The ontological dimension of political theory was becoming visible again,
even though it appeared in scare quotes. You could now identify at least a four-
way debate, between Straussians, liberals, communitarians, and those called
‘‘postmodernists’’ by their adversaries. The latter term is dicey because Fou-
cault and Gilles Deleuze explicitly refused to embrace it, partly because neither
eschewed metaphysics (as postmodernists were said to do), and partly because
Foucault eventually joined Deleuze in drawing upon an ethic of cultivation
indebted to the tradition of Epicurus, Lucretius, Hume, Nietzsche, and James,
thereby dissipating the charge of amoralism generally leveled against post-
modernists. Indeed, the irony was that Rawls and Habermas were the ones
most happy to call themselves ‘‘post-metaphysical’’ during this period (Haber-
mas 1992 ; Rawls 1992 ). Others focused on the ineliminability of metaphysics
from theory, while seeking to come to terms with its contestable character in a
way hospitable to a democratic culture of deep pluralism.
Several American theorists challenged the liberal–communitarian debate,
armed in part with ammunition provided by Foucault and/or Derrida
(Bennett 1989 ; Butler 1990 ; Coles 1997 ; Connolly 1995 ; Dumm 1994 , 1996 ;
Honig 1993 ; Johnston 1999 ; Norton 1988 ). Butler and Honig made particu-
larly timely interventions. Butler’s ( 1990 ) study ofGender Troubledropped
one stick of dynamite into neo-Kantian liberalism and another into the
genital presumptions of feminism in liberalism and critical theory. Drawing
from Derrida and Foucault alike, she explored links between performance,
identity, and the politics of ontology. She pressed liberals and feminists to
look again at how established theories unconsciously marginalize gays and
lesbians. Bonnie Honig ( 1993 ) challenged Rawls and Sandel together, arguing
that Rawls failed to come to terms with ‘‘remainders’’ in his theory and
to explore injuries imposed upon minorities by a theory of justice too
conWdent of its own grounding. She contended that Sandel, though much
more conscious of the ontological dimension, failed to engage the contest-
ability of his own philosophy. That is, each theory ‘‘displaces’’ politics by
deriving it from something not to be brought into question by political
means.
During the 1980 s and 1990 s many political theorists, particularly in feminist
theory, drew sustenance from the work of Hannah Arendt. In some cases this
opened up dimensions of the Habermasian tradition (Dryzek 1994 ); in others
it created new lines of communication with the thought of Derrida and
Foucault (Benhabib 1996 ; Honig 1993 ; Kateb 1984 ; Keenan 2003 ; Villa 1996 ;
Zerilli 2005 ). Arendt challenges the Habermasian attempt to ground politics
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