Download or read book The Decline and Fall of the American Republic written by Bruce Ackerman and published by Harvard + ORM. This book was released on 2011-02-01 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Audacious . . . offers a fierce critique of democracy’s most dangerous adversary: the abuse of democratic power by democratically elected chief executives.” (Benjamin R. Barber, New York Times bestselling author of Jihad vs. McWorld ) Bruce Ackerman shows how the institutional dynamics of the last half-century have transformed the American presidency into a potential platform for political extremism and lawlessness. Watergate, Iran-Contra, and the War on Terror are only symptoms of deeper pathologies. Ackerman points to a series of developments that have previously been treated independently of one another?from the rise of presidential primaries, to the role of pollsters and media gurus, to the centralization of power in White House czars, to the politicization of the military, to the manipulation of constitutional doctrine to justify presidential power-grabs. He shows how these different transformations can interact to generate profound constitutional crises in the twenty-first century?and then proposes a series of reforms that will minimize, if not eliminate, the risks going forward. “The questions [Ackerman] raises regarding the threat of the American Executive to the republic are daunting. This fascinating book does an admirable job of laying them out.” —The Rumpus “Ackerman worries that the office of the presidency will continue to grow in political influence in the coming years, opening possibilities for abuse of power if not outright despotism.” —Boston Globe “A serious attention-getter.” —Joyce Appleby, author of The Relentless Revolution “Those who care about the future of our nation should pay careful heed to Ackerman’s warning, as well as to his prescriptions for avoiding a constitutional disaster.” —Geoffrey R. Stone, author of Perilous Times

Download or read book A Case for Irony written by Jonathan Lear and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-24 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2001, Vanity Fair declared that the Age of Irony was over. Joan Didion has lamented that the United States in the era of Barack Obama has become an "irony-free zone." Jonathan Lear in his 2006 book Radical Hope looked into America’s heart to ask how might we dispose ourselves if we came to feel our way of life was coming to an end. Here, he mobilizes a squad of philosophers and a psychoanalyst to once again forge a radical way forward, by arguing that no genuinely human life is possible without irony. Becoming human should not be taken for granted, Lear writes. It is something we accomplish, something we get the hang of, and like Kierkegaard and Plato, Lear claims that irony is one of the essential tools we use to do this. For Lear and the participants in his Socratic dialogue, irony is not about being cool and detached like a player in a Woody Allen film. That, as Johannes Climacus, one of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous authors, puts it, “is something only assistant professors assume.” Instead, it is a renewed commitment to living seriously, to experiencing every disruption that shakes us out of our habitual ways of tuning out of life, with all its vicissitudes. While many over the centuries have argued differently, Lear claims that our feelings and desires tend toward order, a structure that irony shakes us into seeing. Lear’s exchanges with his interlocutors strengthen his claims, while his experiences as a practicing psychoanalyst bring an emotionally gripping dimension to what is at stake—the psychic costs and benefits of living with irony.

Download or read book The Tanner Lectures on Human Values written by Amartya Kumar Sen and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Tanner Lectures on Human Values written by Grethe B. Peterson and published by . This book was released on 2001-06-14 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Happiness Death and the Remainder of Life written by Jonathan Lear and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2002-02-15 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Separated by millennia, Aristotle and Sigmund Freud gave us disparate but compelling pictures of the human condition. But if, with Jonathan Lear, we scrutinize these thinkers' attempts to explain human behavior in terms of a higher principle--whether happiness or death--the pictures fall apart. Aristotle attempted to ground ethical life in human striving for happiness, yet he didn't understand what happiness is any better than we do. Happiness became an enigmatic, always unattainable, means of seducing humankind into living an ethical life. Freud fared no better when he tried to ground human striving, aggression, and destructiveness in the death drive, like Aristotle attributing purpose where none exists. Neither overarching principle can guide or govern "the remainder of life," in which our inherently disruptive unconscious moves in breaks and swerves to affect who and how we are. Lear exposes this tendency to self-disruption for what it is: an opening, an opportunity for new possibilities. His insights have profound consequences not only for analysis but for our understanding of civilization and its discontent.

Download or read book The Tanner Lectures on Human Values written by McMurrin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-04-28 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A prestigious series of lectures that are international and intercultural, and transcend ethnic, national, religious, and ideological distinctions.

