Summary

In this second edition, Gray argues that, whereas liberalism was the political theory of modernity, it is ill-equipped to cope with the dilemmas of the postmodern condition. Developments in philosophy have undermined the attempts of liberal theorists to give liberal institutions a universal foundation in reason, while developments in political life have overturned the Enlightenment philosophy of history on which liberal theory depends. Gray suggests that the liberal project - the project of stating universal principles which persons and communities with divergent conceptions of the good and differing views of the world can accept as framing terms of peaceful co-existence - has foundered. The task now, as Gray sees it, is to develop a pluralist political theory, in which the liberal problem of finding a modus vivendi among rival communities and world views is solved in post-liberal terms.