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Abandoned to Ourselves

Peter A. Meyers

This book shows how the centerpiece of the Enlightenment—society as the symbol of collective human life and as the fundamental domain of human practice—was primarily composed and animated by its most ... More

This book shows how the centerpiece of the Enlightenment—society as the symbol of collective human life and as the fundamental domain of human practice—was primarily composed and animated by its most ambivalent figure: Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Displaying this new society as an evolving field of interdependence, the book traces the emergence and moral significance of dependence itself within Rousseau's encounters with a variety of discourses of order, including theology, natural philosophy, and music. Underpinning this whole scene we discover a modernizing conception of the human Will, one that runs far deeper than Rousseau's most famous trope, the “general Will.”Less

Adam Smith's Pluralism: Rationality, Education, and the Moral Sentiments

Jack Russell Weinstein

This book suggests that the foundations of liberalism can be found in the writings of Adam Smith (1723–1790), a pioneer of modern economic theory and a major figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. ... More

This book suggests that the foundations of liberalism can be found in the writings of Adam Smith (1723–1790), a pioneer of modern economic theory and a major figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. While offering an interpretive methodology for approaching Smith's two major works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations, the book argues against the libertarian interpretation of Smith, emphasizing his philosophies of education and rationality. The book also demonstrates that Smith should be recognized for a prescient theory of pluralism that prefigures current theories of cultural diversity.Less

American Democratic Socialism: History, Politics, Religion, and Theory

Gary Dorrien

The USA has a rich tradition of democratic socialism despite its long tradition of denigrating democratic socialism as un-American. The former American tradition has sought to Americanize democratic ... More

The USA has a rich tradition of democratic socialism despite its long tradition of denigrating democratic socialism as un-American. The former American tradition has sought to Americanize democratic socialism by speaking the language of individual liberty, trying to build a coalition party of the democratic left, and grappling with American racism, cultural diversity, exceptionalist mythology, and activist religion. Democratic socialists founded the nation’s first industrial unions, proposed every plank of what became the New Deal, and played leading roles in the civil rights movement. Today democratic socialists are leading the struggles for economic equality and the Green New Deal, unsettling the convention that democratic socialism is un-American.Less

Beyond the Nation-State: The Zionist Political Imagination from Pinsker to Ben-Gurion

Dmitry Shumsky

The Jewish nation-state has often been thought of as Zionism's end goal. This bracing history of the idea of the Jewish state in modern Zionism, from its beginnings in the late nineteenth century ... More

The Jewish nation-state has often been thought of as Zionism's end goal. This bracing history of the idea of the Jewish state in modern Zionism, from its beginnings in the late nineteenth century until the establishment of the state of Israel, challenges this deeply rooted assumption. In doing so, the book complicates the narrative of the Zionist quest for full sovereignty, provocatively showing how and why the leaders of the pre-state Zionist movement imagined, articulated, and promoted theories of self-determination in Palestine either as part of a multinational Ottoman state (1882–1917), or in the framework of multinational democracy. In particular, the book focuses on the writings and policies of five key Zionist leaders from the Habsburg and Russian empires in central and eastern Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: Leon Pinsker, Theodor Herzl, Ahad Ha'am, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, and David Ben-Gurion to offer a very pointed critique of Zionist historiography.Less

Breaking Democracy’s Spell

John Dunn

This book argues that democracy is not synonymous with good government. It explores the labyrinthine reality behind the basic concept of democracy, demonstrating how the political system that people ... More

This book argues that democracy is not synonymous with good government. It explores the labyrinthine reality behind the basic concept of democracy, demonstrating how the political system that people in the West generally view as straightforward and obvious is, in fact, deeply unclear and, in many cases, dysfunctional. It sketches the path by which democracy became the only form of government with moral legitimacy, analyzes the contradictions and pitfalls of democracy in modern America, and challenges the academic world to take responsibility for giving the world a more coherent understanding of this widely misrepresented political institution. Suggesting that the supposedly ideal marriage of liberal economics with liberal democracy can neither ensure its continuance nor even address the problems of contemporary life, the book shows how we came to be so gripped by democracy’s spell and why we must now learn to break it.Less

The Buddha in the Machine: Art, Technology, and the Meeting of East and West

R. John Williams

The writers and artists described in this book are joined by a desire to embrace “Eastern” aesthetics as a means of redeeming “Western” technoculture. The assumption they all share is that at the ... More

