Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book addresses the problem of how to understand politics as reality and ideal under the conditions of advanced modernity. It explores the social and political thought of Jrgen Habermas, Hannah Arendt and Alasdair MacIntyre. The book argues that the move to an intersubjective conception of human identity undercuts Max Weber's subjectivist account of ethics and politics. It explicates Hannah Arendt relation to Weber, her belief that modernity is characterized by world alienation' or a loss of shared culture, the result of the modern turn in upon the self. The book clarifies the ways in which Arendt's thought both challenges and yet remains caught within Weber's pessimistic worldview. It explores Alasdair MacIntyre's engagement with Weberian themes and how that engagement coincides with and differs from Habermas's and Arendt's. The book concludes with an assessment of the challenges and possibilities of political life in the present.