Community and Loyalty in American Philosophy

Community and Loyalty in American Philosophy PDF Author: Steven A. Miller
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351336452
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
American pragmatism has always had at its heart a focus on questions of communities and ethics. This book explores the interrelated work of three thinkers influenced by the pragmatist tradition: Josiah Royce, Wilfrid Sellars, and Richard Rorty. These thinkers’ work spanned the range of twentieth-century philosophy, both historically and conceptually, but all had common concerns about how morality functions and what we can hope for in our interactions with others. Steven Miller argues that Royce, Sellars, and Rorty form a traditional line of inheritance, with the thought of each developing upon the best insights of the ones prior. Furthermore, he shows how three divergent views about the function, possibilities, and limits of moral community coalesce into a key narrative about how best we can work with and for other people, as we strive to come to think of widely different others as somehow being morally considerable as "one of us."

Community and Loyalty in American Philosophy

Community and Loyalty in American Philosophy PDF Author: Steven A. Miller
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351336452
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 176

Get Book Here

Book Description
American pragmatism has always had at its heart a focus on questions of communities and ethics. This book explores the interrelated work of three thinkers influenced by the pragmatist tradition: Josiah Royce, Wilfrid Sellars, and Richard Rorty. These thinkers’ work spanned the range of twentieth-century philosophy, both historically and conceptually, but all had common concerns about how morality functions and what we can hope for in our interactions with others. Steven Miller argues that Royce, Sellars, and Rorty form a traditional line of inheritance, with the thought of each developing upon the best insights of the ones prior. Furthermore, he shows how three divergent views about the function, possibilities, and limits of moral community coalesce into a key narrative about how best we can work with and for other people, as we strive to come to think of widely different others as somehow being morally considerable as "one of us."

Community and Loyalty in American Philosophy

Community and Loyalty in American Philosophy PDF Author: Steven A. Miller
Publisher: Routledge Studies in American Philosophy
ISBN: 9781138570238
Category : Philosophy, American
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of Abbreviations -- Introduction: 'We': The Dangerous Thing -- 1 The Sellarsian Ethical Framework -- 2 Josiah Royce's Philosophy of Loyalty -- 3 Richard Rorty's Quasi-Sellarsian We -- 4 On the Prospects of Redescribing Rorty Roycely -- Bibliography -- Index

The Philosophy of Loyalty

The Philosophy of Loyalty PDF Author: Josiah Royce
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Ethics
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description


The Soul of Classical American Philosophy

The Soul of Classical American Philosophy PDF Author: Richard P. Mullin
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791480011
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
The Soul of Classical American Philosophy is an introduction to the thought of William James, Josiah Royce, and Charles Sanders Peirce, particularly in terms of the ethical and the spiritual. Writing for the nonspecialist in a straightforward style, Richard P. Mullin brings together the central ideas of these three key figures of classical American Pragmatism and explores their engagement with issues of truth, the meaning of self, free will, moral values, community, scientific thinking, and the relationship with the transcendent. He also addresses the growing international interest in American philosophy and sheds light on a defining movement in its history.

Time, Will, and Purpose

Time, Will, and Purpose PDF Author: Randall E. Auxier
Publisher: Open Court
ISBN: 0812698533
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
Josiah Royce (1855–1916) has had a major influence on American intellectual life — both popular movements and cutting-edge thought — but his name often went unmentioned while his ideas marched forward. The leading American proponent of absolute idealism, Royce has come back into fashion in recent years. With several important new books appearing, the formation of a Josiah Royce Society, and the re-organization of the Royce papers at Harvard, the time is ripe for Time, Will, and Purpose. Randall Auxier delves into the primary texts written by Royce to retrieve the most poignant ideas, the ideas we need most in the present day, while he also offers a new framework for understanding the development of Royce’s philosophy. Auxier responds to everything that has been written about Royce, both early and recent.

