The Rectification of (Modern) Names: Jürgen Habermas Meets Confucius—Fixing Our Broken Political Discourse
Read full paper at: http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=53924#.VNxerizQrzE Author(s) Joe Old 1 , Robert Ferrell 2 Affiliation(s) 1 English Department, El Paso Community College, El Paso, Texas, USA . 2 Philosophy Department, El Paso Community College, El Paso, Texas, USA . ABSTRACT This paper explores four concepts to point a way out of the political morass in which we find ourselves at the middle of the second decade of the 21st century: 1) The “rectification of names”, a concept of Confucius that should have the highest priority in such a situation as now prevails in the United States; 2) Carl Schmitt’s concept of “the political”; 3) A new reading of James Madison’s Federalist Paper No. 51 that envisions “creating a will in the community independent of the majority, that is of society itself”; 4) And Jürgen Habermas’s “communicative action theory”, which would serve to engender genuinely democratic d...