6533b7d8fe1ef96bd1269b2b
RESEARCH PRODUCT
Towards a reconstructive approach in political philosophy : Rosanvallon and Honneth on the pathologies of todays democracy
Hans Arentshorstsubject
Cultural StudiesHistorySociology and Political Sciencedemocracyrepresentationmedia_common.quotation_subject05 social sciencesRepresentation (arts)050601 international relationsDemocracy0506 political scienceEpistemologyPierrePolitical Science and International RelationsAxelRosanvallon050602 political science & public administrationHonnethSociologyPolitical philosophySocial sciencerecognitionta611media_commondescription
This paper compares the democratic theories of Pierre Rosanvallon and Axel Honneth. The aim is to show how their work could form the basis of a ‘reconstructivist’ approach in political philosophy that rehabilitates the insights of 19th-century thinkers such as Guizot and Hegel concerning the benefits of combining political philosophy with history and sociology. Whereas the dominant procedural approaches in political philosophy tend to disconnect normative theory from the actual study of society and its history, Rosanvallon and Honneth argue that in order to understand the problems that face our democratic societies today we need a closer connection between theory and practice. Both have therefore developed a method that consists of historically reconstructing developments in modern society in order to identify certain pathologies. The paper compares the different diagnosis that Rosanvallon and Honneth give of the central pathology that faces democracy today, which in Rosanvallon’s reconstruction is related to the problem of representation and in Honneth’s account to the problem of recognition.
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-05-09 | Thesis Eleven |