Download or read book Fateful Shapes of Human Freedom written by Vincent Michael Colapietro and published by Vanderbilt University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John William Miller's radical revision of the idealistic tradition anticipated some of the most important developments in contemporary thought, developments often associated with thinkers like Heidegger, Benjamin, Foucault, Derrida, and Rorty. In this study, Vincent Colapietro situates Miller's powerful but neglected corpus not only in reference to Continental European philosophy but also to paradigmatic figures in American culture like Lincoln, Emerson, Thoreau, and James. The book is not simply a study of a particular philosopher or a single philosophical movement (American idealism). It is rather a philosophical confrontation with a cluster of issues in contemporary life. These issues revolve around such topics as the grounds and nature of authority, the scope and forms of agency, and the fateful significance of historical place. These issues become especially acute given Colapietro's insistence that the only warrant for our practices is to be found in these historically evolved and evolving practices themselves.
Download or read book The Active Life written by Michael J. McGandy and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ancient antagonism between the active and the contemplative lives is taken up in this innovative and wide-ranging examination of John William Miller's effort to forge a metaphysics of democracy. The Active Life sheds new light on Miller's actualist philosophy—its scope, its systematic character, and its dialectical form. Michael J. McGandy persuasively sets Miller's actualism in the context of Hannah Arendt's understanding of the active life and skillfully presents actualism as a response to Whitman's challenge to craft a democratic form of metaphysics. McGandy concludes that Miller reveals how the philosophical and the political are inextricably connected, how there is no active life without the contemplative life, and that the contemplative life is founded in the active life.
Download or read book Three American Hegels written by Ryan J. Johnson and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2024-09-03 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Three American Hegels explores Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s influence on three seminal, yet overlooked, philosophers: Henry C. Brokmeyer, Horace Williams, and John William Miller. Each of them was, in his own way, both an apprentice of Hegel and a true American original: Brokmeyer, the backwoods translator of Hegel; Williams, the mentor of Southern Hegelianism; Williams, the Hegelian teacher of democracy. Until now, their influence on the one school of philosophy that is distinctly grounded in the U.S. experience—pragmatism—has been overlooked, along with the intellectual history of how their contributions developed. Such neglect has resulted in an underestimation of the role that the theories of Hegel played in the development of American philosophy. To unearth these formative yet forgotten works and influences, Johnson explores their respective untapped archives and unearths a three-generation story of a Hegel that is thoroughly practical, concrete, and alive.
Download or read book The Cage written by David Weissman and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hume argued that is does not entail ought; that we cannot infer necessity or obligation from any description of actual states of affairs. His philosophical heirs continue to argue that nothing outside ourselves constrains us. The Cage maintains, contrary to Humean tradition, that reality is a set of nested contexts, each distinguished by intrinsic norms. Author David Weissman offers an innovative exploration of these norms intrinsic to human life, including practical affairs, morals, aesthetics, and culture. In this critical examination of character formation and the conditions for freedom, Weissman suggests that eliminating context (because of regarding it as an impediment to freedom) impoverishes character and reduces freedom. He concludes that positive freedom—the freedom to choose and to act—has no leverage apart from the contexts where character forms and circumstances provide opportunities to express one's thoughts, tastes, or talents.
Download or read book Being a Presence for Students written by Jeff Frank and published by Lever Press. This book was released on 2019-01-03 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a lived defense of liberal education. How does a college professor, on a daily basis, help students feel the value of liberal education and get the most from that education? We answer this question, as professors, each day in the classroom. John William Miller, a philosophy professor at Williams College from 1924-1960 and someone noted for his exceptional teaching, developed one form that this lived defense can take. Though Miller published very little while he was alive, the archives at Williams College hold unpublished notes and essays of this master teacher. In this book, Jeff Frank offers an extended commentary on one of these unpublished essays where Miller develops his thinking on liberal education. Frank develops the idea that presence is central to liberal education and offers suggestions for how professors can become an educative presence for students. The goal of this book is an invitation to other professors who value liberal education to think with Miller about how to develop their own lived defense of liberal education, each day, in their own classrooms. The tone of the book is meant to be invitational, at times even conversational, and the book concludes with some direct suggestions for how professors can live their own defense of liberal education.
