John McIntyre | The University of Sydney (original) (raw)
Papers by John McIntyre
Critical Horizons
Paste your abstract in here: This paper argues for a reading of Michel Foucault’s works that draw... more Paste your abstract in here: This paper argues for a reading of Michel Foucault’s works that draws on an expansive concept of normativity and places Foucault’s project in a broader framework. It is argued that the distinction between the normative and the non-normative fails to grasp what is most significant in Foucault’s work. This distinction should be replaced by a broader understanding of normativity permeating all social practices. However, in order to retain the sound intuition of two distinct moments within critical thought, this broader understanding must be complemented with a view of the entwined perspectives of participant and observer, both thoroughly permeated by normativity. However, there is a tension between these perspectives which both Foucault and critics such as Jürgen Habermas recognise as intensified in modernity. This intensification is manifest as instability, an ever-present possibility of shifting between perspectives that seems to demand resolution. Taking the fundamental norm motivating Foucault’s work as “the undefined work of freedom” the paper considers how this norm guides Foucault’s work by affirming this play of perspectives or “revolving door of rationality” in a way that marks a fundamental difference from his critics.
Contemporary Political Theory
The animating issue of the Foucault-Habermas debate of the 1980s-which never actually took place ... more The animating issue of the Foucault-Habermas debate of the 1980s-which never actually took place because of Foucault's untimely death-is well summarized by a question posed by Michael Kelly: 'Which paradigm of critique-Foucault's or Habermas's-is most defensible philosophically and most effective practically, especially in relation to the role of power in the contemporary landscape?' (1994, p. 2). The dispute between followers and critics of each philosopher revolved primarily around the question of how power affects the presuppositions and consequences of critique, but it also extended to broader comparisons between Foucault and Habermas on concepts such as reason, power, modernity, ethics, and normativity. John McIntyre's new book The Limits of Scientific Reason: Habermas, Foucault and Science as a Social Institution wants to resist the either/or framing of that debate and offers instead the conciliatory view that these thinkers should be understood as doing different but complementary things. Contra recent work that has emphasized shared postmodern strains in these thinkers (Verovšek, 2022), McIntyre interprets them both as working within the Enlightenment tradition: aiming to change society by understanding it and thereby liberating humans from systems of dependence and domination. Although Foucault radicalized this tradition, McIntyre claims that he did so with resources implicit within the tradition itself. He thus presents these thinkers as two distinct moments within modernity's reflexive rationality, 'somewhat in tension but not in conflict' (p. 254). The contrast between the two thinkers will likely be more obvious to readers than their commonalities. Habermas seeks to discover what is stable, universal, and necessary, whereas Foucault problematizes all that is presented as stable, universal, and necessary. But McIntyre finds common ground between them through two main moves. First, he downplays Habermas's transcendentalism and emphasizes how the universal can be linked to the contingent through ongoing contextualization. Once we realize that the universal norms Habermas urges us to accept must always be interpreted and applied by particular communities facing specific
The Limits of Scientific Reason: Habermas, Foucault, and Science as a Social Institution., 2021
By critically examining the works of Jurgen Habermas and Michel Foucault, this book undertakes a ... more By critically examining the works of Jurgen Habermas and Michel Foucault, this book undertakes a critique of science as a social institution in order to illuminate the effects of scientific reason as it migrates from its specialized institutions into society. Examining the shifting relations between science and other social institutions, discourses and power, it explores how these effects extend throughout the entire social body. The book thus adopts the stance of a philosophical critique both directed towards science and, at the same time, shaped by, and responsive to it. Whilst acknowledging the emancipatory possibilities of science, it highlights the ways in which the authority granted to science can truncate other regions of rationality and so narrow or shift the scope of what can count as reality. Arguing for a non-reductive, liberal scientific naturalism that sees science as one form of rationality amongst others, the book suggests possibilities for thought and action beyond scientific knowledge. By analysing the works of Foucault and Habermas in terms of their social, political, and historical contexts it reveals the two thinkers as linked by a commitment to the Enlightenment tradition and its emancipatory telos. It argues that they can be seen as representing two distinct moments within the context of modern reflexive rationality. Habermas seeks to discover what is stable, universal, and in a sense necessary, while Foucault seeks to transform subjectivity by problematising whatever is presented as stable, universal, and necessary. The significant differences between the two are seen to result from Foucault’s radicalization of the Enlightenment tradition, a radicalization which is, at the same time, implicit within the Enlightenment project itself.
