Rawls explicitly rejected Sandel’s account, which is rebutted by Samuel Freeman and by Paul Weithman, both of whom have authored books explicating and critically analyzing Rawls’s arguments (respectively, Rawls, and Why Political Liberalism? On John Rawls’s Political Turn ). However, Gališanka does not discuss criticisms of communitarians’ interpretations of A Theory of Justice. Gališanka purports to vindicate, or at least significantly support, the communitarian interpretation and critique of Rawls’s first book, A Theory of Justice (1971), offered by Michael Sandel in Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). However, the shortcomings of the last chapters of the book prevent the achievement of some of its main aims. Since he has published a book on Wittgenstein and normative inquiry, and also an article on game theory in relation to Rawls, he seems well qualified to write chapters 2, 3, and 4 (“Drawing on Logical Positivism,” “Engagement with Wittgensteinian Philosophy,” and “The Fair Games of Autonomous Persons”), which I found informative and helpful. Although Andrius Gališanka’s well-written book is interesting as a work of psychological and intellectual history based on archival research as well as speculation, and although it has considerable merits, it appears to overreach the limits of the author’s expertise.
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