The Future of Critical Philosophy and World Politics

This paper considers the legacy of Derrida’s thought in the context ofthe future challenge of contemporary politics: the construction ofworld polity. It rehearses, first, the steps of the recent ‘reconciliation’between Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, and suggests, fromout of the terms of this reconciliation, that the deconstruction ofreason has been caught out by the contemporary movements ofirrationalism. It then deepens this historical viewpoint by giving aneo-Marxist account of modern history in economic and politicalterms and by setting up from out of this history the continuingproblematic of modernity above and beyond recent distinctionsbetween the modern and the postmodern. The third section of thepaper returns to Derrida’s late work on world democracy, underlinesits critical rigour with regard to modernity, the dilemma of law andworld sovereignty, and shows how this rigor can be considered toaddress critically our future political challenge. The fourth sectionthen contends that the way in which Derridean thought disposesitself to the real but nevertheless occludes concerted development ofour historical actuality and, in this sense, falls short of the critical. Iconclude, accordingly, by arguing for a renewed engagementbetween critical philosophy and social science, with a focus on thepromotion of international institutions and strong interdisciplinarywork between international relations, international economics, andpolitical philosophy