Routledge Innovators in Political Theory- Fred Dallmayr

Compiling the key works of Fred Dallmayr, this book highlights the most important themes explored by this prolific theorist: critical phenomenology; cross-cultural theory (or comparative political theory); and cosmopolitanism. Framed by a new introduction written by Farah Godrej and an interview with Dallmayr, this work will provide a vital reso Fred Dallmayr’s work is innovative in its rethinking of some of the central concepts of modern political philosophy, challenging the hegemony of a modern “subjectivity” at the heart of Western liberalism, individualism and rationalism, and articulating alternative voices, claims and ideas. His writings productively confound the logocentrism of Western modernity, while providing alternative conceptions of political community that are post-individualist, post-anthropocentric and relational. The editor has focused on work in three key areas: Critical phenomenology and the study of politicsThe first selections focus on the philosophical roots of Dallmayr’s work in two of the most innovative intellectual trends of the twentieth century: phenomenology and critical theory. These chapters outline some of the main arguments advanced by practitioners of phenomenology, particularly “existential phenomenology,” as well the guiding ideas of critical theory and critical Marxism, while tracing Dallmayr’s debt to thinkers such as Heidegger, Gadamer, Habermas, Adorno and Merleau-Ponty. Cross-cultural theoryThese readings illustrate Dallmayr’s explorations beyond the confines of Western culture, as this phase of his thinking turns toward what is now called cross-cultural or “comparative” political theory. In an approach that maintains its linkage with critical phenomenology, Dallmayr asserts that Western (or European-American) political theory…