The Poverty of Postmodernism"In this book John O'Neill examines the postmodern turn in the social sciences. He rejects the current celebration of knowledge and value relativism on the grounds that it renders critical reason and common sense incapable of resisting the superficial ideologies of minoritarianism that leave the hard core of global capitalism unanalysed. From a phenomenological standpoint (Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Schutz, Winch), O'Neill challenges Lyotard's post-traditionalist reading of Wittgenstein and Habermas in order to defend commonsense reason and values that are constitutive of the everyday life-world. In addition he argues from the standpoint of Vico and Marx on the civil history of embodied mind that the post-rationalist celebration of the arts of superficiality undermines the recognition of the cultural debt each generation owes to past and post-generations. In a positive way O'Neill develops an account of the historical vocation of reason and of the charitable accountability of science to commonsense that is necessary to sustain the basic institutions of civic democracy. This book will be of interest to anyone concerned to understand the continuing relevance of Marx, Weber, Husserl and Schutz to the debates around Wittgenstein, Lyotard, Foucault and Jameson."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
Contents
Postmodernism and post Marxism | 13 |
The therapeutic disciplines From Parsons to Foucault | 25 |
The disciplinary society From Weber to Foucault | 43 |
The phenomenological concept of modern knowledge and the Utopian method of Marxist economics | 64 |
Orphic Marxism | 94 |
Posting modernity Bell and Jameson on the social bond with an allegory of the body politic | 111 |
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action alienation analysis argued argument behaviour Bell body politic bourgeois bureaucratic capitalist citizens civil claim common-sense knowledge competence concept conduct consciousness constitutive crisis Critical Theory critique culture democracy disciplinary society discipline discourse domination economic Essays essence ethical Ethnomethodology everyday external Foucault freedom function Gellner Giddens grounds Habermas Hegel hermeneutic human humankind Husserl Ideology individual industrial institutions interaction interpretative sociology Jameson labour language late capitalism life-world Lyotard Marx Marx's Marxism Marxist humanism Max Weber means minoritarianism mode moral nature neo-conservative Neotony normative notion O'Neill object organization persons Peter Winch Phenomenology philosophical political economy postmodernism postmodernist postulate of adequacy practice praxis problem production question radical rationality reason relations religion rule Schutz scientific scientism sense social control social sciences social scientists social system sociologists strategies structure therapeutic tion tradition trans turn understanding University Press utilitarian utopian values Weber Winch York