The Rhetorical Foundations Of Society

Download or read book The Rhetorical Foundations Of Society written by Ernesto Laclau and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2014-05-20 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays collected in this volume develop the theoretical perspective initiated in Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s classic Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Central to the argument of The Rhetorical Foundations of Society is the establishment of rhetorical tropes—such as metaphor, metonymy and catachresis—as the ‘non-foundational’ grounds of society. From this basis, Laclau explores the state of social relations in today’s heterogeneous society. Employing analytical philosophy from both phenomenological and structuralist traditions, he seeks to locate an ontological terrain for interpersonal relationships. Further, he investigates the definition of social antagonism in an increasingly globalized world, where the proliferation of conflicts and points of rupture erodes crucial links between the social subjects postulated by classical social analysis.