Stanley Cavell's Democratic Perfectionism : Community, Individuality, and Post-Truth Politics

Despite his significant influence across the humanities, Cavell's work has attracted little attention from political theorists. This book addresses that gap by explicating the political dimensions of his thought and placing it in conversation with contemporary debates within the discipline, focusing on the challenge of post-truth politics.

Post-truth politics is both a result of a democratic culture in which each person is encouraged to voice their opinion, and a threat to the continuation of democracy as partisans seek to deny political standing to those with incommensurate world views. Are there resources within political theory for overcoming this tension? This book argues that Stanley Cavell''s philosophy provides a conceptual framework for responding to post-truth politics. Jonathan Havercroft develops an original interpretation of Stanley Cavell as a theorist of democratic perfectionism. By placing Cavell''s writings in conversation with political theorists on debates about the social contract, interpretive methods, democratic theory and political aesthetics, Stanley Cavell''s Democratic Perfectionism cultivates modes of responsiveness that strengthen our democratic culture and help us resist the contemporary crisis of democratic backsliding. Each chapter diagnoses a sceptical crisis in contemporary politics and a mode of responsiveness in Cavell''s thought that can respond to that crisis.