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DEMOCRACY IN SPITE OF THE DEMOS : ARENDT, THE DEMOCRATIC TURN, AND CRITICAL THEORY by LARRY ALAN BUSK A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of Philosophy and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2018 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Larry Alan Busk Title: Democracy in Spite of the Demos : Arendt, the Democratic Turn, and Critical Theory This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Philosophy Department by: Dr. Rocío Zambrana Chair Dr. Colin Koopman Core Member Dr. Bonnie Mann Core Member Dr. Gabriel Rockhill Core Member Dr. Anita Chari Institutional Representative and Janet Woodruff-Borden Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded December 2018 ii © 2018 Larry Alan Busk iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Larry Alan Busk Doctor of Philosophy Department of Philosophy December 2018 Title: Democracy in Spite of the Demos : Arendt, the Democratic Turn, and Critical Theory This dissertation examines the limits of the figure of democracy as a critical category in contemporary political philosophy. I frame the analysis around a structural tension in the work of several authors who rely on democracy as a theoretical foundation, which I call “the elitist-populist ambivalence.” This theoretical tendency regards democracy as a categorical imperative—a foundational normative principle and an end in itself—but simultaneously delimits the composition of the demos by disqualifying certain political actors from the status of the political, thereby violating the parameters of a categorical imperative by specifying conditions. In other words, the democratic turn appeals to formal concepts but decides the political content in advance. It advocates democracy on its own terms, democracy in spite of the demos . But if democracy has normative purchase only under certain conditions, then our critical political theory must be based on these conditions rather than the figure of democracy. The project focuses on three main bodies of literature: the work of Hannah Arendt, the tradition of radical democracy (exemplified by Jacques Rancière, Chantal Mouffe, and Ernesto Laclau), and early Frankfurt School critical theory (Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse). Though Arendt betrays no particular attachment to the term iv “democracy,” her work is of interest to this project because it represents a stark expression of the elitist-populist ambivalence: a political ontology based on democratic iconography and a simultaneous delimitation of who should count as the demos . The discussion of Rancière, Mouffe, and Laclau explores the ways in which these figures reproduce not only Arendt’s democratic motifs but also her constitutive exclusion. Albeit with divergent political commitments, they both appeal to democracy in spite of the demos . Finally, Adorno and Marcuse provide an alternative to the categorical imperative of democracy. By critically confronting the social mediations of pervasive popular ignorance and irrationality, the early Frankfurt School displaces the normative force of the figure of democracy by a critique of the actually existing demos . This critique, I argue, allows us to steer a theoretical course between the perils of elitism and the equivocations of populism. v CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Larry Alan Busk GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene Webster University, St. Louis, Missouri DEGREES AWARDED: Doctor of Philosophy, 2018, University of Oregon Master of Arts, Philosophy, 2015, University of Oregon Bachelor of Arts, Philosophy, 2013, Webster University AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Social and Political Philosophy Continental Philosophy PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Graduate Employee, University of Oregon, 2013-2018 GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Joe Frank Jones III Graduate Student Essay Award, “Right-wing Populism and Democratic Values: A Challenge from the Frankfurt School,” Award for best graduate student paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Philosophy in the Contemporary World, 2018 Intensive Language Course Grant, DAAD, 2016 (declined) Philosophy Matters Prize, “Sleepwalker: Arendt, Thoughtlessness, and the Question of Little Eichmanns,” Award for best graduate student paper in the University of Oregon Philosophy Department, 2014 vi PUBLICATIONS: Busk, Larry Alan. “Radical Democracy with What Demos ? Mouffe and Laclau after the Rise of the Right.” Radical Philosophy Review 21, no. 2 (forthcoming October 2018). Busk, Larry Alan. “Looking Like Number Twelve: The Twilight Zone and the Culture Industry.” In The Twilight Zone and Philosophy , edited by Alexander E. Hooke and Heather Rivera. Chicago: Open Court, 2018. Busk, Larry Alan. “History as Chiasm, Chiasm as History.” Philosophy Today 62, no. 1 (2018): 285–98. Busk, Larry Alan, and Billy Dean Goehring. “Narcissus and the Transcendental: Merleau-Ponty, Deleuze, and the Challenge of Meillassoux.” Chiasmi International 19 (2017): 401–16. Busk, Larry Alan, and Elizabeth Portella. “Who Are the True Machiavellians? Althusser and Merleau-Ponty Reading The Prince.” Rethinking Marxism 29, no. 3 (2017): 405–15. Busk, Larry Alan. “Two Women in Flight in Beauvoir’s Fiction.” Southwest Philosophy Review 33, no. 1 (2017): 105–14. Busk, Larry Alan. “It’s a Good Life? Adorno and the Happiness Machine.” Constellations 23, no. 4 (2016): 523–35. Busk, Larry Alan. “ Westworld : Ideology, Simulation, Spectacle.” Mediations 30, no. 1 (2016): 25–38. Busk, Larry. “Anti-Intellectualism’s Not Dead: Romano, Lysaker, and American Philosophy.” The Pluralist 11, no. 2 (2016): 49–63. Busk, Larry. “Sleepwalker: Arendt, Thoughtlessness, and the Question of Little Eichmanns.” Social Philosophy Today 31 (2015): 53–69. Busk, Larry. “The Violence of the Political and the Politics of Violence: ‘Dirty Hands’ Reconsidered.” Sartre Studies International 21, no. 1 (2015): 53–74. Busk, Larry, and Billy Dean Goehring “What Is a Working-Class Intellectual?” Rhizomes 27 (2014). vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project benefited immensely from conversations with various friends and colleagues, especially Eli Portella and Billy Dean Goehring. I am also grateful for group discussions following presentations at several academic conferences, in particular the Critical Theory Workshop/ Atelier de théorie critique in Paris, the Critical Social Ontology Workshop in St. Louis, and the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy in Memphis. Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to my incomparably supportive and generous dissertation committee, above all Dr. Zambrana; without her tireless dedication, insight, and encouragement, this project would not have been possible. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 1 The Democratic Turn and the Categorical Imperative ............................................... 4 Democracy or Delusion? ............................................................................................ 17 II. ARENDT’S ISLAND OF FREEDOM ........................................................................ 25 A Political Ontology ................................................................................................... 25 Islands of Freedom and Seas of Necessity ................................................................. 36 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 47 III. DEMOCRACY AT ITS LIMITS—RANCIÈRE, MOUFFE, AND LACLAU ......... 52 Rancière: Democracy against Philosophy .................................................................. 53 Mouffe: Agonism without Agony .............................................................................. 65 Laclau, Laclau and Mouffe, and the Undemocratic Demos ....................................... 74 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 87 IV. FROM “FALSE DEMOCRACY” TO FALSE DEMOS ........................................... 89 Socially Necessary Delusion and the Logic of Opinion ............................................. 91 Climate Skepticism and the False Demos .................................................................. 99 Back to Ideology? ....................................................................................................... 107 V. WHAT IS ELITISM? .................................................................................................. 113 The Incompetence Principle ....................................................................................... 115 The Problem with the People ..................................................................................... 120 Elitists and Populists................................................................................................... 128 Concluding Remarks .................................................................................................. 133 REFERENCES CITED .................................................................................................... 135 ix CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This project examines the limitations of the figure of “democracy” as a critical category in contemporary political philosophy.
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