The writers and artists described in this book are joined by a desire to embrace “Eastern” aesthetics as a means of redeeming “Western” technoculture. The assumption they all share is that at the core of Western culture since at least the Enlightenment there lies an originary and all-encompassing philosophical error, manifested most immediately in the perils of modern technology—and that Asian art offers a way out of that awful matrix. That desire, this book attempts to demonstrate, has informed Anglo- and even Asian-American debates about technology and art since the late nineteenth century and continues to skew our responses to our own technocultural environment. Although the “machine” has for over a hundred years functioned as an almost religious object of enthusiasm and veneration, American art and literature have been shaped as much by resistance to technology as by submission to it—and, with startling frequency, that resistance has taken the form of an investment this book identifies as Asia-as-technê: a compelling fantasy that would posit Eastern aesthetics as both the antidote to and the perfection of machine culture.Less

The Cabala of Pegasus

Giordano Bruno

Giordano Bruno's The Cabala of Pegasus grew out of the great Italian philosopher's experiences lecturing and debating at Oxford in early 1584. Having received a cold reception there because of his ... More

Giordano Bruno's The Cabala of Pegasus grew out of the great Italian philosopher's experiences lecturing and debating at Oxford in early 1584. Having received a cold reception there because of his viewpoints, Bruno went on in the Cabala to attack the narrow-mindedness of the university—and by extension, all universities that resisted his advocacy of intellectual freethinking. The Cabala of Pegasus consists of vernacular dialogues that turn on the identification of the noble Pegasus (the spirit of poetry) and the humble ass (the vehicle of divine revelation). In the interplay of these ideas, Bruno explores the nature of poetry, divine authority, secular learning, and Pythagorean metempsychosis, which had great influence on James Joyce and many other writers and artists from the Renaissance to the modern period. This book, the first English translation of The Cabala of Pegasus, contains both the English and Italian versions as well as annotations.Less

The Case for Greatness: Honorable Ambition and Its Critics

Robert Faulkner

This book examines political ambition, good and bad, paying particular attention to honorable ambition. The book contends that too many modern accounts of leadership slight such things as ... More

This book examines political ambition, good and bad, paying particular attention to honorable ambition. The book contends that too many modern accounts of leadership slight such things as determination to excel, good judgment, justice, and a sense of honor—the very qualities that distinguish the truly great. And here it offers an attempt to recover “a reasonable understanding of excellence,” that which distinguishes a Franklin D. Roosevelt and a Lincoln from lesser leaders. The book finds the most telling diagnoses in antiquity and examines closely Aristotle's great-souled man, two accounts of the spectacular and dubious Athenian politician Alcibiades, and the life of the imperial conqueror Cyrus the Great. There results a complex and compelling picture of greatness and its problems. The book dissects military and imperial ambition, the art of leadership, and, in the later example of George Washington, ambition in the service of popular self-government. It also addresses modern indictments of even the best forms of political greatness, whether in the critical thinking of Hobbes, the idealism of Kant, the relativism and brutalism of Nietzsche, or the egalitarianism of Rawls and Arendt. It shows how modern philosophy came to doubt and indeed disdain even the best forms of ambition.Less

Cassirer's Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms: A Philosophical Commentary

Thora Bayer

This book—a commentary on Ernst Cassirer's Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms—provides an introduction to the metaphysical views that underlie the philosopher's conceptions of symbolic form and human ... More

This book—a commentary on Ernst Cassirer's Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms—provides an introduction to the metaphysical views that underlie the philosopher's conceptions of symbolic form and human culture. It focuses on the meaning of Cassirer's claim that philosophy is not itself a symbolic form but the thought around which all aspects of human activity are seen as a whole. Underlying the symbolic forms are Cassirer's two metaphysical principles, spirit (Geist) and life, which interact to produce the reality of the human world. The book shows how these two principles of Cassirer's early philosophy are connected with the phenomenology of his later philosophy, which centers on his conception of “basis phenomena”—self, will, and work.Less

Distributive Justice and Disability: Utilitarianism against Egalitarianism

Mark S. Stein

Theories of distributive justice are most severely tested in the area of disability. This book argues that utilitarianism performs better than egalitarian theories in this area: whereas ... More

Theories of distributive justice are most severely tested in the area of disability. This book argues that utilitarianism performs better than egalitarian theories in this area: whereas egalitarianism helps the disabled either too little or too much, utilitarianism achieves the proper balance by placing resources where they will do the most good. The book offers what may be the broadest critique of egalitarian theory from a utilitarian perspective. It addresses the work of egalitarian theorists John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, Amartya Sen, Bruce Ackerman, Martha Nussbaum, Norman Daniels, Philippe Van Parijs, and others. It claims that egalitarians are often driven to borrow elements of utilitarianism in order to make their theories at all plausible. The book concludes with an acknowledgment that both utilitarians and egalitarians face problems in the distribution of life-saving medical resources. It advocates a version of utilitarianism that would distribute life-saving resources based on life expectancy, not quality of life. Egalitarian theories, it argues, ignore life expectancy and so are again found wanting.Less

