Download or read book Willful Liberalism written by Richard Flathman and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-06 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book Richard E. Flathman argues vigorously for a new understanding of the proper place of voluntarism, individuality, and plurality in the political and moral theory of liberalism. Giving close and sympathetic attention to thinkers who are seldom considered in debates about liberalism, he draws upon thinking within and outside the liberal canon to articulate a refashioned liberalism that gives a more secure prominence to plurality and a robust individuality. Flathman focuses on political philosophers whose work deals with willfulness and the will in human practice. He is concerned with the thinking of such nominalist medieval theologians as John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham; of Hobbes; and of Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, and William James. He also explores the writings of such contemporary philosophical psychologists as Brian O'Shaughnessy and, in particular, Wittgenstein, and of such twentiethcentury political theorists as Isaiah Berlin, John Rawls, Hannah Arendt, and especially Michael Oakeshott. Appropriating ideas from widely disapproved thinkers and from theological sources commonly thought to be incompatible with liberalism, he formulates what is in many ways a strongly personal statement, one that is unorthodox and potentially disturbing. Sharply controversial, Willful Liberalism is certain to enliven and invigorate political and moral debate, and it may well help to revive liberalism as the dominant public philosophy of our culture, setting it on a new and better course.
Download or read book Toward a Liberalism written by Richard Flathman and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-15 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Toward a Liberalism, Richard Flathman shows why and how political theory can contribute to the quality of moral and political practice without violating, as empiricist- and idealist-based theories tend to do, liberal commitments to individuality and plurality. Exploring the tense but inevitable relationship between liberalism and authority, he advances a theory of democratic citizenship tempered by appreciation of the ways in which citizenship is implicated with and augments authority. Flathman examines the relationship of individual rights to freedom on one hand and to authority and power on the other, rejecting the quest for a single homogenous and authoritative liberal theory.
Download or read book The Future of Liberalism written by Alan Wolfe and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-02-09 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling and deeply felt exploration and defense of liberalism: what it actually is, why it is relevant today, and how it can help our society chart a forward course. The Future of Liberalism represents the culmination of four decades of thinking and writing about contemporary politics by Alan Wolfe, one of America’s leading scholars, hailed by one critic as “one of liberalism’s last and most loyal sons.” Wolfe mines the bedrock of the liberal tradition, explaining how Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, John Dewey, and other celebrated minds helped shape liberalism’s central philosophy. Wolfe also examines those who have challenged liberalism since its inception, from Jean-Jacques Rousseau to modern conservatives, religious fundamentalists, and evolutionary theorists such as Richard Dawkins. Drawing on both the inspiration and insights of seminal works such as John Locke’s Second Treatise on Government, Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, Kant’s essay “What is Enlightenment?,” and Mill’s On Liberty and The Subjection of Women, Wolfe ambitiously sets out to define what it truly means to be a liberal. He analyzes and applauds liberalism’s capacious conception of human nature, belief that people outweigh ideology, passion for social justice, faith in reason and intellectual openness, and respect for individualism. And we see how the liberal tradition can influence and illuminate contemporary debates on immigration, abortion, executive power, religious freedom, and free speech. But Wolfe also makes it clear that before liberalism can be successfully applied to today’s problems, it needs to be recovered, understood, and embraced—not just by Americans but by all modern people—as the most beneficial way to live in our complex modern world. The Future of Liberalism is a crucial, enlightening, and immensely rewarding step in that direction.
Download or read book Liberalism as a Way of Life written by Alexandre Lefebvre and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-06-04 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why liberalism is all you need to lead a good, fun, worthy, and rewarding life—and how you can become a better and happier person by taking your liberal beliefs more seriously Where do you get your values and sensibilities from? If you grew up in a Western democracy, the answer is probably liberalism. Conservatives are right about one thing: liberalism is the ideology of our times, as omnipresent as religion once was. Yet, as Alexandre Lefebvre argues in Liberalism as a Way of Life, many of us are liberal without fully realizing it—or grasping what it means. Misled into thinking that liberalism is confined to politics, we fail to recognize that it’s the water we swim in, saturating every area of public and private life, shaping our psychological and spiritual outlooks, and influencing our moral and aesthetic values—our sense of what is right, wrong, good, bad, funny, worthwhile, and more. This eye-opening book shows how so many of us are liberal to the core, why liberalism provides the basis for a good life, and how we can make our lives better and happier by becoming more aware of, and more committed to, the beliefs we already hold. A lively, engaging, and uplifting guide to living well, the liberal way, Liberalism as a Way of Life is filled with examples from television, movies, stand-up comedy, and social media—from Parks and Recreation and The Good Place to the Borat movies and Hannah Gadsby. Along the way, you’ll also learn about seventeen benefits of being a liberal—including generosity, humor, cheer, gratitude, tolerance, and peace of mind—and practical exercises to increase these rewards. You’re probably already waist-deep in the waters of liberalism. Liberalism as a Way of Life invites you to dive in.
