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Examines the relations among knowledge, politics, aesthetics, and individuality.
The relentless accumulation of knowledge is a defining feature of modern life, but what if this feature begins to breed more confusion than enlightenment? Martin Leet examines how the often ambiguous and sometimes destabilizing aftereffects of knowledge have prompted a renewed interest in aesthetics and individuality in parts of contemporary political theory. He contends that this renewal is necessary and desirable, making his case through a multi-faceted critique of Jurgen Habermas. He also engages a wide range of thinkers and traditions, including Nietzsche, Emerson, Weber, the ancient Greeks, and the more recent contributions of Judith Butler, William Connolly, and George Kateb. By focusing on debates about democracy and citizenship, Leet develops a distinctive understanding of the relations between politics, aesthetics, and individuality.
"Leet treats the increasingly important topic of the aesthetic in a complex and interesting way by applying it to the question of individuality. Moreover, his tying individuality to developments in the evolution of knowledge is creative, original, and controversial." — Morton Schoolman, author of Reason and Horror: Critical Theory, Democracy, and Aesthetic Individuality
Acknowledgments
Introduction: What Is the Value of Knowledge?
Two Stories About the Aftereffects of Knowledge
Knowledge, Aesthetics, and Individuality
Politics and Individuality
The Chapters That Follow
PART I: RETURNING TO OURSELVES
1. Recovering the Individual in Critical Theory
Back to Basics? Pleasure and Pain
Weakening the Link Between Theory and Practice
Reconnecting Theory with Practice: The "Causality of Fate"
Communicative Versus Subject-Centered Reason
2. Individuality Amid Social Progress
The Politics of Suffering
Habermas's Reconstruction of Progressive Ideals
Modernity and the Adolescent Crisis
Rethinking Progress
3. Dogmatic Retreats and Skeptical Adventures
The Dangers of Dialectic
Dogmatic Retreats: Habermas and Butler
Skeptical Adventures: Nietzsche and the Ancient Skeptics
PART II: DEMOCRACY, AESTHETICS, AND INDIVIDUALITY
4. Habermas's Democratic Proceduralism
Procedural Compensations for Weak Individuality
The Limits of Proceduralism
Expectations of Individuals in Radical Democracy
5. Democracy and Individuality: Kateb and Connolly
Democracy and the Existential Dimension
Kateb and Emerson: Tensions Between the Moral and the Aesthetic
Connolly and Nietzsche: Can Arts of the Self Be Political?
6. Spaces for Individuality
Adding to the Pressures Against Individuality
Individuality Without the Constraints of Intersubjectivity
Individuality and Participation in Politics
Politics Without Meaning and Individuality as Citizenship
Notes
Index