Reflective Equilibrium and Normative Reconstruction: Recasting the Phenomenological Deficit of Critical Theory

Abstract

In this paper, which reflects an ongoing interdisciplinary research in Cognitive and Social Sciences, I recast the normative claims of a political constructivism in reflective equilibrium (Rawls) and of a formal, pragmatic reconstruction (Habermas) as instances of a weak social constructionism. I proceed thus to investigate how social, evolutionary processes, in both semantic and normative terms (Brandom), may be said to pursue universalizable, valid normative claims that could be justified from an externalist standpoint, generated through reflective equilibrium without reductionism.