Abstract

MARCELO, Gonçalo. Critique of Populist Reason. Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais [online]. 2018, n.117, pp.73-88. ISSN 2182-7435.  https://doi.org/10.4000/rccs.8216.

This paper poses the question of the present state of criticism while also analyzing, in a more circumscribed manner, the specific phenomenon of “populism”. It shows the way in which populism as appeared in the public space mainly in a pejorative sense, and it suggests, along with Laclau (2005), that this phenomenon must not be rejected as such, insofar as it contains a specific rationality that is important for the democratic process but that must also be submitted to critical scrutiny. Thus, putting forward what the article calls a “critique of populist reason”, not only does it aim at reassessing what reason means today, but it also tries to distinguish the productive from the pernicious uses of populism by analyzing the narratives and values that each “populist” discourse mobilizes.

Keywords : critical theory; democracy; populism; reason; tolerance.

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