Author: Jason Blakely Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess ISBN: 0268100675 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 136
Book Description
Today the ethical and normative concerns of everyday citizens are all too often sidelined from the study of political and social issues, driven out by an effort to create a more “scientific” study. This book offers a way for social scientists and political theorists to reintegrate the empirical and the normative, proposing a way out of the scientism that clouds our age. In Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, and the Demise of Naturalism, Jason Blakely argues that the resources for overcoming this divide are found in the respective intellectual developments of Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre. Blakely examines their often parallel intellectual journeys, which led them to critically engage the British New Left, analytic philosophy, phenomenology, continental hermeneutics, and modern social science. Although MacIntyre and Taylor are not sui generis, Blakely claims they each present a new, revived humanism, one that insists on the creative agency of the human person against reductive, instrumental, technocratic, and scientistic ways of thinking. The recovery of certain key themes in these philosophers’ works generates a new political philosophy with which to face certain unprecedented problems of our age. Taylor’s and MacIntyre’s philosophies give social scientists working in all disciplines (from economics and sociology to political science and psychology) an alternative theoretical framework for conducting research.
Author: Alasdair MacIntyre Publisher: A&C Black ISBN: 1623569818 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 361
Book Description
Highly controversial when it was first published in 1981, Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue has since established itself as a landmark work in contemporary moral philosophy. In this book, MacIntyre sought to address a crisis in moral language that he traced back to a European Enlightenment that had made the formulation of moral principles increasingly difficult. In the search for a way out of this impasse, MacIntyre returns to an earlier strand of ethical thinking, that of Aristotle, who emphasised the importance of 'virtue' to the ethical life. More than thirty years after its original publication, After Virtue remains a work that is impossible to ignore for anyone interested in our understanding of ethics and morality today.
Author: Charles Taylor Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674257049 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 628
Book Description
In this extensive inquiry into the sources of modern selfhood, Charles Taylor demonstrates just how rich and precious those resources are. The modern turn to subjectivity, with its attendant rejection of an objective order of reason, has led—it seems to many—to mere subjectivism at the mildest and to sheer nihilism at the worst. Many critics believe that the modern order has no moral backbone and has proved corrosive to all that might foster human good. Taylor rejects this view. He argues that, properly understood, our modern notion of the self provides a framework that more than compensates for the abandonment of substantive notions of rationality. The major insight of Sources of the Self is that modern subjectivity, in all its epistemological, aesthetic, and political ramifications, has its roots in ideas of human good. After first arguing that contemporary philosophers have ignored how self and good connect, the author defines the modern identity by describing its genesis. His effort to uncover and map our moral sources leads to novel interpretations of most of the figures and movements in the modern tradition. Taylor shows that the modern turn inward is not disastrous but is in fact the result of our long efforts to define and reach the good. At the heart of this definition he finds what he calls the affirmation of ordinary life, a value which has decisively if not completely replaced an older conception of reason as connected to a hierarchy based on birth and wealth. In telling the story of a revolution whose proponents have been Augustine, Montaigne, Luther, and a host of others, Taylor’s goal is in part to make sure we do not lose sight of their goal and endanger all that has been achieved. Sources of the Self provides a decisive defense of the modern order and a sharp rebuff to its critics.
Author: Jason Blakely Publisher: ISBN: 0190087374 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 185
Book Description
Over the last fifty years, pseudoscience has crept into nearly every facet of our lives. Popular sciences of everything from dating and economics, to voting and artificial intelligence, radically changed the world today. The abuse of popular scientific authority has catastrophic consequences, contributing to the 2008 financial crisis; the failure to predict the rise of Donald Trump; increased tensions between poor communities and the police; and the sidelining of nonscientific forms of knowledge and wisdom. In We Built Reality, Jason Blakely explains how recent social science theories have not simply described political realities but also helped create them. But he also offers readers a way out of the culture of scientism: hermeneutics, or the art of interpretation. Hermeneutics urges sensitivity to the historical and cultural contexts of human behavior. It gives ordinary people a way to appreciate the insights of the humanities in guiding decisions. As Blakely contends, we need insights from the humanities to see how social science theories never simply neutrally describe reality, they also help build it.