Download or read book Interpretation and Social Criticism written by Michael Walzer and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1987 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In succinct and engaging fashion Michael Walzer demystifies the activity of the social critic, providing a philosophical framework for understanding social criticism as social practice.

Download or read book The Practice of Value written by Joseph Raz and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Practice of Value is an exploration of a pervasive but puzzling aspect of our world: value. The starting-point is the Berkeley Tanner Lectures delivered in 2001 by the leading moral theorist Joseph Raz. His aim is to make sense of the dependence of value on social practice, without falling back on cultural relativism. The lectures are followed by discussions from three eminent philosophers, Christine Korsgaard, Robert Pippin, and Bernard Williams, and a response from. Raz. The result is a fascinating debate, accessible to readers throughout and beyond philosophy, about the relations betwee.

Download or read book The Tanner Lectures on Human Values written by Grethe B. Peterson and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ten contributions by seven lecturers grace this year's collection. Among them are Harold Bloom speaking on Shakespeare, Mairead Corrigan Maguire on peacemaking from the grassroots in ethnic conflict, Edward Said on lost causes, and Gunther Schuller on jazz. No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Download or read book The Tanner Lectures on Human Values written by Peterson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-04-28 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Tanner Lectures on Human Values is the annual publication of lectures given at various universities around the world. Established to reflect upon the scholarly and scientific learning relating to human values, the lectureships are international and intercultural, and transcend ethnic, national, religious, and ideological distinctions.

Download or read book Interpretation and Overinterpretation written by Umberto Eco and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1992-03-05 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together some of the most distinguished figures currently at work in philosophy, literary theory and criticism to debate the limits of interpretation.

Download or read book Liberty Equality and Law written by John Rawls and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Selected Tanner lectures on moral philosophy."--T.p.

Download or read book Dignity Rank and Rights written by Jeremy Waldron and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2012-11-29 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Delivered as a Tanner lecture on human values at the University of California, Berkeley, April 21, 2009 and April 22, 2009"--T.p. verso.

Download or read book Tanner Lectures on Human Values written by and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Concepts and Persons written by Michael Lambek and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Tanner Lectures are a collection of educational and scientific discussions relating to human values. Conducted by leaders in their fields, the lectures are presented at renowned institutions around the world, including the Universities of Oxford, Harvard, and Yale. In January 2019, University of Toronto's Michael Lambek, professor, former Canada Research Chair, and member of the Royal Society of Canada, delivered the Tanner Lecture at the University of Michigan's Department of Philosophy on the topic of Concepts and Persons. As well as tracing his career in social and cultural anthropology, Lambek's Tanner Lecture spoke on the intersection of anthropology and philosophy as a means of articulating the moral basis of human action. By elucidating where anthropology and philosophy might intersect, Lambek's lecture is a profound examination of the human condition, and is beautifully captured in this publication. Concepts and Persons recounts the lecture as delivered at the prestigious event, the commentary of three distinguished respondents, and Lambek's own response to that commentary. The book's presentation of the lecture also includes a rich and layered set of notes that augment the lecture significantly, as well as additional clarification and thought that has developed since the event.

Download or read book Foragers Farmers and Fossil Fuels written by Ian Morris and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-30 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The best-selling author of Why the West Rules—for Now examines the evolution and future of human values Most people in the world today think democracy and gender equality are good, and that violence and wealth inequality are bad. But most people who lived during the 10,000 years before the nineteenth century thought just the opposite. Drawing on archaeology, anthropology, biology, and history, Ian Morris explains why. Fundamental long-term changes in values, Morris argues, are driven by the most basic force of all: energy. Humans have found three main ways to get the energy they need—from foraging, farming, and fossil fuels. Each energy source sets strict limits on what kinds of societies can succeed, and each kind of society rewards specific values. But if our fossil-fuel world favors democratic, open societies, the ongoing revolution in energy capture means that our most cherished values are very likely to turn out not to be useful any more. Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels offers a compelling new argument about the evolution of human values, one that has far-reaching implications for how we understand the past—and for what might happen next. Originating as the Tanner Lectures delivered at Princeton University, the book includes challenging responses by classicist Richard Seaford, historian of China Jonathan Spence, philosopher Christine Korsgaard, and novelist Margaret Atwood.

Download or read book The Tanner Lectures on Human Values written by Sterling M. McMurrin and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: