Republic of Readers: The Literary Turn in Political Thought - download pdf or read online

By Simon Stow

What's the right position for literature in political inspiration and research? Can analyzing novels make us higher electorate of a liberal democratic society? what's the prestige of argument and cause in an academy ruled through readings and redescriptions? Simon Stow identifies a in all probability dangerous literary flip within the modern academy, arguing that the examine of literature and the learn of politics became a little indistinguishable organisations. Drawing at the paintings of Judith Butler, Terry Eagleton, Martha Nussbaum, and Richard Rorty, he examines the challenging claims, round reasoning, and lost assumptions that underpin this disciplinary merging, and seeks to guard political philosophy and social technological know-how opposed to the rival claims of literature and literary feedback as resources of political perception and development.

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Extra info for Republic of Readers: The Literary Turn in Political Thought and Analysis

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In order to avoid perpetuating their power, she suggests, we should avoid using their language and focus instead upon finding new and more empowering ways of talking and being in the world, hence her concern with the value of redescription as a political method. Butler is, however, much more focused on the nonlinguistic aspects of power than Rorty. Her concern with “bodies that matter” and with performance indicates that although redescription remains a powerful weapon in her arsenal, she is less convinced than Rorty of the power of language alone.

For purposes of clarification, however, we might say that their claims about arguments fall into one of three possible categories: 1. Arguments simply cannot be given for any political or philosophical position. 2. Arguments can be given for political and philosophical positions, but such arguments are simply readings that have gained widespread acceptance. 3. Arguments can be given for political and philosophical positions, arguments that are simply accepted readings, but it is more effective to give alternative readings.

These passages provide the impetus for Rorty to dismiss philosophical arguments on the grounds that they are simply previously rehearsed moves in language games—the second position—or alternatively, because we can avoid arguments altogether by simply inventing new language games—the third position. It is this last aspect of Wittgenstein’s work that explains Rorty’s belief that it is the poet and not the scientist who is the central figure of our epoch. Precisely because she takes so much of the literary and linguistic turn for granted, Judith Butler would never seek to establish the validity of her position in the manner of Richard Rorty.

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