Under Weber’s Shadow: Modernity, Subjectivity and Politics in Habermas, Arendt and MacIntyre

by Keith Breen

Under Weber's Shadow presents an extended critical evaluation of the social and political thought of Jürgen Habermas, Hannah Arendt and Alasdair MacIntyre. Although hailing from very different philosophical traditions, these theorists all take as their starting-point Max Weber's seminal diagnosis of late modernity, the view that the world-historic processes of rationalization and disenchantment are paradoxical in promising freedom yet threatening servitude under the 'iron cage' of instrumental reason. However, each rejects his pessimistic understanding of the grounds and possibilities of political life, accusing him of complicity in the very realities he sought to resist. Seeking to move beyond Weber's monological view of the self, his subjectivism and his identification of the political with domination, they offer alternative, intersubjective conceptions of the subject, ethics and politics that allow for positive future possibilities. But this incontrovertible gain, it is argued, comes at the cost of depoliticizing key arenas of human endeavour and of neglecting the reality of struggle and contestation. Engaging with important current debates and literature, Keith Breen provides a rigorous analysis of the work of Habermas, Arendt, MacIntyre and Weber and a highly accessible and original intervention within contemporary social and political thought. Under Weber's Shadow will therefore be of interest to students and researchers alike within the areas of social and political theory, as well as those within the disciplines of ethics, sociology and philosophy.

264 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2012

Reviews

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

This ”shadow” looks more like a comedy of errors. Weber was a Protestant fundamentalist, and like Monthy Python's excellent illustration in The Meaning of Life, Weber made a correlation between his superior White faith, and the inferior faith of the darkies from the Mediterranean. As strange as it might sound in the 21st century, back than the Italians were considered closer to the Africans. He was onto something, and he could have found it, if he wasn't so devoted to his god.

Downstream, the same errors, only multiplied. And yes, like Weber, they are very influential in their ridiculous ignorance. Read Arendt Hannah's opus, and compare her delirium with her subject's own diary. Surely, Darwin was right a century before the DNA tests. Arendt is just another failed project, the same way Nazi scientists were measuring the Jew in somebody.