Download or read book Richard E Flathman written by P.E. Digeser and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-08-25 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard E. Flathman is a ground-breaking theorist of key political concepts, a fierce defender of individuality, a close and original reader of Hobbes and an advocate of a willful conception of liberalism. In this volume P E Digeser draws together some of his key works. The collection is framed by an introduction and an interview with Flathman, where he reflects on his contributions. By thinking through and with Wittgenstein’s later philosophy of language, his work clarifies and refines terms that are central to politics and to the tradition of political thought. His work also seeks to cure certain persistent muddles and confusions in our political concepts as well as create and defend a space for the opaque and opalescent features of ourselves. Flathman advances a liberalism that is more open to and celebratory of the idiosyncratic as well as to voices not ordinarily associated with the liberal tradition. The editor has focused on her work in three key areas: The first part focuses on Flathman as a theorist of meaning and presents excepts from his analyses of quality, authority, and rights; The second part focuses on his contributions to understanding the meaning and value of freedom; The final part presents selections that illustrate his conception of liberalism and individuality. Helping to highlight how the innovations in Flathman's thought have shaped the field of political theory, this collection will be of interest to students and scholars.
Download or read book The Virtues of Liberalism written by James T. Kloppenberg and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1998-08-06 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This spirited analysis--and defense--of American liberalism demonstrates the complex and rich traditions of political, economic, and social discourse that have informed American democratic culture from the seventeenth century to the present. The Virtues of Liberalism provides a convincing response to critics both right and left. Against conservatives outside the academy who oppose liberalism because they equate it with license, James T. Kloppenberg uncovers ample evidence of American republicans' and liberal democrats' commitments to ethical and religious ideals and their awareness of the difficult choices involved in promoting virtue in a culturally diverse nation. Against radical academic critics who reject liberalism because they equate it with Enlightenment reason and individual property holding, Kloppenberg shows the historical roots of American liberals' dual commitments to diversity, manifested in institutions designed to facilitate deliberative democracy, and to government regulations of property and market exchange in accordance with the public good. In contrast to prevailing tendencies to simplify and distort American liberalism, Kloppenberg shows how the multifaceted virtues of liberalism have inspired theorists and reformers from Thomas Jefferson and James Madison through Jane Addams and John Dewey to Martin Luther King, Jr., and then explains how these virtues persist in the work of some liberal democrats today. Endorsing the efforts of such neo-progressive and communitarian theorists and journalists as Michael Walzer, Jane Mansbridge, Michael Sandel, and E. J. Dionne, Kloppenberg also offers a more acute analysis of the historical development of American liberalism and of the complex reasons why it has been transformed and made more vulnerable in recent decades. An intelligent, coherent, and persuasive canvas that stretches from the Enlightenment to the American Revolution, from Tocqueville's observations to the New Deal's social programs, and from the right to worship freely to the idea of ethical responsibility, this book is a valuable contribution to historical scholarship and to contemporary political and cultural debates.
Download or read book Liberalism and Social Action written by John Dewey and published by Great Books in Philosophy. This book was released on 2000 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this, one of Dewey's most accessible works, he surveys the history of liberal thought from John Locke to John Stuart Mill, in his search to find the core of liberalism for today's world. While liberals of all stripes have held to some very basic values-liberty, individuality, and the critical use of intelligence-earlier forms of liberalism restricted the state function to protecting its citizens while allowing free reign to socioeconomic forces. But, as society matures, so must liberalism as it reaches out to redefine itself in a world where government must play a role in creating an environment in which citizens can achieve their potential. Dewey's advocacy of a positive role for government-a new liberalism-nevertheless finds him rejecting radical Marxists and fascists who would use violence and revolution rather than democratic methods to aid the citizenry.
