Stanley Cavell's Democratic Perfectionism
Community, Individuality, and Post-Truth Politics

Draws on the writings of Stanley Cavell to diagnose post-truth politics and offer philosophical resources to respond to its challenges.

Jonathan Havercroft (Author)

9781009322584, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 31 August 2023

288 pages, 1 table
23.5 x 15.9 x 2.1 cm, 0.55 kg

'Havercroft's text … is both timely and urgent - a critical response to an elemental crisis facing democratic politics.' Tanay Gandhi, The Review of Politics

Post-truth politics is both a result of a democratic culture in which each person is encouraged to voice their opinion, and a threat to the continuation of democracy as partisans seek to deny political standing to those with incommensurate world views. Are there resources within political theory for overcoming this tension? This book argues that Stanley Cavell's philosophy provides a conceptual framework for responding to post-truth politics. Jonathan Havercroft develops an original interpretation of Stanley Cavell as a theorist of democratic perfectionism. By placing Cavell's writings in conversation with political theorists on debates about the social contract, interpretive methods, democratic theory and political aesthetics, Stanley Cavell's Democratic Perfectionism cultivates modes of responsiveness that strengthen our democratic culture and help us resist the contemporary crisis of democratic backsliding. Each chapter diagnoses a sceptical crisis in contemporary politics and a mode of responsiveness in Cavell's thought that can respond to that crisis.

Introduction
1. The Claiming of Community
2. Stanley Cavell as Methodologist
3. Two Kinds of Agreement in Democratic Theory
4. The Politics of Tragedy, Recognition, and Acknowledgment
5. Film, Gender, Gaslighting
6. The Limits of Democratic Perfectionism
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Political science & theory [JPA]