Richard J. Bernstein

The Varieties of Pluralism

I argue that Dewey and the pragmatic thinkers were really ahead of their times. Dewey is relevant today in helping us to gain some perspective on our extremely confused and chaotic cultural condition. Furthermore, the dialectic of contemporary philosophy keeps leading us back to the point of departure for the pragmatic thinkers. This is especially evident in the revival of the centrality of the concept of a democratic community. I also seek to clarify what is most important about the pragmatic understanding of pluralism. For, while there is a deep sensitivity to irreducible difference and the variety of experience, there is also a conviction that we are not prisoners locked into our own perspectives, frameworks, and paradigms. We can always reach out, communicate, and share with what is other and different from ourselves.

Hannah Arendt on the Stateless

In 1964 Hannah Arendt was asked: ‘Is there a definite event in your memory that dates your turn to the political?’ Without hesitating, she answered: ‘I would say February 27, 1933, the burning of the Reichstag, and the illegal arrests that followed during the same night.’ From that moment on she ‘felt responsible.’ ‘That is, I was no longer of the opinion that one can simply be a bystander’. In the following months Arendt helped others to escape from Germany. She also aided her Zionist friends. It was this activity that led to the incident which compelled her to flee from Germany. The Zionists wanted to document anti-Semitic statements, which were not well known outside Germany. Because she was not explicitly identified with the Zionists, Arendt was the ideal person to conduct this research in the Prussian State Library. She readily agreed to help, even though the Nazis considered this to be ‘horror propaganda.’ She was subsequently apprehended, arrested, and interrogated for eight days. This is her account of what happened:

The specter haunting multiculturalism

I argue that the specter haunting multiculturalism is incommensurability. In many discussions of multiculturalism there is a ‘picture’ that holds us captive — a picture of cultures, religious or ethnic groups that are self-contained and are radically incommensurable with each other. I explore and critique this concept of incommensurability. I trace the idea of incommensurability back to the discussion by Thomas Kuhn — and especially to the ways in which his views were received. Drawing on Gadamer’s understanding of hermeneutics, I argue that the very idea of radical incommensurability is incoherent. This does not entail an abstract universalism but rather sensitivity to the ways in which all languages and cultures are in principle open to the real possibility of enlarging one’s vision and mutually understanding.

Enlarging the dialogue

I have been in conversation with Charles Taylor for more than 50 years. During this period Taylor has played a unique role in philosophy. He has been a key figure in enlarging the depth and breadth of philosophical dialogue. I would like to illustrate this with four moments in his career: his articulation and defense of the role of interpretation in the human sciences; his distinctive perspective on multiculturalism; his rethinking of multiple modernities: and his reflections on the meaning of a secular age. When Taylor studied at Oxford with Isaiah Berlin and G.E. Anscombe, the influence of analytic philosophy and various forms on naturalism and behaviorism in the social sciences were at their height. But Taylor was never satisfied with the narrowness of the discussion in analytic philosophy and he also felt there was something desperately wrong with the varieties of reductive naturalism so popular in the social sciences. He is one of the first Anglo-American philosophers to amplify the conversation in philosophy by turning to the phenomenological tradition in France and the German tradition of hermeneutics. His first book, Explanation and Human Behaviour, as well as his classic essay “Interpretation and the Sciences of Man” were powerful critiques of the limitations of positivistic and naturalistic tendencies in the social and political disciplines. At the same time, Taylor opened the way to an appreciation of the distinctive character that interpretation and understanding play in the social and political disciplines. He wrote his comprehensive study of Hegel at a time when Hegel was not only ignored but ridiculed by many Anglo-American philosophers. Taylor initiated the revival of interest in Hegel that continues to flourish today. He introduced Anglo-American philosophers to the expressivist linguistic tradition that he traces back to Hamann, Herder, and Humbolt. Taylor’s interest in democracy and politics has never been “merely” theoretical. He has been active in the politics of Canada – always seeking to bridge the divide between those rooted in British and French culture. In his work on multiculturalism he has enlarged our understanding of a democratic liberal community that respects the cultural differences and protects individual rights. One of the most dominant strands theories of

