Cynical suspicions and Platonist pretentions : : a critique of contemporary political theory / / by John McGuire.

• Superior document: Social and critical theory ; Volume 22
• VerfasserIn: McGuire, John (Research Fellow),
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden ;, Boston : : Brill,, [2018]; ©2018
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Series: Social and critical theory. Volume 22.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (247 pages).

In Cynical Suspicions and Platonist Pretensions , John McGuire offers a critique of recent trends in contemporary political theory, specifically concerning the ‘dangers’ of cynicism and the contamination of public reason. In the view of many theorists and pundits, cynicism remains one of the gravest ills to befall any democratic society, injecting a virulent estrangement which leaves sufferers unable to trust elected representatives and unwilling to participate in collective action. Starting with a reconstruction of the performative and rhetorical tactics of the ‘first’ Cynic, Diogenes of Sinope (c. 323 BCE), John McGuire aims to demonstrate how cynicism’s non-defeatist, relentlessly sceptical ethos provides an important counterweight to the self-aggrandising designs of moralists and policymakers alike.

Table of Contents

Front Matter -- Copyright page -- For Mary Margaret -- -- Introduction: Causarum Cognitio -- Naked in the Marketplace -- The Courage and Scourge of Truth -- The Resistible Rise of Rawlsian Reasonableness -- Thomas Pogge: Ethics and the Ire of the Beholden -- Nancy Fraser’s Subaltern Weltbürger Blues -- Jürgen Habermas’ Postmetaphysical Paralysis? -- Defacing the Political Currency: Cynicism as a Normative Perspective for Critical Theory.