Hannah Arendt and the Challenge of Modernity PDF Download

Author: Serena Parekh
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135899878
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
This volume examines contemporary debates on the foundations of human rights through the lens of Arendt's writings, showing how Arendt’s phenomenological standpoint, unique within these debates, is able to shed new light a number of problems within human rights theory.

Author: Tariq Ramadan
Publisher: Kube Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 0860374394
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
Tariq Ramadan attempts to demonstrate, using sources which draw upon Islamic thought and civilization, that Muslims can respond to contemporary challenges of modernity without betraying their identity. The book argues that Muslims, nurished by their own points of reference, can approach the modern epoch by adopting a specific social, political, and economic model that is linked to ethical values, a sense of finalities and spirituality. Rather than a modernism that tends to impose Westernization, it is a modernity that admits to the pluralism of civilizations, religions, and cultures. Table of Contents: Foreword Introduction History of a Concept The Lessons of History Part 1: At the shores of Transcendence: between God and Man Part 2: The Horizons of Islam: Between Man and the Community Part 3: Values and Finalities: The Cultural Dimension of the Civilizational Face to Face Conclusion Appendix Index Tariq Ramadan is a professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford and a visiting professor in Identity and Citizenship at Erasmus University. He was named by TIME Magazine as one of the one hundred innovators of the twenty-first century

Author: Krister Dylan Knapp
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469631253
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
In this insightful new book on the remarkable William James, the American psychologist and philosopher, Krister Dylan Knapp provides the first deeply historical and acutely analytical account of James's psychical research. While showing that James always maintained a critical stance toward claims of paranormal phenomena like spiritualism, Knapp uses new sources to argue that psychical research held a strikingly central position in James's life. It was crucial to his familial and professional relationships, the fashioning of his unique intellectual disposition, and the shaping of his core doctrines, especially the will-to-believe, empiricism, fideism, and theories of the subliminal consciousness and immortality. Knapp explains how and why James found in psychical research a way to rethink the well-trodden approaches to classic Euro-American religious thought, typified by the oppositional categories of natural vs. supernatural and normal vs. paranormal. He demonstrates how James eschewed these choices and instead developed a tertiary synthesis of them, an approach Knapp terms tertium quid, the third way. Situating James's psychical research in relation to the rise of experimental psychology and Protestantism's changing place in fin de siecle America, Knapp asserts that the third way illustrated a much broader trend in transatlantic thought as it struggled to navigate the uncertainties and religious adventurism of the modern age.

Author: Bas van Bommel
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110391406
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
In scholarship, classical (Renaissance) humanism is usually strictly distinguished from 'neo-humanism', which, especially in Germany, flourished at the beginning of the 19th century. While most classical humanists focused on the practical imitation of Latin stylistic models, 'neohumanism' is commonly believed to have been mainly inspired by typically modern values, such as authenticity and historicity. Bas van Bommel shows that whereas 'neohumanism' was mainly adhered to at the German universities, at the Gymnasien a much more traditional educational ideal prevailed, which is best described as 'classical humanism.' This ideal involved the prioritisation of the Romans above the Greeks, as well as the belief that imitation of Roman and Greek models brings about man's aesthetic and moral elevation. Van Bommel makes clear that 19th century classical humanism dynamically related to modern society. On the one hand, classical humanists explained the value of classical education in typically modern terms. On the other hand, competitors of the classical Gymnasium laid claim to values that were ultimately derived from classical humanism. 19th century classical humanism should therefore not be seen as a dried-out remnant of a dying past, but as the continuation of a living tradition.

Author: Gregor Fitzi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351983555
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
The complete collected works of Georg Simmel are now available. Yet, the standing of Simmel’s sociological theory is still a subject of controversy. Is Simmel only a brilliant impressionist, a flâneur in the territories of modernity? Providing an illuminating and coherent presentation of Simmel’s sociological theory, The Challenge of Modernity seeks to demonstrate how Simmel contributed a structured sociological theory that fits the criteria of a ‘sociological grand theory’. Indeed, starting by the theory of modernity and its dimensions of social differentiation, monetarisation, culture reification and urbanisation; it reconstructs the architecture of Simmel’s sociological epistemology. Particular attention is dedicated to the theory of ‘qualitative societal differentiation’ that Simmel develops within his cultural sociology, with the late work being presented as a double contribution to the foundation of sociological anthropology and to the social ethics of complex societies. Presenting the entirety of Simmel’s manifold oeuvre from the viewpoint of its relevance for sociology, this comprehensive volume will appeal to scholars and advanced students who wish to understand Simmel’s relevance for socio-political thought and become acquainted with his contribution to sociological theory. It will also be of interest to the wider public who seek a critical assessment of our age in theoretical terms.

Author: Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad
Publisher: Rowman Altamira
ISBN: 9780759106710
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
Since Europeans first colonized Arab lands in the 19th century, they have been pressing to have the area's indigenous laws and legal systems accord with Western models. Although most Arab states now have national codes of law that reflect Western influence, fierce internal struggles continue over how to interpret Islamic law, particularly in the areas of gender and family. From different geographical and ideological points across the contemporary Arab world, Haddad and Stowasser demonstrate the range of views on just what Islam's legal heritage in the region should be. For either law or religion classes, Islamic Law and the Challenges of Modernity provides the broad historical overview and particular cases needed to understand this contentious issue. Visit our website for sample chapters!