Critical Horizons
Paste your abstract in here: This paper argues for a reading of Michel Foucault’s works that draw... more Paste your abstract in here: This paper argues for a reading of Michel Foucault’s works that draws on an expansive concept of normativity and places Foucault’s project in a broader framework. It is argued that the distinction between the normative and the non-normative fails to grasp what is most significant in Foucault’s work. This distinction should be replaced by a broader understanding of normativity permeating all social practices. However, in order to retain the sound intuition of two distinct moments within critical thought, this broader understanding must be complemented with a view of the entwined perspectives of participant and observer, both thoroughly permeated by normativity. However, there is a tension between these perspectives which both Foucault and critics such as Jürgen Habermas recognise as intensified in modernity. This intensification is manifest as instability, an ever-present possibility of shifting between perspectives that seems to demand resolution. Taking the fundamental norm motivating Foucault’s work as “the undefined work of freedom” the paper considers how this norm guides Foucault’s work by affirming this play of perspectives or “revolving door of rationality” in a way that marks a fundamental difference from his critics.
Contemporary Political Theory
The animating issue of the Foucault-Habermas debate of the 1980s-which never actually took place ... more The animating issue of the Foucault-Habermas debate of the 1980s-which never actually took place because of Foucault's untimely death-is well summarized by a question posed by Michael Kelly: 'Which paradigm of critique-Foucault's or Habermas's-is most defensible philosophically and most effective practically, especially in relation to the role of power in the contemporary landscape?' (1994, p. 2). The dispute between followers and critics of each philosopher revolved primarily around the question of how power affects the presuppositions and consequences of critique, but it also extended to broader comparisons between Foucault and Habermas on concepts such as reason, power, modernity, ethics, and normativity. John McIntyre's new book The Limits of Scientific Reason: Habermas, Foucault and Science as a Social Institution wants to resist the either/or framing of that debate and offers instead the conciliatory view that these thinkers should be understood as doing different but complementary things. Contra recent work that has emphasized shared postmodern strains in these thinkers (Verovšek, 2022), McIntyre interprets them both as working within the Enlightenment tradition: aiming to change society by understanding it and thereby liberating humans from systems of dependence and domination. Although Foucault radicalized this tradition, McIntyre claims that he did so with resources implicit within the tradition itself. He thus presents these thinkers as two distinct moments within modernity's reflexive rationality, 'somewhat in tension but not in conflict' (p. 254). The contrast between the two thinkers will likely be more obvious to readers than their commonalities. Habermas seeks to discover what is stable, universal, and necessary, whereas Foucault problematizes all that is presented as stable, universal, and necessary. But McIntyre finds common ground between them through two main moves. First, he downplays Habermas's transcendentalism and emphasizes how the universal can be linked to the contingent through ongoing contextualization. Once we realize that the universal norms Habermas urges us to accept must always be interpreted and applied by particular communities facing specific
The Limits of Scientific Reason: Habermas, Foucault, and Science as a Social Institution., 2021
By critically examining the works of Jurgen Habermas and Michel Foucault, this book undertakes a ... more By critically examining the works of Jurgen Habermas and Michel Foucault, this book undertakes a critique of science as a social institution in order to illuminate the effects of scientific reason as it migrates from its specialized institutions into society. Examining the shifting relations between science and other social institutions, discourses and power, it explores how these effects extend throughout the entire social body. The book thus adopts the stance of a philosophical critique both directed towards science and, at the same time, shaped by, and responsive to it. Whilst acknowledging the emancipatory possibilities of science, it highlights the ways in which the authority granted to science can truncate other regions of rationality and so narrow or shift the scope of what can count as reality. Arguing for a non-reductive, liberal scientific naturalism that sees science as one form of rationality amongst others, the book suggests possibilities for thought and action beyond scientific knowledge. By analysing the works of Foucault and Habermas in terms of their social, political, and historical contexts it reveals the two thinkers as linked by a commitment to the Enlightenment tradition and its emancipatory telos. It argues that they can be seen as representing two distinct moments within the context of modern reflexive rationality. Habermas seeks to discover what is stable, universal, and in a sense necessary, while Foucault seeks to transform subjectivity by problematising whatever is presented as stable, universal, and necessary. The significant differences between the two are seen to result from Foucault’s radicalization of the Enlightenment tradition, a radicalization which is, at the same time, implicit within the Enlightenment project itself.