1st Edition

Eurocentrism: a marxian critical realist critique

By Nick Hostettler Copyright 2012
    220 Pages
    by Routledge

    220 Pages
    by Routledge

    The political and social structures of modernity are dominated by really eurocentric forms and relations, yet the theorisation of the eurocentricity of modernity remains barely developed. At the same time, modern political and social theory is fundamentally eurocentric, yet the critique of eurocentrism remains marginal to marxian and critical realist theory.

    Addressing the eurocentrism of both modernity and modern theory, Eurocentrism: A Marxian Critical Realist Critique discloses the deeply embedded constraints it imposes on historical and social reflexivity.

    Building on the insights of post-structuralism and post-colonialism, Eurocentrism shows how the powerful anti-eurocentric tendencies of the marxian critique of civil society and the critical realist critique of philosophy have been misunderstood or ignored. It develops the latent potential of these traditions to develop a systematically anti-eurocentric approach to understanding and explaining modernity.

    Introduction – Eurocentrism, Capitalism and Modernity, Chapter 1 – The  emergence of ‘Eurocentrism’: Fragments and Contradictions, Chapter 2 - Anthropocentrism and Europic Universals, Chapter 3 - Marxism and the Europic Problematic, Chapter 4 - The Dual Dialectics of Europic Theory, Chapter 5 - Critique of the Eurocentrism of Civil Society, Chapter 6 - Ethical Economic Symbolic Representation: Eurocentrism and Imaginary Dialectical Universalisation, Chapter 7 – Capital: Marx’s Anti-Europic Theory of Modernity, Conclusion – Eurocentrism, capitalism and the end of modernity (and post-modernity)?

    Biography

    Nick Hostettler teaches political and social theory and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. He holds a PhD in political theory. His research to date has been concerned with the historical reflexivity of modern political and social theory and the nature of modernity.