Pragmatic Liberalism and the Critique of Modernity

In this book Gary Gutting offers a powerful account of the nature of human reason in modern times. The fundamental question addressed by the book is what authority human reason can still claim once it is acknowledged that our fundamental metaphysical and religious pictures of the world no longer command allegiance. If ethics and science remain sources of authority what is the basis of that authority? Gutting develops answers to these questions through critical analysis of the work of three dominant philosophical voices in our time: Richard Rorty, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Charles Taylor. His own position is defined as 'pragmatic liberalism'.

Gary Gutting is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. His previous Cambridge books are Michel Foucault's Archaeology of Scientific Reason (1989) and The Cambridge Companion to Foucault (1994).