Specter of Babel

Michael J. Thompson is Professor of Political Theory at William Paterson University. His many books include The Politics of Inequality: A Political History of the Idea of Economic Inequality in America and The Domestication of Critical Theory.

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Cybernetic Society and the Crisis of ModernityPart I: In the Courtyard of Babel: Postmetaphysics and the Failure of Critical Judgment 1. A Critique of the Judgment Paradigm in Contemporary Political PhilosophyThe Dissolution of Political Judgment in Modern SocietyAn Epistemic Hall of MirrorsIntersubjectivity and DiscourseThe Revolt against OntologyToward a Critical Social Metaphysics2. Hannah Arendt's Reconstruction of Political JudgmentThe Flight from the RealTruth, Power, and PoliticsDeliberation and Its DiscontentsDemocracy MisdirectedCritical Judgment and Radical Politics3. The Discursive Fallacy: Language and Power in Practical ReasonIn Search of Modern DemocracyThe Pragmatist Turn in Contemporary Critical TheoryThe Nature of Constitutive Social PowerTwo Spheres of Moral SemanticsConstitutive Power, Moral Cognition, and Linguistic CommunicationReification through the Implicit Validity of NormsA Critique of Justificatory Reason4. Recognition Theory and the Obfuscation of CritiqueRecognition and Critical TheoryThe Contours of Power and DominationRecognition without Social OntologyRecognition and Social Pathology: Fromm versus HonnethResuscitating Critical Judgment: The Ontological Point of ViewPart II: Beyond Babel: Social Ontology and the Reconstruction of Critical Reason 5. Recovering the Ontological Infrastructure of Political Judgment Aristotle's Social Ontology and the Structure of Political JudgmentInequality and Rousseau's Ontological Account of Social PathologyHegel and the Metaphysics of Modern Ethical LifeMarx, Labor, and the Ontology of Social Forms6. The Properties and Modes of Critical Social OntologyThe Concept of Social OntologyThe Two Dimensions of Social OntologyProperties of an Ontology of Sociality and Social FormsModes of Social OntologyThe Concept of a Social SchemeStructural Levels of Social OntologyThe Basic Model of Critical Social Ontology7. An Ontological Framework for Practical ReasonThe Metaphysical Structure of Reason and the Ontology of ValueThe Ontological Ground of Critique and JudgmentThe Structure of Critical-Ontological JudgmentsPhenomenology, Ontology, and the Structure of Critical AgencyOntological Coherence: Overcoming Reification and Relativism8. Obligation and Disobedience: The Practice of Critical JudgmentCrito's Question, Rousseau's SolutionThe Common Interest and the Structure of Democratic ReasonSelf and Social Relations: On Expanded AutonomyCritique, Obligation, and DisobedienceThe Ends of Political Obligation: Common Good and Social FreedomDemocratic Individuality, Solidarity, and Social TransformationBibliographyIndex

"The Specter of Babel is a remarkable achievement … is a deeply stimulating and much needed book. It continues Thompson's fearless assault on the shibboleths of neo-Idealism and the decayed state of contemporary Political Philosophy and Critical Theory." — New Political Science"The Specter of Babel is a formidable challenge to anyone intent on downplaying the continued urgency of either the European enlightenment or the type of critical theory set on continuing its unfinished project." — Contemporary Political Theory"…Thompson's critical social ontology is the specter that surrounds us like class consciousness theories were at the beginning of the past century. The main claim of the book is a lesson about how theory can be dangerous again. After all, no Marxist or Critical Theorist has attempted to answer this specific sort of normative task since Lukács and Adorno. In doing so, Thompson seeks to systematize the vertigo of our falling civilization. But as someone once said: 'where the danger lies, also grows the saving power'. This powerful and rebel book is more aware of this than any other." — Marx & Philosophy Review of Books"Critical social theorists in a variety of disciplines—including sociology, political science, philosophy, and cultural studies—will be challenged and fortified by engaging Thompson's fine book." — Dan Krier, coeditor of Capital in the Mirror: Critical Social Theory and the Aesthetic Dimension