Abstract

This dissertation is a study of philosophical social criticism and of the dissatisfaction with the idea of the self evident in the most influential contemporary accounts of social criticism. Three themes are discussed. First, the opposition between conceptions of social criticism that emphasize connection or loyalty and those that stress distance is evaluated. It is argued that this opposition is misleading, and a distinction between internalist and externalist perspectives or styles of social criticism is proposed in its stead. All social critics, despite claims to the contrary, rely on both of these styles. Second, two currently influential critiques of the self are discussed. While the idea of the self played an important role in social criticism in the nineteenth century, philosophically minded social critics now see the critique of the self as a central element of social criticism. In place of the idea of a self unified by its projects, and capable of reflection in an inner space distinct from the outer social world, critics now propose models of a plural self, or of character. This dissertation argues that these alternatives are inadequate, and that the functions of the idea of the self as a resource and ideal of social criticism remain indispensable. Third, against contemporary critiques of the idea of the self, this dissertation seeks to rehabilitate a conception of self-cultivation or Bildung, and argues that such an ideal is better able to recognize the virtues and vices of internalist and externalist perspectives of social criticism than the available alternatives. ;These three theses are advanced through a general discussion of social criticism and then developed through a discussion of three sets of theories of social criticism: the nomadic criticism of Michel Foucault; the connected or loyal criticism of Richard Rorty and Michael Walzer; the neo-Aristotelianism of Alasdair MacIntyre. The roles performed by the idea of the self in social criticism are then discussed in a final chapter. The dissertation concludes that the idea of the self, as resource and ideal of social criticism can weather the criticisms that it faces, and is an indispensable device of social criticism