Abstract
What is politics the outcome of ? The common answers to this question would invoke such ideas as power and interests. I want to argue that political events, particularly in the modern world, are the outcome of nothing else but politics itself. They emerge rhetorically, from public talk, and nothing more fundamental can be found. A society which can be validly characterized in this way may suitably be called ‘loquocentric’, or talk-centred. The odd thing is that much of the most acute exploration of this idea has taken place in a distorted form - in a camera obscuru , as it were - in ideological writing, which is dedicated to such fundamental determinants of the course of events as race, nation, gender and class. The work of Jurgen Habermas is particularly striking. Before I consider it, however, let me sketch out the thesis that modern politics is essentially loquocentric.
Keywords
NothingPoliticsIdeologySketchPower (physics)SociologyEpistemologyClass (philosophy)AestheticsPolitical scienceSocial scienceLawPhilosophy
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Publication Info
- Year
- 1986
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 338-361
- Citations
- 4
- Access
- Closed
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Cite This
Kenneth Minogue
(1986).
Loquocentric Society and its Critics: the Case of Habermas.
Government and Opposition
, 21
(3)
, 338-361.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-7053.1986.tb00705.x
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1111/j.1477-7053.1986.tb00705.x