Reason, Tradition, and the Good: MacIntyre's Tradition-Constituted Reason and Frankfurt School Critical Theory [Paperback]
Jeffery L. Nicholas (Author)
Book Description
Publication Date: June 15, 2012
In Reason, Tradition, and the Good, Jeffery
L. Nicholas addresses the failure of reason in modernity to bring about
a just society, a society in which people can attain fulfillment.
Developing the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, Nicholas argues
that we rely too heavily on a conception of rationality that is divorced
from tradition and, therefore, incapable of judging ends. Without the
ability to judge ends, we cannot engage in debate about the good life or
the proper goods that we as individuals and as a society should pursue.
Nicholas
claims that the project of enlightenment—defined as the promotion of
autonomous reason—failed because it was based on a deformed notion of
reason as mere rationality, and that a critical theory of society aimed
at human emancipation must turn to substantive reason, a reason
constituted by and constitutive of tradition. To find a reason capable
of judging ends, Nicholas suggests, we must turn to Alasdair MacIntyre’s
Thomistic-Aristotelianism. Substantive reason comprises thinking and
acting on the set of standards and beliefs within a particular
tradition. It is the impossibility of enlightenment rationality to
evaluate ends and the possibility of substantive reason to evaluate ends
that makes the one unsuitable and the other suitable for a critical
theory of society. Nicholas’s compelling argument, written in accessible
language, remains committed to the promise of reason to help
individuals achieve a good and just society and a good life. This
requires, however, a complete revolution in the way we approach social
life.
“Jeffery Nicholas has written an important
and valuable book that invites its readers to discover the difficulties
of late modern Western thought from the perspective of twentieth-century
critical theory, and to consider a response to those difficulties drawn
from the work of Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor.” —Christopher Stephen Lutz, Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology
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