Ethico-Normative Dimension of Postfoundationalism in Political Theory

The article is devoted to the study of the relationship between the basic ontological assumptions of postfoundationalism in political theory and its ethico-normative implications. Postfoundationalism is increasingly being criticized because its theoretical premises of the necessary contingency of the foundations of society and the politicization of social ontology are not followed by ethico-normative principles, prescribing specific forms of politics. The author’s general argument is that the critique of postfoundationalist political theory reproduces a foundationalist approach that separates normativity from politics and attempts to construct a specific form of politics that corresponds to it. The article formulates the idea of an immanent normativity imbued with the ontological premises of postfoundationalism. The argumentation of the author’s position is carried out in three stages, which determine the structure of the article. The first part of the article discusses postfoundationalism in political theory and its ontological preconditions: the contingency of the foundations of society; the difference between politics and the political; the primacy of the political in relation to the social. In the second part, three lines of criticism of normative limitation of postfoundationalism are highlighted: normativity deficit, social null gravity, hidden normativity. The third part elaborates the idea of immanent normativity in the unity of ethical variation, hegemony, and decision. These three elements together form the ethico-political disposition of immanent normativity in postfoundationalism under the conditions of the contingent foundation of society and politics postulated by it.