A Post-Foundational Theory of Political Judgement

Application summary

In recent years post-foundational political philosophers have taken part in discussions of how the principle of democracy seems to be questioned by authoritarian and other non-democratic forces worldwide. However, their contribution has been criticized because post-foundational political philosophy holds all principles contingent and resulting from political action. Thus, it appears to be unable to provide non-contingent and non-political principles for the evaluation and normative judgement of politics, and as such incapable of telling why democracy is a better form of society than authoritarianism. This dissertation project addresses this critique and investigates how normative judgement of politics could be possible in post-foundational political philosophy. It takes the arguments of Reiner Schürmann and Simon Critchley, who have examined this issue before, and cultivates them with the aid of metaethical research on normativity and other theories of judgement. As a result, a new theory of political judgement is developed which makes post-foundational political philosophy capable of judging normatively politics and thus more apt to participate in the discussions of the current challenges to democracy and their potential solutions.