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Podcast: New Books in Politics and Polemics
Episode: Michael J. Thompson, "Descent of the Dialectic: Phronetic Criticism in an Age of Nihilism" (Routledge, 2024)
Description: In Descent of the Dialectic: Phronetic Criticism in an Age of Nihilism (Routledge, 2024), Michael J. Thompson reconstructs the concept and practice of dialectics as a means of grounding a critical theory of society. At the center of this project is the thesis of phronetic criticism or a form of reason that is able to synthesize human value with objective rationality.Thompson argues that defects in modern forms of social reason are the result of the powers of social structure and the norms and purposes they embody. Increasingly, modern societies are driven not by substantive values concerning human good...