Download or read book Skepticism Individuality and Freedom written by and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Liberalism Nationalism Citizenship written by Ronald Beiner and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Liberals believe that the purpose of politics is to guarantee that individuals do not face unfair impediments in pursuing the lives they choose for themselves. Nationalists believe that the purpose of politics is to ensure that a people's sense of authentic nationhood wins full expression in powers of collective sovereignty or self-rule. Both of these forms of political commitment yield world-transforming political philosophies, but do either of these visions do adequate justice to a philosophically robust ideal of shared citizenship and civic membership? In Liberalism, Nationalism, Citizenship, Ronald Beiner engages critically with a wide range of important political thinkers and current debates in light of the Aristotelean idea that shared citizenship is an essential human calling. Virtually every aspect of contemporary political experience - globalization, international migration, secessionist movements, the politics of multiculturalism - pose urgent challenges to modern citizenship. Beiner's work on the philosophy of citizenship is essential reading not just for students of politics and political philosophy, but for all those who rightly sense that these kinds of recent challen
Download or read book Liberalism written by Edmund Fawcett and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-09-22 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling history of liberalism from the nineteenth century to today Liberalism dominates today's politics just as it decisively shaped the American and European past. This engrossing history of liberalism—the first in English for many decades—traces liberalism’s ideals, successes, and failures through the lives and ideas of a rich cast of European and American thinkers and politicians, from the early nineteenth century to today. An enlightening account of a vulnerable but critically important political creed, Liberalism provides the vital historical and intellectual background for hard thinking about liberal democracy’s future.
Download or read book Willful Subjects written by Sara Ahmed and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2014-08-25 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Willful Subjects Sara Ahmed explores willfulness as a charge often made by some against others. One history of will is a history of attempts to eliminate willfulness from the will. Delving into philosophical and literary texts, Ahmed examines the relation between will and willfulness, ill will and good will, and the particular will and general will. Her reflections shed light on how will is embedded in a political and cultural landscape, how it is embodied, and how will and willfulness are socially mediated. Attentive to the wayward, the wandering, and the deviant, Ahmed considers how willfulness is taken up by those who have received its charge. Grounded in feminist, queer, and antiracist politics, her sui generis analysis of the willful subject, the figure who wills wrongly or wills too much, suggests that willfulness might be required to recover from the attempt at its elimination.
Download or read book Liberalism written by Marcus G. Raskin and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2004 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contrary to those who believe that liberalism has descended into the dustbins of history, renowned political activist and social critic Marcus G. Raskin argues that there is no escape from liberalism. Against the empty headed and mean spirited conservative onslaught of recent times, Raskin asserts and ably demonstrates how the liberal purpose is tied to human liberation and inclusivity for all people. For liberalism to succeed in a new century, it must reckon with its past mistakes--especially its reluctance to be bold. It must also embrace the inextricably interwoven character of morality and politics. To this end, Raskin seeks no less than a new intellectual and spiritual covenant in the university, the political economy, and foreign policy. He shows how this is possible through a radical rethinking of America's role in the world including war avoidance and economic restructuring. He probes the tensions and limits as well as the promise of community, family, and technology. He helps us to recognize the potential of a new multiculturalism within American society and the important role that knowledge workers and specialists will play as change agents in a changed world. Liberalism: The Genius of American Ideals traces Raskin's remarkable journey of the last 50 years through social and political action as well as thought. It is a book for people "in motion" who realize the importance of humane ideas in relation to action, aware that it is not only that peace should be given a chance but that our best instincts must also be engaged through the reconstruction of our institutions. In the face of a new, distinctly uncompassionate brand of conservatism that has shuttered the doors to the very real world of struggle, alienation, and pain, Liberalism is intended to hold out a candle in the window of this dark time.
Download or read book American Liberalism written by John McGowan and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2007-10-22 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Americans live in a liberal democracy. Yet, although democracy is widely touted today, liberalism is scorned by both the right and the left. The United States stands poised between its liberal democratic tradition and the illiberal alternatives of liberalism's critics. John McGowan argues that Americans should think twice before jettisoning the liberalism that guided American politics from James Madison to the New Deal and the Great Society. In an engaging and informative discussion, McGowan offers a ringing endorsement of American liberalism's basic principles, values, and commitments. He identifies five tenets of liberalism: a commitment to liberty and equality, trust in a constitutionally established rule of law, a conviction that modern societies are irreducibly plural, the promotion of a diverse civil society, and a reliance on public debate and deliberation to influence others' opinions and actions. McGowan explains how America's founders rejected the simplistic notion that government or society is necessarily oppressive. They were, however, acutely aware of the danger of tyranny. The liberalism of the founders distributed power widely in order to limit the power any one entity could exercise over others. Their aim was to provide for all an effective freedom that combined the right to self-determination with the ability to achieve one's self-chosen goals. In tracing this history, McGowan offers a clear vision of liberalism's foundational values as America's best guarantee today of liberty and the peace in which to exercise it.
