Pragmatism and its history -- The romance of philosophy -- The pragmatic turn -- Richard Rorty: so much the worse for your old intuitions, start working up some new ones -- John Dewey's encounter with Leon Trotsky -- Democracy and pluralism -- The spectre haunting multiculturalism -- Cultural pluralism -- Charles Taylor's engaged pluralism -- Democratic hope -- The normative core of the public sphere -- Critique in dark times -- Herbert Marcuse's critical legacy -- Hannah Arendt: thought-defying evil -- The justification of violence? -- Morality, politics, and religion -- Can we justify universal moral norms? -- Is politics practicable without religion? -- The secular-religious divide: Kant's legacy -- Paul Ricoeur's Freud.
Includes bibliographical references )pages 223-227( and index.