Post-Foundational Discourse Analysis and the Impasses of Critical Inquiry

Staats- und Gesellschaftswissenschaften

Marttila, Tomas, Gengnagel, Vincent

Post-Foundational Discourse Analysis and the Impasses of Critical Inquiry

Marttila, Tomas, Gengnagel, Vincent: Post-Foundational Discourse Analysis and the Impasses of Critical Inquiry, Zeitschrift für Diskursforschung, 2015; Jg. 3 (1): 52-69 (download: https://www.beltz.de/fileadmin/beltz/downloads/OpenAccess/24201501052.pdf) .

Originalarbeiten in wissenschaftlichen Fachzeitschriften mit Review-Verfahren

Post-foundational discourse analysis (PDA), originating from the works of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, is based upon the assumption that the social meaningfulness of objects depends on their signification within a discourse. The hyperdiscursivity of any meaningful social reality implies at the same time that the practice of critique cannot be uttered from a non-discursive and epistemologically privileged standpoint. At this point, the practice of critique reaches an impasse because its own discursively contingent nature turns itself into a possible target of critique. This article elucidates the remaining critical potential of PDA against the background of its own ontological and epistemological premises. A key finding is that the political project of radical democracy, which the protagonists of PDA have promoted in the past, and which has justified and provided direction for their practices of normative critique, actually contradicts their own ontological and epistemological premises: PDA equips us with the epistemological authority required for the practice of critique only if the unmasking of discursively contingent constructions of reality includes the critique’s own discursivity.

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