Author: Cyrus Rohani
Publisher: Saqi Books
ISBN: 086356125X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Recent developments in the Middle East and North Africa have radically destabilised the region, which is beset with rising religious and political tensions, sectarian conflict and terrorism. Though in crisis and suffering from a paralysis of will, the region is also vastly rich in culture, and vital for the stability of the international order. There is an urgent need for an accurate understanding of these complex developments. What does the future hold for this geopolitically critical region? In this vital multidisciplinary volume, leading Middle Eastern and Western scholars present constructive, long-term solutions to endemic sociocultural, economic and political issues facing the MENA region – issues which require a fundamental transformation of the current system of values and patterns of thought. They offer expert analysis on critical facets of the region, including globalisation, the environment and sustainability, education, nonviolence, human rights, inter-religious coexistence, Islamic social principles, and Qur'anic ethics. Enriching our understanding of the contemporary affairs of the MENA region, Winds of Change is essential reading for achieving peace, socio-cultural progress and prosperity in the region.

Author: Vanessa Machado de Oliveira
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1623176255
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
A thought-provoking guide to facing global pandemics, climate change, and other modern crises with maturity, humility, and integrity—for fans of Everything Is F*cked and Against Purity This book is not easy: it contains no quick-fix plan for a better, brighter tomorrow, and gives no ready-made answers. Instead, Vanessa Machado de Oliveira presents us with a challenge: to grow up, step up, and show up for ourselves, our communities, and the living Earth, and to interrupt the modern behavior patterns that are killing the planet we’re part of. Driven by expansion, colonialism, and resource extraction and propelled by neoliberalism and rabid consumption, our world is profoundly out of balance. We take more than we give; we inoculate ourselves in positive self-regard while continuing to make harmful choices; we wreak irreparable havoc on the ecosystems, habitats, and beings with whom we share our planet. But instead of drowning in hopelessness, how can we learn to face our reality with humility and accountability? Machado de Oliveira breaks down archetypes of cognitive dissonance—the do-gooder who does “good enough,” then retreats to business as usual; the incognito capitalist who, at first glance, may seem like a radical change-maker—and asks us to dig deeper and exist differently. She explains how our habits, behaviors, and belief systems hold us back . . . and why it's time now to gradually disinvest. Including exercises used with teachers, NGO practitioners, and global changemakers, she offers us thought experiments that ask us to: • Reimagine how we learn, unlearn, and respond to crisis • Better assess our surroundings and interact with difference, uncertainty, complexity, and failure • Expand our capacity to hold personal and collective space for difficult and painful things • Understand the “5 modern-colonial e’s”: Entitlements, Exceptionalism, Exaltation, Emancipation, and Enmeshment in low-intensity struggle activism • Interrupt our satisfaction with modern-colonial desires that cause harm • Create space for change driven neither by desperate hope nor a fear of desolate hopelessness For fans of adrienne maree brown, Sherri Mitchell, and Arundhati Roy, Hospicing Modernity challenges our assumptions and dares to ask more of us, for the sake of us all.

Author: Donald Mark C. Ude
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040011403
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
This book presents an innovative African philosophical response to coloniality and the attendant epistemicide of Africa’s knowledge systems, drawing on Igbo thinking. This book argues that theorizing modernity requires a critical conversation between African and Western scholarship, in order to unpack its links with coloniality and the subjugation of Africa’s indigenous knowledges. In setting out this discussion, the book also connects with Latin American scholarship, demonstrating how the modern world is structured to marginalize and destroy knowledges from across the Global South. This book draws on Igbo epistemic resources of solidarity thinking, positioned in contrast to capitalist knowledge-patterns, thereby providing an important Africa-driven response to modernity and coloniality. This book concludes by arguing that the Igbo sense of solidarity is useful and relevant to modern contexts and thus constitutes a vital resource for a less disruptive, more balanced, and more wholesome modernity. At a time of considerable global crises, this book makes an important contribution to philosophy both within Africa and beyond.

Author: Zygmunt Bauman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745637159
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
The production of ‘human waste’ – or more precisely, wasted lives, the ‘superfluous’ populations of migrants, refugees and other outcasts – is an inevitable outcome of modernization. It is an unavoidable side-effect of economic progress and the quest for order which is characteristic of modernity. As long as large parts of the world remained wholly or partly unaffected by modernization, they were treated by modernizing societies as lands that were able to absorb the excess of population in the ‘developed countries’. Global solutions were sought, and temporarily found, to locally produced overpopulation problems. But as modernization has reached the furthest lands of the planet, ‘redundant population’ is produced everywhere and all localities have to bear the consequences of modernity’s global triumph. They are now confronted with the need to seek – in vain, it seems – local solutions to globally produced problems. The global spread of the modernity has given rise to growing quantities of human beings who are deprived of adequate means of survival, but the planet is fast running out of places to put them. Hence the new anxieties about ‘immigrants’ and ‘asylum seekers’ and the growing role played by diffuse ‘security fears’ on the contemporary political agenda. With characteristic brilliance, this new book by Zygmunt Bauman unravels the impact of this transformation on our contemporary culture and politics and shows that the problem of coping with ‘human waste’ provides a key for understanding some otherwise baffling features of our shared life, from the strategies of global domination to the most intimate aspects of human relationships.