Political theory and social practices :

مرکز و کتابخانه مطالعات اسلامی به زبان های اروپایی

منو

" Political theory and social practices : "
Gledhill, James

Document Type	:	Latin Dissertation
Record Number	:	1098700
Doc. No	:	TLets550723
Main Entry	:	Gledhill, James
Title & Author	:	Political theory and social practices :\ Gledhill, James
College	:	London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
Date	:	2010
student score	:	2010
Degree	:	Ph.D.
Abstract	:	In a time of transitions, post-Rawlsian political philosophy is itself in transition, engaged in a methodological dispute regarding the relationship between political theory and changing social practices. This thesis enters this dispute through engaging with John Rawls’s philosophical project and the two leading but contrasting critiques of Rawls’s constructivist methodology. I first seek to rescue constructivism from G.A. Cohen’s critique of its fact-dependence, but secondly argue with Jürgen Habermas for a shift from constructivism to reconstructivism. Part I establishes a theoretical framework. I analyse competing paradigms of the relationship between normative principles and social practices and situate them in relation to the problem of self-grounding. This is the methodological problem of how, in accordance with a conception of freedom as autonomy, philosophy can find normative foundations within existing social practices. While Cohen rejects this problem in arguing for a choice between realism and utopianism, Rawls’s realistic utopianism and Habermas’s utopian realism are both driven by the problem of self-grounding. Part II defends Rawls’s constructivism against Cohen’s criticism of its restricted focus on the basic structure of society and fact-dependence. Part III analyses and critiques the development of Rawls’s project. It analyses Rawls’s concern with the problem of stability and critiques from a Habermasian perspective the approach to the problem of self-grounding this represents. Part IV argues that post-Rawlsian deliberative democrats who have sought to combine ideas from Rawls and Habermas also fail to adequately address this methodological problem. Part V engages with Habermas on his own terms. I first analyse Habermas’s reconstruction of the tension between facticity and validity in morality and politics. On this basis, I conclude that Habermas’s procedural reconstructivism allows him to more successfully address the problem of self-grounding than Rawls’s substantive constructivism, and assess the implications of this conclusion in theory and practice.
Subject	:	JC Political theory
Added Entry	:	London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)