From the Publisher
This study establishes Max Weber's work as a touchstone for surveying the theoretical dilemmas of the liberal democratic tradition. Through a subtle examination of Weber's status as a political thinker we are invited to consider new interpretations of later figures such as MacIntyre, Rorty, Strauss, and Habermas. Perhaps the most important contribution is Wellen's account of the tacit alternatives liberal thought has discovered in its own foundations practical implications.
Wellen's study carefully examines the Weberian problem in liberal theory with judicious comparisons in the responses of Rorty, MacIntyre, Rawls, and Parsons. Two excellent chapters on Habermas and Schmitt complete this timely study of the crisis of liberal theory. and John O'Neill, Distinguished Research Professor of Sociology, York University
Richard Wellen has written a solid, well-informed book that offers a sustained theoretical dialogue between the leading social scientist of the twentieth century, namely Max Weber, and four very important and influential contemporary political philosophers MacIntyre, Habermas, Strauss, and Rorty. Ronald Beiner, University of Toronto