Edmund Husserl and Eugen Fink: Beginnings and Ends in Phenomenology, 1928-1938

Ronald Bruzina

Eugen Fink was Edmund Husserl's research assistant during the last decade of the renowned phenomenologist's life, a period in which Husserl's philosophical ideas were radically recast. This book ... More

Eugen Fink was Edmund Husserl's research assistant during the last decade of the renowned phenomenologist's life, a period in which Husserl's philosophical ideas were radically recast. This book shows that Fink was actually a collaborator with Husserl, contributing indispensable elements to their common enterprise. Drawing on hundreds of notes and drafts by Fink, it highlights the scope and depth of his theories and critiques. The book places these philosophical formulations in their historical setting, organizes them around such key themes as the world, time, life, and the concept and methodological place of the “meontic,” and demonstrates that they were a pivotal impetus for the renewing of “regress to the origins” in transcendental-constitutive phenomenology.Less

The Elusiveness of the Ordinary: Studies in the Possibility of Philosophy

Stanley Rosen

The concept of the ordinary, along with such cognates as everyday life, ordinary language, and ordinary experience, has come into special prominence in late modern philosophy. Thinkers have employed ... More

The concept of the ordinary, along with such cognates as everyday life, ordinary language, and ordinary experience, has come into special prominence in late modern philosophy. Thinkers have employed two opposing yet related responses to the notion of the ordinary: scientific and phenomenological approaches on the one hand, and on the other, more informal or even anti-scientific procedures. This book presents a comprehensive study of the main approaches to theoretical mastery of ordinary experience. It evaluates the responses of a wide range of modern and contemporary thinkers, and grapples with the peculiar problem of the ordinary—how to define it in its own terms without transforming it into a technical (and so, extraordinary) artifact. The book's approach is both historical and philosophical. It offers Montesquieu and Husserl as examples of the scientific approach to ordinary experience; contrasts Kant and Heidegger with Aristotle to illustrate the transcendental approach and its main alternatives; discusses attempts by Wittgenstein and Strauss to return to the pre-theoretical domain; and analyzes the differences among such thinkers as Moore, Austin, Grice, and Russell with respect to the analytical response to ordinary language. The book concludes with a theoretical exploration of the central problem of how to capture the elusive ordinary intact.Less

Entitlement: The Paradoxes of Property

Joseph William Singer

This book offers a new view of property and the entitlements and obligations of its owners. The book argues against the conventional understanding that owners have the right to control their property ... More

This book offers a new view of property and the entitlements and obligations of its owners. The book argues against the conventional understanding that owners have the right to control their property as they see fit, with few limitations by government. Instead, property should be understood as a mode of organizing social relations. The book focuses on the ways in which property law reflects and shapes social relationships. It contends that property is a matter not of right but of entitlement—and entitlement is a complex accommodation of mutual claims. Property requires regulation—property is a system and not just an individual entitlement, and the system must support a form of social life that spreads wealth, promotes liberty, avoids undue concentration of power, and furthers justice. The book argues that owners have not only rights but obligations as well—to other owners, to nonowners, and to the community as a whole. Those obligations ensure that property rights function to shape social relationships in ways that are both just and defensible.Less

European Intellectual History from Rousseau to Nietzsche

Frank M Turner

Richard A. Lofthouse (ed.)

One of the most distinguished cultural and intellectual historians of our time, Frank Turner taught a landmark Yale University lecture course on European intellectual history that drew scores of ... More

One of the most distinguished cultural and intellectual historians of our time, Frank Turner taught a landmark Yale University lecture course on European intellectual history that drew scores of students over many years. His lectures—lucid, accessible, beautifully written, and delivered with a notable lack of jargon—distilled modern European history from the Enlightenment to the dawn of the twentieth century and conveyed the turbulence of a rapidly changing era in European history through its ideas and leading figures. The author, one of Turner's former students, has now edited the lectures into a single volume that outlines the thoughts of a great historian on the forging of modern European ideas. Moreover, it offers a fine example of how intellectual history should be taught: rooted firmly in historical and biographical evidence.Less

Freedom and Time: A Theory of Constitutional Self-Government

Jed Rubenfeld

Should we try to “live in the present”? Such is the imperative of modernity, according to this work of political theory. Since Thomas Jefferson proclaimed that “the earth belongs to the living”—since ... More

Should we try to “live in the present”? Such is the imperative of modernity, according to this work of political theory. Since Thomas Jefferson proclaimed that “the earth belongs to the living”—since Sigmund Freud announced that mental health requires people to “get free of their past”—since Friedrich Nietzsche declared that the happy man is the man who “leaps” into “the moment”—modernity has directed its inhabitants to live in the present, as if there alone could they find happiness, authenticity, and above all freedom. But this imperative rests on a profoundly inadequate, deforming picture of the relationship between freedom and time. Instead, human freedom—human being itself—necessarily extends into both past and future; self-government consists of giving our lives meaning and purpose over time. From this conception of self-government, the book derives a new theory of constitutional law's place in democracy. Democracy, it argues, is not a matter of governance by the present “will of the people”; it is a matter of a nation's laying down and living up to enduring political and legal commitments. Constitutionalism is not counter to democracy, as many believe, or a precondition of democracy; it is or should be democracy itself—over time. On this basis, this study offers a new understanding of constitutional interpretation and of the fundamental right of privacy.Less

