The Practice of Political Theory (eBook)

Clayton Chin presents a critical reconstruction of the work of Richard Rorty that argues that that Rorty provides us with unrecognized tools for resolving key foundational issues. The Practice of Political Theory is an important response to the vexed questions of justification and pluralism.

ChinClayton: Clayton Chin (PhD, Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary, University of London) is Lecturer in Political Theory in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. He has edited a special issue of Political Studies Review on 'Pragmatism and Political Theory' and a special issue of the European Journal of Political Theory on 'Continental and Analytical Political Theory: An Insurmountable Divide?' He has also published articles in refereed journals such as Studies in Social and Political Thought, Ethics, Contemporary Pragmatism, and The European Legacy. This is his first book.AllenAmy: Amy Allen (PhD, Philosophy, Northwestern) is Liberal Arts Professor of Philosophy and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and head of the Philosophy Department at the Pennsylvania State University. Her publications include The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory (Columbia, 2016) and The Politics of Our Selves: Power, Autonomy, and Gender in Contemporary Critical Theory (Columbia, 2007). She is also the editor of the Columbia series New Directions in Critical Theory. She specializes in critical social theory, feminist theory, and 20th-century continental philosophy.Clayton Chin is lecturer in political theory at the University of Melbourne.

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Recent political thought has grappled with a crisis in philosophical foundations: how do we justify the explicit and implicit normative claims and assumptions that guide political decisions and social criticism? In The Practice of Political Theory, Clayton Chin presents a critical reconstruction of the work of Richard Rorty that intervenes in the current surge of methodological debates in political thought, arguing that Rorty provides us with unrecognized tools for resolving key foundational issues.Chin illustrates the significance of Rorty's thought for contemporary political thinking, casting his conception of "e;philosophy as cultural politics"e; as a resource for new models of sociopolitical criticism. He juxtaposes Rorty's pragmatism with the ontological turn, illuminating them as alternative interventions in the current debate over the crisis of foundations in philosophy. Chin places Rorty in dialogue with continental philosophy and those working within its legacy. Focused on both important questions in pragmatist scholarship and central issues in contemporary political thought, The Practice of Political Theory is an important response to the vexed questions of justification and pluralism.