Critical rationalism and macrosociology of globalisation

Abstract

This thesis employs Critical Rationalism—an inter-subjective theory of rationality originated in Karl Popper’s conjectural theory of knowledge— in order to develop a new macrosociology of globalisation. It describes contemporary globalisation as the formation of a liberal globality through which the centrality of the Hobbesian struggle for political power has been superseded with the Lockean competition for economic interests. But the thesis argues that liberal globalisation suffers from fundamental societal deficits due to a global organisation of people based on economic competition rather than rational dialogue and social cooperation. The central question of thesis therefore is that ‘how emerging utilitarian-based liberal globality can be transformed into a global society of free and equal citizens?’ The thesis argues that people’s potential access to critical rationality enables them to agree upon one set of globally shared values concerning the equality of people and people-centric global institutions, which are required for creating a global society of free and equal citizens. Through its macrosociological analysis the thesis addresses the question of how such a system of globally shared values can operate as the cultural driving force of a radical global institutional change from the Lockean logic of economic competition to the Kantian logic of dialogue and social cooperation. The thesis concludes that intellectuals can employ the ideal-type of an open global society of free and equal persons in order to persuade global social movements to work for realising such a fundamental global institutional change towards a just and free global society.