Richard J. Bernstein 
The New Constellation 
The Ethical-Political Horizons of Modernity / Postmodernity

In this major new work, Bernstein explores the ethical and
political dimensions of the modernity/post-modernity debate.

Bernstein argues that modernity / post-modernity should be
understood as a kind of mood – one which is amorphous, shifting and
protean but which exerts a powerful influence on our current
thinking. Focusing on thinkers such as Heidegger, Derrida,
Foucault, Habermas and Rorty, Bernstein probes the strengths and
weaknesses of their work, and shows how they have contributed to
the formation of a new mood, a new and distinctive constellation of
ideas.

This new constellation has put ethical and political issues back
on the philosophical agenda, forcing us to confront anew, the
Socratic question ‘How should I live?’

Table of Content

Preface.

1. Philosophy, History and Critique.

2. The Rage Against Reason.

3. Incommensurability and Otherness Revisited.

4. Heidegger’s Silence?: Ethos and Technology.

5. Foucault Critique as a Philosophic Ethos.

6. Serious Play: The Ethical-Political Horizon of Derrida.

7. An Allegory of Modernity/Postmodernity: Habermas and
Derrida.

8. One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward: Rorty on Liberal
Democracy.

9. Rorty’s Liberal Utopia.

10. Reconciliation/Rupture Appendix: Pragmatism, Pluralism, and
the Healing of Wounds.

Index.

About the author

Richard J. Bernstein is Vera List Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York.