Abstract
As a variant of justificationism, constructivism in one form or another is found in both progressivists and defenders of classical liberal tenets. Adherence to explicit rationality and the “proving power of reason” characterizes views on the political right as well as left. Among the guilty are well-known defenders of one or another liberal principle(s), or theorists who “reduce” liberalism to one or another crucial principle at the expense of others. To previous criticism of the utilitarian misinterpretation of liberalism, this chapter adds discussion of libertarian views associated with followers of Mises’ praxeology as an updated form of Comtean “social physics,” views attempting to marry a “distribution principle” to liberal justice, and the inadequate “critical rationalism” approach of Popper and some followers, based upon an irrational faith in reason, or (like Feyerabend) assuming that the demise of that conception of rationality sanctions “anything goes” anarchism similar to Chomsky.
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Weimer, W.B. (2022). Constructivism Within the Liberal Tradition. In: Retrieving Liberalism from Rationalist Constructivism, Volume II. Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95477-2_7
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