Twentieth century

1945–2000

Cees Maris

Frans Jacobs

pp. 311-352

in: Cees Maris, Frans Jacobs (eds), Law, order and freedom, Berlin, Springer, 2012

Abstract

In Chapter 9, a great variety of philosophical movements of the second half of the 20th century is discussed, including communitarianism, the philosophy of ordinary language, postmodernism, Critical Theory, neo-Aristotelian natural law and deconstruction. Philosophers such as MacIntyre, Wittgenstein, Lyotard, Habermas, Apel, Nussbaum and Derrida are placed on stage. These philosophers all continue to concern themselves with the ideals of the Enlightenment, either with their further elaboration, their rejection, or their so-called "displacement". The continuing debates about the Enlightenment ideals are set within the aftermath of the Second World War, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the decolonisation process, the Cold War, the growth in Asian economies, the eventual demise of communism, as well as increasing contact between different cultures. These historical developments provide the setting for one of the central issues to be discussed in this chapter, that is, whether cultural (and individual) pluralism inevitably leads to relativism or whether the Enlightenment ideals and liberal human rights have a universal import.

Cited authors

Derrida Jacques

Aristoteles

Wittgenstein Ludwig

Habermas Jürgen

Lyotard Jean-François