Abstract

This dissertation concerns the problem of locatedness in the context of critical social theory. The first chapter concerns the debate between Jurgen Habermas and Hans-Georg Gadamer, in which Gadamer argues that we are always already rooted in tradition; and Habermas responds that the critique of ideology requires us to step outside the received tradition in order to examine it. Drawing on Lukacs' History and Class Consciousness, I suggest that there is a third position: that critique of ideology is indeed a coherent notion; and that it does not involve viewing tradition from outside. Rather, it involves the articulation of one's location, and the redemption of one's perspective, which has been obscured or distorted. ;In the second and third chapters, I look at recent social theory written by Latin Americans, which addresses the actual material and political situation of Latin America at this juncture in its history. ;The second chapter discusses certain materials written in Latin America over the last two years concerning the concepts of development, neo-colonialism, and the relation between the First World and the Third World. In the third chapter I look at recent writings by Mayan political theorists concerning identity, cultural perspective, and the interpretation of history. I discuss both bodies of literature within the framework of the critique of ideology and of domination. ;In the fourth chapter I discuss the notion of the "nonperson" and the process of dehumanization, which are two of the central themes in Chapters Two and Three. Using Lyotard's notion of the differend, I argue that the critique of ideology involves a conflict between incommensurable frames of discourse. I suggest that the critique of ideology, which is informed by an interest in emancipation, involves the forcible assertion of one's own subjective life in the realm of public discourse. I discuss Arendt's view of the relation between discourse and the question of who is deemed to be included within the human community. I also discuss the notions of naming and bearing witness, as the means for thematizing the process of dehumanization. ;In the last chapter I consider the moral and critical implications of the Latin American leftist thought described in Chapters Two and Three. I sketch out a model for a theory of justice which is Marxist in origin, but which also explicitly addresses the problems of location and perspective raised by the Latin Americans