Justification and the four dimensions of power

Abstract

This article is a dialogue with Forst on the role of justification in power relations, which is theory building in its own right. The article starts with Forst’s argument that power is a cognitive event that entails reason-giving. Developing this observation, the article explores how reasoning shifts across the four dimensions of power. How different types of power situations elicit different forms of justification in order to obtain compliance from the less powerful. This gives insight into the complex relationship that reason-giving has with structure, dominant ideology, reification, paradigms, discipline, domination and empowerment.

Keywords:

• Power
• reification
• discipline
• reason
• structure

Notes

1. By subaltern I simply mean the less powerful responding other.

2. The word tends is in italics because this is a correlation, not an absolute correspondence.

3. What Hartmut Rosa means by resonance is similar to this use of the concept but different from elsewhere in this paper. I have refrained from engaging with Rosa on this subject, as my familiarity with his work on resonance is relatively limited (Rosa 2017) – I don’t read German.

4. This sociological/philosophy of science distinction is probably what Foucault meant by arguing that, following Nietzsche, he was interested in the use of truth (Foucault 1980, p. 66, 1988, p. 107).