Is The Hegemonic Theory a "Critical" Theory? Exploring the Limits of Ernesto Laclau's Political Thought

A phenomenological hermeneutical approach to Ernesto Laclau's philosophical discourse allows to put under suspicion the presumed "critical" character of his Theory of the Hegemony. This article sustains this thesis through the deconstruction of some of his fundamental conceptual polarities (decision/alterity; universality/particularity; ethics/normativity) that reveals the structural faults of Laclau's theoretical building to guarantee his own critical statute. According to this reading, the connection between "the ethical" and "the political" results problematic for a conception defined by an exclusive ontological and descriptive perspective of the political. Hence, the ethical-political question is raised as the vector of the internal fissures to the Laclau's theoretical building, exposing to the light the limits of his thought horizon.