Download or read book Richard J Bernstein and the Expansion of American Philosophy written by Marcia Morgan and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2016-12-24 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thinking The Plural: Richard J. Bernstein and the Expansion of American Philosophy is a text devoted to highlighting, scrutinizing, and deploying Bernstein’s philosophical research as it has intersected and impacted American and European philosophy. Collecting essays written explicitly for the volume from former students of Bernstein’s, the book shows the breadth and scope of his work while expanding key insights into new contexts and testing his work against thinkers outside the canon of his own scholarship. In light of urgent contemporary ethical and political problems, the papers collected here show the continuing relevance of Bernstein’s lifelong focus on democracy, dialogue, pragmatism, fallibilism, and pluralism. Bernstein has always contested the supposed Analytic/Continental divide, insisting on the pluralism of philosophical discourses and styles that contribute to genuine debate and save philosophy from stale academicism. This book enacts Bernstein’s pluralistic spirit by crossing traditions and generating new avenues for ongoing research. A central argument of the book is that thinkers of different backgrounds, using diverse, and even clashing methodologies, contribute to the understanding of a given problem, issue, or theme. This argument lies at the heart of Bernstein’s published works and is central to the fallibilistic pragmatism of his pedagogy. This book therefore does not rest on a single answer to a question or a univocal theme, but shows the differentiation of Bernstein’s scholarship through the extension of pluralism into territory Bernstein himself did not enter. The chapters, individually and collectively, demonstrate the force of Bernstein’s pluralism beyond mere commentary on his works. This book will be of interest to many people: 1) scholars, students and others in American philosophy who have worked on or with Richard J. Bernstein or in the tradition of American Pragmatism widely construed, 2) those interested in the intersections between American and European philosophy or between the Analytic and Continental traditions, 3) professional philosophers, philosophy students, and public intellectuals concerned with the application of theory to contemporary ethical and political problems, and 4) those interested in an introduction to the key concepts animating Bernstein’s work and their relationship to the history of philosophy.
Download or read book In Dewey s Wake written by William J. Gavin and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a pluralistic tapestry of approaches, eminent Dewey scholars address his pragmatic philosophy and whether it should be reinterpreted, reconfigured, or "passed-by," so as to better deal with the problems posed by the twenty-first century. For some, Dewey's contextualism remains intact, requiring more to be amended than radically changed. For others, his work needs significant revision if he is to be relevant in the new millennium. Finally, there are those who argue that we should not be so quick to pass Dewey by, for he has much to offer that has still gone unnoticed or unappreciated. This rich narrative indicates both where the context has changed and what needs to be preserved and nurtured in Dewey as we advance into the future.
Download or read book Sign Studies and Semioethics written by Susan Petrilli and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2014-10-09 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the issues surrounding the problematic perpetuation of dominant sign systems through the framework of ‘semioethics’. Semioethics is concerned with using semiotics as a powerful tool to critique the status quo and move beyond the reproduction of the dominant order of communication. The aim is to present semioethics as a method to engage semiotics in an active rethink of our ability as humans to affect change.
Download or read book The Task of Criticism written by John William Miller and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2005 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new chapter in American thought devoted to the authority of critique and the defense of democracy.
Download or read book The Philosophical Roots of the Ecological Crisis written by Joshtrom Isaac Kureethadam and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2018-06-11 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Philosophical Roots of the Ecological Crisis: Descartes and the Modern Worldview traces the conceptual sources of the present environmental degradation within the worldview of Modernity, and particularly within the thought of René Descartes, universally acclaimed as the father of modern philosophy. The book demonstrates how the triple foundations of the Modern worldview – in terms of an exaggerated anthropocentrism, a mechanistic conception of the natural world, and the metaphysical dualism between humanity and the rest of the physical world – can all be largely traced back to Cartesian thought, with direct ecological consequences.
Download or read book The Pragmatic Century written by Sheila Greeve Davaney and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pragmatic Century critically assesses the significance of American philosopher Richard J. Bernstein's intellectual contributions. Written by scholars who share with Bernstein a combined interest in the American pragmatic tradition and contemporary religious thought, the essays explore such diverse topics as Bernstein's place as an interpreter of both American and continental thought, the possibility of system building and analysis in an antimetaphysical age, the potential for theological and ethical reinterpretation in contemporary society, and much more. Included are not only responses by Bernstein to each essay, but also two new essays by Bernstein himself that orient readers to the central role pragmatism has played throughout the last century and also provide an encomium to the continuing value of democratic ideals at a time when those ideals are threatened on many different fronts.
