The Politics of ReasonA Postfoundational Approach

Offers a reconfiguration of political reason from the perspective of the social performativity inherent in postfoundational theory

• Undertakes a detailed analysis of contemporary analyses of political epistemology
• Rethinks the nature and constitution of political rationality through social practices
• Provides detailed, scholarly chapters on a variety of figures within contemporary theory
• Works across analytic epistemology, critical theory, feminism, political philosophy, poststructuralism and psychoanalytic theory

While Western political theory has traditionally affirmed the importance of pure reason, this has recently come under attack from a variety of directions, including from those who question its universal pretensions, its neglect of the emotions, and its attachment to rationally discerned truth.

Gavin Rae accepts aspects of these critiques, but rejects the conclusion that this means that reason should be abandoned politically. Instead, Rae argues that it opens the possibility for a rethinking and recuperation of a reconceived understanding of political reason that emphasises, not individual abstract reflection, but social performativity. Through engagements with analytic epistemology, critical theory, feminism, hegemony theory, poststructuralism, and psychoanalysis, political reason is reconceived as an ongoing collective performative practice that aims at establishing the hegemonic norms that will structure and define collective identity, including its political and epistemic possibilities.