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International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Book | Chapter

211791

The critical force of fictive theory

Jameson, Foucault and Woolf

Jon Simons

pp. 83-102

Abstract

There is a widespread supposition that viable, oppositional or "leftist" politics requires, as Nancy Fraser says, a "critical social science that would be as total and explanatorily powerful as possible".4 Such a supposition underlies Papa's insistence that his son Omar get a good education, an education that would show him who is being 'shafted" by contemporary capitalism, an education that is underwritten (financially) by former and current international divisions of labour. It is not only Spivak who would like to occupy the space of Papa the pedagogue, for whom knowledge rather than money is the key even for Pakistani immigrants in Thatcher's "entrepreneurial society". Fraser, along with other critical social scientists and theorists, among whom I would like to include myself, would like to know clearly what is being done and to whom in this world.

Publication details

Published in:

MacKenzie Iain, O'Neill Shane (1999) Reconstituting social criticism: political morality in an age of scepticism. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.

Pages: 83-102

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-27445-1_6

Full citation:

Simons Jon (1999) „The critical force of fictive theory: Jameson, Foucault and Woolf“, In: I. Mackenzie & S. O'neill (eds.), Reconstituting social criticism, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 83–102.