The collapse of communism, the rise of identity politics, and struggles over global governance have combined to create new challenges for the Left: How to do justice to legitimate claims for multiculturalism and democratization without abandoning the Left’s historic—and still indispensable—commitment to economic equality? How to broaden the understanding of injustice by adding cultural and political insult to economic injury?Adding Insult to Injury tracks the debate sparked by Nancy Fraser’s controversial effort to combine redistribution, recognition, and representation in a new understanding of social justice. The volume showcases Fraser’s critical exchanges with leading thinkers, including Judith Butler, Richard Rorty, Iris Marion Young, Anne Phillips, and Rainer Frost. The result is a wide-ranging and at times contentious exploration of varied approaches to rebuilding the Left.

The work of Richard J. Bernstein has achieved a groundbreaking synthesis of the analytical and continental modes of thought. Countering the highly technical metaphysical and epistemological puzzles of analytic philosophy in the early 1960s, Bernstein offered a model of philosophy in a democratic society as the work of the engaged public intellectual. Working within the tradition of American pragmatism, he also changed that tradition by opening it to the international intellectual currents of phenomenology, deconstructionism, and critical theory. These essays by leading philosophers and social thinkers pay tribute to Bernstein and reflect the themes that have engaged him throughout his career. Pragmatism, Critique, Judgment opens with a group of essays that examine the place of philosophy in a democratic society; included in this section are Richard Rorty's exploration of the legacy of American pragmatism and Jürgen Habermas's reconsideration of ethics in philosophy. The essays in the second section examine postpositivist social critique and include Jacques Derrida's consideration of the philosophical paradoxes of the death penalty. The third group of essays considers the theme of radical evil, and includes discussions of Bernstein's nuanced reading of Hannah Arendt. The book ends with a biographical essay based in part on a series of conversations with Bernstein himself.

Product Description: ‘Recognition’ has become a keyword of our time, but its relation to economic ‘redistribution’ remains unclear. This volume stages a debate between two philosophers, one North American, the other German, who hold different views of the relation of redistribution to recognition...read more