Resistance and the Practice of Rationality

Resistance used to mean irrational and reactionary behaviour, assuming that rationality resides on the side of progress and its parties. The end of the Cold War allows us to drop ideological and prejudicial analysis. Indeed, we recognise that resistance is a historical constant, and its relation to rationality or irrationality is not predetermined.

This volume asks: to what extent are social scientific conceptions of ‘resistances’ sui generis, or borrowed from natural sciences by metaphor and analogy? To what extent do the social sciences continue to be a ‘social tribology’ lubricating a process of strategic changes?

Fifteen authors explore these questions from the point of view of different disciplines including physics, biology, social psychology, history of science, history of medicine, legal theory, political science, history, police studies, psychotherapy research and art theory.

The book offers a unique panorama of concepts of ‘resistance’ and examines the potential of a general ‘resistology’ across diverse practices of rationality.