Probing the Foundations of Tully's Public Philosophy

Abstract

James Tully’s Public Philosophy in a New Key is a complex intellectual edifice. Tully deftly deploys the philosophical tools forged by, among others, Wittgenstein, Arendt, Foucault, and Skinner to dismantle the architecture of modern political reason in order to build in its place a more robust structure adequate to the needs of a “de-imperialising age.” The resources he uses are unusually diverse, ranging across the whole canon of Western political thought, via historical methodology and critical philosophy, to the works of contemporary public activists. The result, to paraphrase one philosopher who is definitely not part of his synthesis, is a building for dwelling, and a dwelling for thinking.