Download or read book Foucault s Aesthetics of Existence and Shusterman s Somaesthetics written by Valentina Antoniol and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2024-07-25 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together Michel Foucault's aesthetics of existence and Richard Shusterman's somaesthetics, this volume provides a critical comparison of two of the most influential philosophical theories of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Introduced by a comprehensive overview of both concepts by editors Stefano Marino and Valentina Antoniol, the ensuing chapters interrogate the affinities and variances between Foucault's and Shusterman's philosophies. Building on the interdisciplinary character of somaesthetics and aesthetics of existence, international scholars explore these ideas through a wide range of topics ranging from care of the self and of the social self to the ethical and political challenges posed by themes as white ignorance, construction of resistances, and production of subjectivities. Given the central role played by the body in both concepts, this volume also affords particular attention to the philosophy of sexuality. Demonstrating the value of reading these two thinkers together through the adoption of radical interpretive perspectives, Foucault's Aesthetics of Existence and Shusterman's Somaesthetics highlights the potentialities and the relevance of Foucault's and Shusterman's theories, even with respect to our actualité.
Download or read book Deconstruction and Reconstruction written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-11-22 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this volume are from the Second Conference of the Central European Pragmatist Forum, held in Krakow, Poland in 2002. Written by prominent specialists in pragmatism and American philosophy from the United States and Europe, they survey contemporary thinking on classical and contemporary pragmatism, social and political theory, ethics, aesthetics, experience, knowledge, rationality, metaphysics, and the application of pragmatist thought in contemporary Europe.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Charles S Peirce written by Cornelis De Waal and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 697 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Oxford Handbook of Charles S. Peirce brings together 35 essays on the American philosopher and polymath Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) with the aim of showing how his work is still relevant today. The volume takes its cues from Peirce's work in phenomenology and normative philosophy-where the latter includes, besides aesthetics and ethics, also logic. Within the domain of logic, attention is given to his work in formal logic as well as his work in graphical or diagrammatic logic. Ample attention is given also to Peirce's pragmatism and his metaphysics. The volume further includes biographical papers as well as papers on abduction, semiotics, linguistics, physics, biology, religion, history, science, and education"--
Download or read book American Philosophy An Encyclopedia written by John Lachs and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-03-31 with total page 870 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Encyclopedia of American Philosophy provides coverage of the major figures, concepts, historical periods and traditions in American philosophical thought. Containing over 600 entries written by scholars who are experts in the field, this Encyclopedia is the first of its kind. It is a scholarly reference work that is accessible to the ordinary reader by explaining complex ideas in simple terms and providing ample cross-references to facilitate further study. The Encyclopedia of American Philosophy contains a thorough analytical index and will serve as a standard, comprehensive reference work for universities and colleges. Topics covered include: Great philosophers: Emerson, Dewey, James, Royce, Peirce, Santayana Subjects: Pragmatism, Progress, the Future, Knowledge, Democracy, Growth, Truth Influences on American Philosophy: Hegel, Aristotle, Plato, British Enlightenment, Reformation Self-Assessments: Joe Margolis, Donald Davidson, Susan Haack, Peter Hare, John McDermott, Stanley Cavell Ethics: Value, Pleasure, Happiness, Duty, Judgment, Growth Political Philosophy: Declaration of Independence, Democracy, Freedom, Liberalism, Community, Identity
Download or read book Theopoetic Folds written by Roland Faber and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2013-08-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In complex philosophical ways, theology is, should, and can be a "theopoetics" of multiplicity. The ambivalent term theopoetics is associated with poetry and aesthetic theory; theology and literature; and repressed literary qualities, myths, and metaphorical theologies. On a more profound basis, it questions the establishment of the difference between philosophy and theology and resides in the dangerous realm of relativism. The chapters in this book explore how the term theopoetics contributes to cutting-edge work in theology, philosophy, literature, and sociology.
Download or read book The Varieties of Transcendence written by Hans Joas and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2016-02-01 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Varieties of Transcendence traces American pragmatist thought on religion and its relevance for theorizing religion today. The volume establishes pragmatist concepts of religious individualization as powerful alternatives to the more common secularization discourse. In stressing the importance of Josiah Royce’s work, it emphasizes religious individualism’s compatibility with community. At the same time, by covering all of the major classical pragmatist theories of religion, it shows their kinship and common focus on the interrelation between the challenges of contingency and the semiotic significance of transcendence.
