Description
Book SynopsisCritically and comprehensively examining the works of Habermas and Foucault, two giants of 20th century continental philosophy, this book illuminates the effects of scientific reason as it migrates from its specialized institutions into society. It explores how science permeates shared human consciousness, to produce effects that ripple through the entire social body to restructure relations between discourses, institutions, and power in ways which we are barely conscious of. The book shows how science, through its entwinement with power, politics, discourses, and practices, presents certain social arrangements as natural and certain courses of action as beyond question. By arguing for a non-reductive, liberal scientific naturalism that sees science as one form of rationality amongst others, it opens possibilities for thought and action beyond scientific knowledge.
The book analyses the work of Foucault and Habermas in terms of their social, political, and historical contexts. It examines science in relation to society, power, and discourses and their shifting historical relations. But rather than withdrawing from normative dimensions by merely describing scientific practices within their contexts, McIntyre explicitly opens the normative question of the good life and the good society. He thus simultaneously raises the question of philosophy and how philosophical critique is both directed towards science and, at the same time, must accommodate it. Foucault and Habermas emerge as linked by a commitment to the Enlightenment tradition and its emancipatory telos which underlies their work. The significant differences between the two thinkers are seen to result from Foucault’s radicalization of this tradition, a radicalization which is, at the same time, implicit within the Enlightenment project itself.
Table of ContentsCHAPTER 1. Modernity’s Nagging Question
Science and Society / The Aim and Contents of this Book / Philosophy and Its Contexts / Habermas and Foucault: Lives and Motivations / Modernity Science and Philosophy
CHAPTER 2. Habermas’ Critique of Positivism
Habermas’ Response to Positivism / Knowledge and Human Interests / Habermas’ Theoretical Partitions
CHAPTER 3. Science, Modernity and Communicative Action
Habermas Linguistic Turn / Lifeworld, System and the Rationalisation of Society / The Diagnosis of Modernity / Insights and Aporias / Reinterpreting Habermas
CHAPTER 4. Science and Deliberative Democracy
Between Facts and Norms / Philosophy and Science / The Future of Human Nature. / Free Will and Determinism / Concluding Thoughts
CHAPTER 5. Foucault’s Archaeology of Scientific Knowledge
Foucault’s Radicalisation of Critique / Madness / Archaeology and the History of Science / Order and The Sciences / Concluding Thoughts
CHAPTER 6. Science and Power
From Archaeology to Genealogy / The Emergence and Dissemination of Modern / Power/Knowledge / The Constitution of The Subject / The Natural Sciences / The Normalisation of Society / Bio-Power and Governmentality / Normative Confusions
CHAPTER 7. Science and the Genealogy of the Subject
Later Foucault’s Broader Framework / Ethics, Aesthetics and Spirituality / The Genealogy of The Subject / Philosophy and Science after Kant
CHAPTER 8. Science, Philosophy and Modernity
The Reconcilability of Habermas and Foucault / Reflexivity and its Modern Radicalisation / Discovery and Self-Transformation / Normative Foundations and Confusions. / Wrapping up the debate / Concluding Reflections