From Socialist Feminism to the Critique of Global Capitalism

This chapter explores the trajectory of Nancy’s Fraser’s development from socialist feminism to the critique of global capitalism by focusing on five closely related themes: (1) the public sphere and feminist concerns; (2) justice, redistribution, and recognition; (3) rethinking Polanyi’s The Great Transformation; (4) prospects for a radical feminism; and (5) emancipation and the critique of neoliberal capitalism.

Comment on Hispanic/Latino Identity by J. J. E. Gracia

In the concluding remarks of his splendid book, Jorge Gracia tells us: ‘I feel as if the theses I have proposed raise more questions than they answer, but that is as it should be’ (p. 189). The aim of his book is to provoke fresh thinking about the issues he explores. It is in this spirit that I want to offer my criticism. Gracia’s book is filled with insights, provocative claims and valuable information. It is a courageous book, because Gracia takes on difficult and thorny issues – and he does this with verve and lucidity. I admire his ability to avoid clichés about the ‘politics of identity’ and the ‘politics of difference’, and to avoid the extremes of a misguided essentialism and a debilitating nominalism that dissolve questions about one’s identity and solidarity with others. Furthermore, his pluralism and his sensitivity to the heterogeneity of Hispanic identity are laudable. He takes on the battery of arguments against the very idea of naming a group ‘Hispanics’ or ‘Latinos/as’, and forcefully argues for the thesis that there is a Hispanic identity. His understanding of Hispanic identity is flexible, pluralistic, heterogeneous, and dynamic. Some of the most informative chapters deal with the beginnings of Hispanic philosophy, and the character of Latin American philosophy. Nevertheless, there are problems in his positive case for affirming Hispanic identity. Throughout the book, there is an unresolved tension between a more descriptive pole (where Gracia describes how Hispanic identity has been conceived) and a more prescriptive or normative pole (where he advocates how we ought to think about Hispanic identity). I want to focus on two clusters of issues: the positive case that Gracia makes for Hispanic identity, and his reflections on the possibility of a Hispanic-American philosophy. The subtitle of the book, A Philosophical Perspective, has a double meaning. Gracia, as a philosopher, not only

The Philosophical Politics of the Modern-Postmodern Debate@@@Between Freiburg and Frankfurt: Toward a Critical Ontology@@@Political Theory and Postmodernism@@@The New Constellation: The Ethical-Political Horizons of Modernity/Postmodernity

During the last two decades Richard Bernstein has established a worldwide reputation as one of the few philosophers able to bridge different traditions of thought and to clarify, through sympathetic criticism, the key intellectual issues of our time. In these 10 essays he explores the ethical and political dimensions of the modernity/postmodernity debates.Bernstein argues that modernity/postmodernity should be understood as a pervasive mood - what Heidegger calls a Stimmung - one that is amorphous, shifting, and protean but that nevetheless exerts a powerful influence on our current ways of thinking and acting. Focusing on such thinkers as Heidegger, Derrida, Foucault, Rorty, and Habermas, Bernstein seeks to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of their work and to highlight the ways in which they have contributed to the formation of a new and distinctive constellation of ideas and themes.Richard J. Bernstein is Vera List Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research.The Essays: Philosophy, History, and Critique. The Rage Against Reason. Incommensurability and Otherness Revisited. Heideggers Silence? Ethos and Technology. Foucault: Critique as a Philosophic Ethos. Serious Play: The Ethical-Political Horizon of Derrida. An Allegory of Modernity/Postmodernity: Habermas and Derrida. One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward: Rorty on Liberal Democracy. Rortys Liberal Utopia, Reconciliation/Rupture.

The Restructuring of Social and Political Theory

In this volume, Bernstein forsees and outlines the development of a social theory that is at once empirical, interpretive, and critical.