Cultural Domination: Philosophical Perspectives

Cultural domination has received attention inside and outside of academia, but it remains under-explored in recent philosophical debate. To fill this gap, this book brings together ten original research contributions that engage the theme from a variety of different perspectives. They range from contributions to the philosophy of social science to advanced work in normative political philosophy. The diversity of approaches reflects the intellectual richness of the theme. Ideas of cultural domination not only raise complex conceptual and methodological questions that can challenge our understandings of domination or culture; such ideas can also play an important role both in explanations of salient social phenomena, such as social structures, and in an evaluation and critique of such phenomena. The diversity of styles of analysis, theoretical commitments, and normative frameworks across the chapters makes this book ideal for advanced undergraduate and graduate students looking for an entry point into this complex issue, as well as for scholars in philosophy, social science, and cultural studies interested in the current state of the art.

Thomas M. Besch is Luojia Professor of Philosophy at the School of Philosophy at Wuhan University, and Honorary Associate at the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry, University of Sydney. He published widely on ideas of public reason and justification, and related ideas of respect and equality, including a monograph on political liberalism, Über John Rawls’ politischen Liberalismus, and articles in journals like the Southern Journal of Philosophy, Philosophia, Social Theory and Practice, or The European Journal of Philosophy, amongst many others.

Harold Kincaid is Senior Research Scholar in the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town. He is the author, editor, or coeditor of 15 books, most recently the Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Political Science. He has published widely on topics in the philosophy of science and social and behavioral sciences in journals such as Philosophy of Science, Synthese, and Philosophy of Social Science among others.

Tarun Menon is Assistant Professor in the School of Arts and Sciences, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. His publications on the philosophy of science have appeared in journals such as Philosophy of Science and European Journal for Philosophy of Science, among others.

Raphael van Riel holds the Chair for Theoretical Philosophy at the Institute for Philosophy, University of Duisburg-Essen. He has published on a variety of topics in the philosophy of science, metaphysics, and philosophy of language in journals such as Philosophy of Science, The Journal of Philosophy, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, and Synthese.