In Defense of Reason

In this age of widespread ideological disenchantment, it is fashionable for political theorists to declare the demise of transhistorical “foundations” in political inquiry: to proclaim our rootedness in particular locales and to deny that it is possible to justify universal principles of political conduct. Critical reason, if not criticism itself, has been called into question, and it is widely argued that political convictions rest on little more than prejudice and power. Ian Sha...