Download or read book Reconceiving Liberalism written by Oren M. Levin-Waldman and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2010-11-23 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Levin-Waldman argues that if American public policy were to be evaluated against a different set of principles-ones more closely aligned with core liberal values, especially the common good-liberalism would be in greater harmony with contemporary public opinion and thought. Liberalism rests on a moral vision of what constitutes the good life and a set of principles that can measure whether public policy accords with society's underlying philosophical principles. Levin-Waldman faults modern liberalism for obscuring these principles through a misplaced reliance on neutrality. Liberalism, he contends, appears to have diverged from mainstream perceptions of traditional American values because policy is debated and formulated within the confines of this neutrality standard. Levin-Waldman develops a new methodology intended to take us away from the usual cost-benefit analysis and move us closer to assessing public policies in terms of what best serves the common good.
Download or read book Liberalism After Communism written by Jerzy Szacki and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work is the first comprehensive presentation of liberal thought in Central Europe, especially in Poland, before and after 1989. The book contains a critical analysis of the proto-liberal anti-communist democratic opposition, in particular its ideas of the autonomy of the individual and civil society, and a description of economic liberalism as an alternative liberal orientation. The author's main theme, however, is the dilemma of liberalism in a post-communist society in which it is faced with historically unprecedented challenges. In countries which have no liberal tradition or the social or economic conditions which encouraged the emergence of liberalism in the past, the classic tenets of liberalism are undergoing essential modifications. Liberalism inescapably is becoming "constructivist" and serves primarily as the justification for a remarkable kind of social engineering whose objective is the rapid building of capitalism. This book is both an important contribution to our knowledge of the post-communist world and a voice in thh discussion on the nature and future of liberalism.
Download or read book Liberalism Versus Conservatism written by François B. Gérard and published by Nova Publishers. This book was released on 2000 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everyone eschews labels yet we all seem to posses them in the minds of legions of politicians, marketers and even the ever-peering government. We are being targeted daily by flaming liberals, left-wing liberals, right-wing conservatives, compassionate conservatives, religious conservatives and liberals, pinko liberals, middle-of-the-road liberals conservatives and liberals, pinko liberals, middle-of-the-road liberals and conservatives and of course by neoconservatives and neoliberals. The search is on for kindred souls -- the types who will open their wallets to support whatever it is the hucksters are peddling. But what to these concepts mean and do their torchbearers grasp the underlying philosophies or do they care? This bibliography lists over hundreds of entries under each category which are then indexed by title an author.
Download or read book Putting Liberalism in Its Place written by Paul W. Kahn and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-10 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this wide-ranging interdisciplinary work, Paul W. Kahn argues that political order is founded not on contract but on sacrifice. Because liberalism is blind to sacrifice, it is unable to explain how the modern state has brought us to both the rule of law and the edge of nuclear annihilation. We can understand this modern condition only by recognizing that any political community, even a liberal one, is bound together by faith, love, and identity. Putting Liberalism in Its Place draws on philosophy, cultural theory, American constitutional law, religious and literary studies, and political psychology to advance political theory. It makes original contributions in all these fields. Not since Charles Taylor's The Sources of the Self has there been such an ambitious and sweeping examination of the deep structure of the modern conception of the self. Kahn shows that only when we move beyond liberalism's categories of reason and interest to a Judeo-Christian concept of love can we comprehend the modern self. Love is the foundation of a world of objective meaning, one form of which is the political community. Arguing from these insights, Kahn offers a new reading of the liberalism/communitarian debate, a genealogy of American liberalism, an exploration of the romantic and the pornographic, a new theory of the will, and a refoundation of political theory on the possibility of sacrifice. Approaching politics from the perspective of sacrifice allows us to understand the character of twentieth-century politics, which combined progress in the rule of law with massive slaughter for the state. Equally important, this work speaks to the most important political conflicts in the world today. It explains why American response to September 11 has taken the form of war, and why, for the most part, Europeans have been reluctant to follow the Americans in their pursuit of a violent, sacrificial politics. Kahn shows us that the United States has maintained a vibrant politics of modernity, while Europe is moving into a postmodern form of the political that has turned away from the idea of sacrifice. Together with its companion volume, Out of Eden, Putting Liberalism in Its Place finally answers Clifford Geertz's call for a political theology of modernity.