George Santayana: Literary Philosopher

Irving Singer

George Santayana was unique in his contributions to American culture. For almost sixty years before his death in 1952, he combined literary and philosophical talents, writing not only important works ... More

George Santayana was unique in his contributions to American culture. For almost sixty years before his death in 1952, he combined literary and philosophical talents, writing not only important works of philosophy but also a best-selling novel, volumes of poetry, and much literary criticism. This portrait of Santayana's thought and complex personality explores the full range of his harmonization of the literary and the philosophical.Less

Hegel, Idealism, and Analytic Philosophy

Tom Rockmore

This book—a large-scale survey of the complex relationship between Hegel's idealism and Anglo-American analytic philosophy—argues that analytic philosophy has consistently misread and misappropriated ... More

This book—a large-scale survey of the complex relationship between Hegel's idealism and Anglo-American analytic philosophy—argues that analytic philosophy has consistently misread and misappropriated Hegel. According to the book, the first generation of British analytic philosophers to engage Hegel possessed a limited understanding of his philosophy and of idealism. Succeeding generations continued to misinterpret him, and recent analytic thinkers have turned Hegel into a pragmatist by ignoring his idealism. The book explains why this has happened, defends Hegel's idealism, and points out the ways that Hegel is a key figure for analytic concerns, focusing in particular on the fact that he and analytic philosophers both share an interest in the problem of knowledge.Less

Heidegger's Polemos: From Being to Politics

Gregory Fried

This book offers an investigation of Martin Heidegger's understanding of politics. Disturbing issues surround Heidegger's commitment to National Socialism, his disdain for liberal democracy, and his ... More

This book offers an investigation of Martin Heidegger's understanding of politics. Disturbing issues surround Heidegger's commitment to National Socialism, his disdain for liberal democracy, and his rejection of the Enlightenment. The book confronts these issues, focusing not on the historical debate over Heidegger's personal involvement with Nazism, but on whether and how the formulation of Heidegger's ontology relates to his political thinking as expressed in his philosophical works. The inquiry begins with Heidegger's interpretation of Heraclitus, particularly the term polemos (“war,” or, in Heidegger's usage, “confrontation”). The book contends that Heidegger invests polemos with broad ontological significance and that his appropriation of the word provides important insights into major strands of his thinking—his conception of the human being, understanding of truth, and interpretation of history—as well as the meaning of the so-called turn in his thought. Although the book finds that Heidegger's politics are continuous with his thought, it also argues that Heidegger's work raises important questions about contemporary identity politics. The book also shows that many postmodernists, despite attempts to distance themselves from Heidegger, fail to avoid some of the same political pitfalls his thinking entailed.Less

Kant and Idealism

Tom Rockmore

This book examines one of the great lacunae of contemporary philosophical discussion—idealism. Addressing the widespread confusion about the meaning and use of the term, the book surveys and ... More

This book examines one of the great lacunae of contemporary philosophical discussion—idealism. Addressing the widespread confusion about the meaning and use of the term, the book surveys and classifies some of its major forms, giving particular attention to Kant. It argues that Kant provides the all-important link between three main types of idealism: those associated with Plato, the new way of ideas, and German idealism. The book also makes a case for the contemporary relevance of at least one strand in the tangled idealist web, a strand most clearly identified with Kant: constructivism. In terms of the philosophical tradition, constructivism, it offers an important approach to knowledge after the decline of metaphysical realism.Less

Knowledge of Things Human and Divine: Vico's New Science and "Finnegans Wake"

Donald Phillip Verene

This book examines in full the interconnections between Giambattista Vico's new science and James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Maintaining that Joyce is the greatest modern “interpreter” of Vico, it ... More

This book examines in full the interconnections between Giambattista Vico's new science and James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Maintaining that Joyce is the greatest modern “interpreter” of Vico, it demonstrates how images from Joyce's work offer keys to Vico's philosophy. The book presents the entire course of Vico's philosophical thought as it develops in his major works, with Joyce's words and insights serving as a guide. The book devotes a chapter to each period of Vico's thought, from his early orations on education to his anti-Cartesian metaphysics and his conception of universal law, culminating in his new science of the history of nations. The book analyzes Vico's major works, including all three editions of the New Science. The book also features a detailed chronology of the philosopher's career, historical illustrations related to his works, and an extensive bibliography of Vico scholarship and all English translations of his writings.Less