Against Autonomy

This title was first published in 2001: "Curtis addresses important questions relating to dilemmas arising in the wake of the philosophical critiques of the foundational discourses of modernity.  His reappraisal of Lyotard, with its implications for a post-modern politics, is an important contribution to the new corpus of work emerging on Lyotard." Couze Venn, The Nottingham Trent University, UK   Against Autonomy reassesses Jean-Francois Lyotard's contribution to philosophy and theory, and explores how his work challenges the privileged position of the principle of autonomy in contemporary liberal democratic thinking, as seen in such diverse thinkers as Rawls, Rorty and Fukuyama. Curtis argues that the political models autonomy legitimates are inadequate for thinking justice. He explores Lyotard's reading of Kant as well as his responses to Levinas and Heidegger in order to rethink the political, developing a regulative Idea based on new understandings of heteronomy and an-archy. Examining Lyotard's work in relation to Arendt's writings on the vita activa, this book explores themes of community, communication and action, suggesting how Lyotard's work calls for an alternative conception of political space. This book will be of particular interest to those studying communitarianism, liberalism, anarchism, post-structuralism and postmodernism, particularly within the context of political philosophy, ethics, and political and social theory.