Political Theory, Modernity and Postmodernity [antikvár]

PREFACEThis book is concerned to do three things. First, it attempts to outUne an interpretation of the significance of the widely used (and even more widely misunderstood) notion of modernity for political theory. Secondly, and as a central part of the process, it offers an outline interpretation of what I call the 'modernity debate'; to wit the positions and arguments of some of those who have defended modernity and some of those who have attacked it. In its currently most influential form, the modernity debate - at least in modern social, political and literary theory - is largely a debate between moderns and postmoderns, and so it is with these that I will be chiefly concerned, at least to begin with.These twin concerns exist within a wider one, however; namely to offer an account and interpretation of the task and methods appropriate to political theory as such. In the course of elaborating this concern, I shall also address some of modernity's critics, who speak from a variety of perspectives but who share a concern to show the centrality of ideas drawn from classical Greek thought for modern political theory. While I accept some of their arguments, I shall reject others, amend their shared concern in a rather different direction, and then conclude by suggesting where, as a result of this discussion, contemporary political theory is deficient and what we might do about it.The outline interpretation of modernity and the debate over it, which is at the core of this enterprise, is the main purpose of the first section of the book. The initial definition and discussion is made in chapter 1, where I try and give some content both to the notion of modernity itself and to various uses to