Author: Michiel Meijer Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1000210170 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 372
Book Description
This book presents a philosophical study of the idea of reenchantment and its merits in the interrelated fields of philosophical anthropology, ethics, and ontology. It features chapters from leading contributors to the debate about reenchantment, including Charles Taylor, John Cottingham, Akeel Bilgrami, and Jane Bennett. The chapters examine neglected and contested notions such as enchantment, transcendence, interpretation, attention, resonance, and the sacred or reverence-worthy—notions that are crucial to human self-understanding but have no place in a scientific worldview. They also explore the significance of adopting a reenchanting perspective for debates on major concepts such as nature, naturalism, God, ontology, and disenchantment. Taken together, they demonstrate that there is much to be gained from working with a more substantial and affirmative concept of reenchantment, understood as a fundamental existential orientation towards what is seen as meaningful and of value. The Philosophy of Reenchantment will be of interest to scholars and advanced students in philosophy—especially those working in moral philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of religion, theology, religious studies, and sociology.
Author: Joel S. Fetzer Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 0739173006 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 117
Book Description
Responding to the "Asian values" debate over the compatibility of Confucianism and liberal democracy, Confucianism, Democratization, and Human Rights in Taiwan, by Joel S. Fetzer and J. Christopher Soper, offers a rigorous, systematic investigation of the contributions of Confucian thought to democratization and the protection of women, indigenous peoples, and press freedom in Taiwan. Relying upon a unique combination of empirical analysis of public opinion surveys, legislative debates, public school textbooks, and interviews with leading Taiwanese political actors, this essential study documents the changing role of Confucianism in Taiwan's recent political history. While the ideology largely bolstered authoritarian rule in the past and played little role in Taiwan's democratization, the belief system is now in the process of transforming itself in a pro-democratic direction. In contrast to those who argue that Confucianism is inherently authoritarian, the authors contend that Confucianism is capable of multiple interpretations, including ones that legitimate democratic forms of government. At both the mass and the elite levels, Confucianism remains a powerful ideology in Taiwan despite or even because of the island's democratization. Borrowing from Max Weber's sociology of religion, the writers provide a distinctive theoretical argument for how an ideology like Confucianism can simultaneously accommodate itself to modernity and remain faithful to its core teachings as it decouples itself from the state. In doing so, Fetzer and Soper argue, Confucianism is behaving much like Catholicism, which moved from a position of ambivalence or even opposition to democracy to one of full support. The results of this study have profound implications for other Asian countries such as China and Singapore, which are also Confucian but have not yet made a full transition to democracy.
Author: Alasdair MacIntyre Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 110717645X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 337
Book Description
MacIntyre explores the philosophical, political, and moral issues encountered in understanding what the virtues require in contemporary social contexts.
Author: Ruth Abbey Publisher: Taylor & Francis ISBN: 1003830501 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 159
Book Description
Charles Taylor is one of the most influential and prolific philosophers in the English-speaking world. The breadth of his writings is unique, ranging from reflections on artificial intelligence to analyses of contemporary multicultural societies and the role of religion in modern western societies. In this thought-provoking introduction to Taylor's work, Ruth Abbey outlines his ideas in a coherent and accessible way without unduly reducing their richness and depth. Taylor's reflections on the topics of epistemology, language, moral theory, selfhood, political theory, and religion form the core six chapters within the book. Retaining the thematic approach of the first edition, this second edition has been thoroughly revised, rewritten, and restructured. An ideal companion to Taylor's ideas and arguments, Charles Taylor is essential reading for students of philosophy, religion, and political theory, and will be welcomed by the non-specialist looking for an authoritative guide to Taylor's large and challenging body of work.
Author: J. O. Urmson Publisher: Psychology Press ISBN: 0415078830 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 476
Book Description
This fully revised third edition of this Concise Encyclopedia brings it completely up-to-date. Featuring lively and engaging entries by some of the leading philosophers of our age, it is a readable reference work and engaging introduction.
Author: Jason Blakely
Author: Alasdair MacIntyre
Author: Charles Taylor
Author: Jason Blakely
Author: Michiel Meijer
Author: Joel S. Fetzer
Author: Alasdair MacIntyre
Author: Mark Bevir
Author: Ruth Abbey
Author: J. O. Urmson