Abstract

J. G. Merquior is a moderate democrat and a moderate empiricist. As a democrat, he holds that political authority is legitimate only when it is controlled by widespread and egalitarian political participation; but such participation must not be allowed to obstruct individual freedom. As an empiricist, he holds that the business of the social scientist is to develop causal explanations and not only to interpret cultural significance; but such explanations must not be expressed as deductions from universal laws. In this book, a "slightly different version" of a London School thesis written under Ernest Gellner, Merquior attempts to show that Rousseau and Weber, properly read, both support, or at any rate do not oppose, his own political and methodological preferences.