Book contents
- Theorizing World Orders
- Theorizing World Orders
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Preface
- Note on the Cover Image
- 1 Cognitive Evolution and World Ordering
- 2 Power in Communitarian Evolution
- 3 In Consideration of Evolving Matters
- 4 The Phenomenology of Cognitive Evolution
- 5 Narratives in Cognitive Evolution
- 6 Cognitive Evolution and the Social Construction of Complexity
- 7 Refugees and Their Allies as Agents of Progress
- 8 Holding the Middle Ground
- 9 Conclusion
- References
2 - Power in Communitarian Evolution
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 November 2021
- Theorizing World Orders
- Theorizing World Orders
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Preface
- Note on the Cover Image
- 1 Cognitive Evolution and World Ordering
- 2 Power in Communitarian Evolution
- 3 In Consideration of Evolving Matters
- 4 The Phenomenology of Cognitive Evolution
- 5 Narratives in Cognitive Evolution
- 6 Cognitive Evolution and the Social Construction of Complexity
- 7 Refugees and Their Allies as Agents of Progress
- 8 Holding the Middle Ground
- 9 Conclusion
- References
Summary
This chapter uses Adler’s analysis of power to unpack his political and explanatory theory by making two claims. First, Adler’s understanding of power accentuates the agentic components of power – and hence order – and downgrades the role of domination in social order. Whereas his ontology would allow for a wider conception, his communitarian political theory does not. Second, in his explanatory theory, power (as ‘epistemic practical authority’) becomes a central cause for understanding the evolution of social orders. Yet, assuming evolution to be constituted by contingent and contextual processes that remain indeterminate, epistemic practical authority cannot carry this causal weight.
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- Theorizing World OrdersCognitive Evolution and Beyond, pp. 35 - 52Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021