Overview

Public reasoning, a manner of democratic deliberation that can generate meaningful conceptions of justice, the collective good, and other unifying political values among individuals subscribing to varied and contrasting doctrines, has been a perennial concern among political philosophers from historical thinkers such as Immanuel Kant to contemporary theorists like John Rawls and Jurgen Habermas. In this ambitious study, Mark Redhead explores versions of public reasoning in the works of six of the most important voices in contemporary political theory; Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, Hannah Arendt, Seyla Benhabib, Michel Foucault, and William E. Connolly. He identifies an important but as of yet unappreciated version of public reasoning--, one that provides creative and effective responses to questions at the forefront of liberal democratic political thought: human rights, secularity, and global governance.

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9781442227071

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In this ambitious and engaging book, Mark Redhead works to retrieve a richer concept of public reason than the neo-Kantian one which dominates Anglo-American political theory. Critically appropriating insights from Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, Hannah Arendt, Seyla Benhabib, Michel Foucault, and William Connolly, Redhead coins and develops the idea of 'reasoning through baggage'. His new, more realistic, more inclusive model of public reason calls upon individuals to actively wrestle with, rather than seeking to bracket, the religious, linguistic, national, ethnic, and other identities we inevitably bring into the public realm. Redhead raises a series of very pressing questions for contemporary political life - both domestic and global - and discusses them in an energetic, original, and highly accessible fashion. -- Ruth Abbey, University of Notre Dame

Author Information

Mark Redhead is an associate professor of political science at California State University, Fullerton.

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