Democratic Problem-Solving: Dialogues in Social Epistemology (Collective Studies in Knowledge and Society) - Softcover

Cruickshank, Justin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1786600919 ISBN 13: 9781786600912

Verlag: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

This timely volume explores pressing questions that relate to democracy and the politics of knowledge, in a dialogue based on developing and applying philosophies that stress the importance of dialogue, democracy and criticism. The debate contributes to a re-reading of Karl Popper, centring on the recovery of the 'critical Popper' and his relationship to other thinkers.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Justin Cruickshank is a senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham, with research interests in critical university studies, critical responses to authoritarian neoliberalism, and the philosophy of social science.

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Democratic Problem-Solving

Dialogues in Social Epistemology

By Justin Cruickshank, Raphael Sassower

Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd.

Copyright © 2017 Justin Cruickshank and Raphael Sassower
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-78660-091-2

Contents

Acknowledgements, 
Introduction, 
PART 1: LINKING PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICS, 
1 Anti-Authority: Comparing Popper and Rorty on the Dialogic Development of Beliefs and Practices Justin Cruickshank, 
2 A Bridge over Turbulent Waters Raphael Sassower, 
3 Context and Contestation Justin Cruickshank, 
4 Problem-Solving: Critical Contingencies Raphael Sassower, 
5 There Are No Dangerous Ideas Joseph Agassi, 
PART 2: SCIENCE, PROBLEM-SOLVING AND SOCIOLOGY, 
6 Science, Democracy and the Sociology of Power Isaac Ariail Reed, 
7 Criticism versus Dogmatism Justin Cruickshank, 
8 The Problem of Demarcation Isn't Going Away Raphael Sassower and Seif Jensen, 
PART 3: DEMOCRACY, EDUCATION AND THE ROLE OF INTELLECTUALS IN PUBLIC LIFE, 
9 Democracy, Criticism and the Problems Facing Dialogue Justin Cruickshank, 
10 Beyond Lamentations: Overcoming Neoliberalism? Raphael Sassower, 
11 The Politics of Definitions and Neoliberal Interventionism Justin Cruickshank and Ioana Cerasella Chis, 
12 Appealing to Academics to Become Public Intellectuals Raphael Sassower, 
13 The Cost of Public Intellectuals Ioana Cerasella Chis and Justin Cruickshank, 
14 Radical Public Intellectuals Raphael Sassower, 
PART 4: FROM PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS TO POLITICAL ECONOMY AND TECHNOLOGY, 
15 Public Intellectuals and the Political Economy of Food Justin Cruickshank and Ioana Cerasella Chis, 
16 Desiderata of the Future of Political Economy Raphael Sassower, 
17 The Neoliberal Political Economy of Science and Higher Education Justin Cruickshank, 
18 The Problem of Technocapitalism Ioana Cerasella Chis and Justin Cruickshank, 
PART 5: DEMOCRACY, DIALOGUE, EXPERTS AND ELITES, 
19 Envisioning Peaceful Democratic Dialogues Raphael Sassower, 
20 Democracy, Experts and Elites: The Case of Brexit Justin Cruickshank with Ioana Cerasella Chis, 
Conclusion, 
Bibliography, 
Index, 
About the Authors, 

CHAPTER 1

Anti-Authority

Comparing Popper and Rorty on the Dialogic Development of Beliefs and Practices1

Justin Cruickshank

For many, Rorty was a postmodern relativist, and Popper was a positivist and Cold War liberal ideologue. The argument developed here rejects such views and explores how Rorty's work is best understood from a Popperian problem-solving perspective. It is argued that Rorty erred in seeking justification for beliefs, unlike Popper who replaced the search for justification with criticism. Nonetheless, Rorty's arguments about post-Nietzschean theory and reformism function as important updates to Popper's arguments about methodological essentialism and piecemeal social engineering, respectively.

IS RORTY A POSTMODERNIST AND POPPER A POSITIVIST?

Rorty's criticism of philosophy, cultural theory and the political Right and Left made him one of the most (in)famous contemporary philosophers, and his work unsurprisingly attracted significant attention, ranging from sympathetic to hostile criticism. (See, for instance, Calder 2007; Geras 1995; Malachowski 1990, 2002; Mouffe 1996; and the exchange between Fuller 2008a,b and Turner 2008.) Here, it is argued that Rorty's work is best understood from a Popperian perspective. This may seem surprising given that Rorty is often criticised for being a postmodern relativist, and Popper is often criticised for being a positivist and Cold War liberal-capitalist ideologue.

Rorty once described himself as a 'postmodern bourgeois liberal' (1991a). He supported liberalism or, more correctly, liberal democracy, because he argued that such societies had the potential to improve their practices by reducing suffering through dialogue. Specifically, for Rorty, the potential benefit of living in a liberal democracy was that educated citizens could expand their understanding of suffering through dialogue, revising their values if necessary, and pressing for reforms to both policies and prevailing attitudes (Rorty 1991a, 1999). While Rorty advocated liberal democracy, he did not turn to the usual philosophical justifications for it which invoke a universal human essence, defined in terms of a materially acquisitive, instrumentally rational competitiveness. For Rorty, liberal democracy was justified in terms of the practical benefits it could potentially afford, concerning the freedom to engage in critical dialogue and the construction of policies to reduce suffering, rather than in terms of it being congruent with a fixed human nature. Consequently, Rorty would have no truck with any argument that liberal democracy was a historical inevitability, in the sense that it had to emerge at some point in history to provide a political system that 'fitted' human nature. This was described by Rorty as a 'bourgeois' approach to liberalism because he accepted the Marxist argument that the development of liberalism was contingent upon the development of a capitalist economy. Nonetheless, whereas Marxists held that history was following a pre-determined path towards communism, Rorty eschewed all notions of particular epochs being necessary developments. For Rorty, history was a series of contingencies. This led Rorty to refer to himself as 'postmodern' as a way of indicating that he rejected any 'metanarratives' that claimed the philosophical/scientific authority to legislate on matters of politics and ethics, by virtue of having certain knowledge of the laws of history or a fixed human nature.

Rorty came to regret using the term 'postmodern' for three reasons. First, it is taken to imply a commitment to a relativist epistemology. This in turn led some commentators on the political Right, such as Kozody and Neuhaus, to argue that Rorty espoused an irresponsible 'anything goes' relativism which undermined intellectual and moral standards, and those on the political Left, such as Eagleton, to argue that Rorty's work undermined the possibility of describing socio-political problems as real problems (Rorty 1999, 3–4). For Rorty, as we will see, the philosophical problem of defining what truth is has to be regarded as a pseudo-problem, whether this is approached in terms of a relativist theory of truth or in terms of arguing that beliefs and statements can 'represent' reality. Consequently, he denied the charge of advocating a relativist position. Second, Rorty (1999) argued that the term 'postmodernism' was generally used to express nihilistic despair, with this running counter to his hope that liberal democracies would promote reforms to reduce suffering by, for example, reducing poverty and improving access to healthcare. The humanities would be important for reformism because they would help create an educated, critically minded citizenry capable of engaging in an informed dialogue about socio-political matters and arguing against suffering. Third, in the 'science wars', postmodernism came to be associated with the view that science failed to provide knowledge, because knowledge itself was impossible, given that all claims to know the world emanated from a particular 'discourse' (or power-knowledge nexus). Against this, Rorty (1999) argued that while he had not been particularly positive about the sciences in his earlier work, this was not because he was trying to invert the sciences...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1786600919
• ISBN 13: 9781786600912
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 314
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland