On Thinking ”Post-Foundationally“ about the Public/Private Distinction
On Thinking ”Post-Foundationally“ about the Public/Private Distinction

Summary/Abstract: Does the notion of a public/private distinction survive the "post-foundationalist" turn in recent philosophy and political theory? Distinguishing between metaphysical and normative senses in which the distinction has been made, this paper argues that the second is rather harder to sever from the first than those contemporary theorists who seek to avoid strong ontological claims would have us think. I take Richard Rorty's work as exemplary of a 'post-foundationalist' approach, distinguished by its constructive engagement with the metaphysics-free' rethinking of social norms.Notably, Rorty seeks to retrieve the public/private distinction in the process. In exploring curiosities about the conclusions he reaches, I argue, against them, that it is partly because of the ontological instability of any public/private distinction that a rigid adherence to it is morally and politically problematic. Given this, I suggest that the attempt to dispense with all foundational claims is harder to pull off than many have argued. Far from being a necessary move, it may hinder the development of the kind of genuinely nuanced account of subjectivity denied by the all-too-heavy influence of the Cartesian heritage.

• Details
• Contents