Social Science, Christian Ethics and Democratic Politics

Critique is a driving force not only for the development of political ideas and concepts but also for protecting humane and democratic politics against the perils of epistemic and political ideologies. Yet, while there is much debate about the question of ‘ What is critique?’ the conditions of critique appear largely under-reflected in International Politics and the Social Sciences more generally. This article goes beyond the question of what critique in politics and social science might consist of and holds that critique is not an end in itself, but rather requires a yardstick to discuss and judge its generative conditions, that is, its foundation, legitimization and direction that it must pertain to be meaningful. The following article will explore the oeuvres of twentieth-century political and social theorists Hans J. Morgenthau, Herbert Marcuse and Eric Voegelin and argues that the three principles of ‘perspectivity’, ‘negation’ and ‘noesis’ that can be concluded from their work provide such generative conditions of critique, practically leading to a novel policy framework of the non-irreversibility of politics.

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Taylor, Charles (1931–)

Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy ◽

10.4324/9780415249126-dd089-1 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Craig Calhoun

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Social Science ◽

Political Action ◽

The Self ◽

Democratic Politics ◽

Science Ethics ◽

Adequate Understanding ◽

Historical Reconstructions ◽

Late Twentieth ◽

Late Twentieth Century

Among the most influential of late twentieth-century philosophers, Taylor has written on human agency, identity and the self; language; the limits of epistemology; interpretation and explanation in social science; ethics; and democratic politics. His work is distinctive because of his innovative treatments of long-standing philosophical problems, especially those deriving from applications of Enlightenment epistemology to theories of language, the self and political action, and his unusually thorough integration of ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ philosophical concerns and approaches. Taylor’s work is shaped by the view that adequate understanding of philosophical arguments requires an appreciation of their origins, changing contexts and transformed meanings. Thus it often takes the form of historical reconstructions that seek to identify the paths by which particular theories and languages of understanding or evaluation have been developed. This reflects both Taylor’s sustained engagement with Hegel’s philosophy and his resistance to epistemological dichotomies such as ‘truth’ and ‘falsehood’ in favour of a notion of ‘epistemic gain’ influenced by H.G. Gadamer.

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