael J. Thompson offers a critical reconstruction of the concept of political judgment that can help resuscitate critical citizenship and democratic life. At the center of the book are two arguments. The first is that modern practical and political philosophy has made a postmetaphysical turn that is unable to guard against the effects of social power on consciousness and the deliberative powers of citizens. The second is that an alternative path toward a critical social ontology can provide a framework for a new theory of ethics and politics. This critical social ontology looks at human sociality not as mere intersubjectivity or communication, but rather as constituted by the shapes that our social-relational structures take as well as the kinds of purposes and ends toward which our social lives are organized. Only by calling these into question, Thompson boldly argues, can we once again attempt to revitalize social critique and democratic politics. Contents Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Cybernetic Society and the Crisis of Modernity Part I In the Courtyard of Babel: Postmetaphysics and the Failure of Critical Judgment 1. A Critique of the Judgment Paradigm in Contemporary Political Philosophy The Dissolution of Political Judgment in Modern Society An Epistemic Hall of Mirrors Intersubjectivity and Discourse The Revolt against Ontology Toward a Critical Social Metaphysics 2. Hannah Arendt’s Reconstruction of Political Judgment The Flight from the Real Truth, Power, and Politics Deliberation and Its Discontents Democracy Misdirected Critical Judgment and Radical Politics 3. The Discursive Fallacy: Language and Power in Practical Reason In Search of Modern Democracy The Pragmatist Turn in Contemporary Critical Theory The Nature of Constitutive Social Power Two Spheres of Moral Semantics Constitutive Power, Moral Cognition, and Linguistic Communication Reification through the Implicit Validity of Norms A Critique of Justificatory Reason 4. Recognition Theory and the Obfuscation of Critique Recognition and Critical Theory The Contours of Power and Domination Recognition without Social Ontology Recognition and Social Pathology: Fromm versus Honneth Resuscitating Critical Judgment: The Ontological Point of View Part II Beyond Babel Social Ontology and the Reconstruction of Critical Reason 5. Recovering the Ontological Infrastructure of Political Judgment Aristotle’s Social Ontology and the Structure of Political Judgment Inequality and Rousseau’s Ontological Account of Social Pathology Hegel and the Metaphysics of Modern Ethical Life Marx, Labor, and the Ontology of Social Forms 6. The Properties and Modes of Critical Social Ontology The Concept of Social Ontology The Two Dimensions of Social Ontology Properties of an Ontology of Sociality and Social Forms Objectivity and Mediation Causal Powers and Social Power The Ontological Status of Norms and Values The Ontological and the Ontic Modes of Social Ontology Intentions and Practices Relations and Structures Processes Ends and Purposes Subjective modes and the Formation of Systems The Concept of a Social Scheme Structural Levels of Social Ontology Phylogenetic Level Morphogenetic Level Praxiogenetic Level Teleogenetic Level Ontogenetic Level Generative Social Ontology and the Ontological Manifold The Basic Model of Critical Social Ontology 7. An Ontological Framework for Practical Reason The Metaphysical Structure of Reason and the Ontology of Value The Ontological Ground of Critique and Judgment The Structure of Critical-Ontological Judgments Phenomenology, Ontology, and the Structure of Critical Agency Ontological Coherence: Overcoming Reification and Relativism 8. Obligation and Disobedience: The Practice of Critical Judgment Crito’s Question, Rousseau’s Solution The Common Interest and the Structure of Democratic Reason Self and Social Relations: On Expanded Autonomy Critique, Obligation, and Disobedience The Ends of Political Obligation: Common Good and Social Freedom Democratic Individuality, Solidarity, and Social Transformation Bibliography Index "Boldly presents a new way of thinking about perennial political concepts such as freedom, justice, and the common good"-- Provided by publisher