The Contemporary Relevance of The Restructuring of Social and Political Theory

The paper is a transcript of the lecture delivered by Richard J. Bernstein at the University of Lower Silesia on July 17, 2016. It concerns the contemporary relevance of his book  The Restructuring of Social and Political Theory, first published in 1979 and recently published in Polish by University of Lower Silesia Press. The author has three aims. First, he wants to examine the book’s context from a historical perspective, reaching back to the French Enlightenment and considering early hopes for what the social sciences might achieve. Second, he wants to focus on the immediate context for writing the book to explain what he set out to show. Finally, he wants to demonstrate the contemporary relevance of his main theses.