Michael J. Thompson 
The Specter of Babel [EPUB ebook] 
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.

Innehållsförteckning

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

Modes of Social Ontology

The Concept of a Social Scheme

Structural Levels of Social Ontology

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

Om författaren

Michael J. Thompson is Professor of Political Theory at William Paterson University. His many books include
The Politics of Inequality: A Political History of the Idea of Economic Inequality in America and
The Domestication of Critical Theory.