Loyalty

Loyalty PDF Author: Eric Felten
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439176884
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
A witty, provocative, story-filled inquiry into the indispensable virtue of loyalty—a tricky ideal that gets tangled and compromised when loyalties collide (as they inevitably do), but a virtue the author, a prizewinning columnist for The Wall Street Journal, says is as essential as it is impossible. Felten illustrates the push and pull of loyalties— from the ancient Greeks to Facebook—with stories and scenarios in which conflicting would-be moral trump cards trap the unlucky in painful ethical dilemmas. The foundation of our greatest satisfactions in life, loyalty also proves to be the root of much misery. Can we escape the excruciating predicaments when loyalties are at loggerheads? Can we avoid betraying and being betrayed? When looking for love and friendship—the things that make life worthwhile—we are looking for loyalty. Who can we count on? And who can count on us? These are the essential (and uncomfortable) questions loyalty poses. Loyalty and betrayal are the stuff of the great stories that move us: Agamemnon, Huck Finn, Brutus, Antigone, Judas. When is loyalty right, and when does the virtue become a vice? As Felten writes in his thoughtful and entertaining book, loyalty is vexing. It forces us to choose who and what counts most in our lives—from siding with one friend over another to favoring our own children over others. It forces us to confront the conflicting claims of fidelity to country, community, company, church, and even ourselves. Loyalty demands we make decisions that define who we are.

Assholes

Assholes PDF Author: Aaron James
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385535686
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
In the spirit of the mega-selling On Bullshit, philosopher Aaron James presents a theory of the asshole that is both intellectually provocative and existentially necessary. What does it mean for someone to be an asshole? The answer is not obvious, despite the fact that we are often personally stuck dealing with people for whom there is no better name. Try as we might to avoid them, assholes are found everywhere—at work, at home, on the road, and in the public sphere. Encountering one causes great difficulty and personal strain, especially because we often cannot understand why exactly someone should be acting like that. Asshole management begins with asshole understanding. Much as Machiavelli illuminated political strategy for princes, this book finally gives us the concepts to think or say why assholes disturb us so, and explains why such people seem part of the human social condition, especially in an age of raging narcissism and unbridled capitalism. These concepts are also practically useful, as understanding the asshole we are stuck with helps us think constructively about how to handle problems he (and they are mostly all men) presents. We get a better sense of when the asshole is best resisted, and when he is best ignored—a better sense of what is, and what is not, worth fighting for.

On Loyalty

On Loyalty PDF Author: Troy A. Jollimore
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415614570
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 129

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Book Description
Loyalty is one of the most highly charged and important issues, often evoking strong feelings and actions. It is also a deceptively difficult concept to grasp. What is loyalty? Is loyalty compatible with impartiality? Are there limits to loyalty and if so, where do they lie? In aglobal era is loyalty to my country an outmoded idea? Drawing on a fascinating array of examples from Socrates' suicidal loyalty to Athens to The Remains of the Day and No Country for Old Men, Troy Jollimore expertly unravels the phenomenon of loyalty from a philosophical standpoint.

Loyalty

Loyalty PDF Author: George P. Fletcher
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198023499
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
At a time when age-old political structures are crumbling, civil strife abounds, and economic uncertainty permeates the air, loyalty offers us security in our relationships with associates, friends, and family. Yet loyalty is a suspect virtue. It is not impartial. It is not blind. It violates the principles of morality that have dominated Western thought for the last two hundred years. Loyalties are also thought to be irrational and contrary to the spirit of Capitalism. In a free market society, we are encouraged to move to the competition when we are not happy. This way of thinking has invaded our personal relationships and undermined our capacities for friendship and loyalty to those who do not serve our immediate interests. As George P. Fletcher writes, it is time for loyal bonds, born of history and experience, to prevail both over impartial morality and the self-interested thinking of the market trader. In this extended essay, George P. Fletcher offers an account of loyalty that illuminates its role in our relationships with family and friends, our ties to country, and the commitment of the religious to God and their community. Fletcher opposes the traditional view of the moral self as detached from context and history. He argues instead that loyalty, not impartial detachment, should be the central feature of our moral and political lives. Writing as a political "liberal," he claims that a commitment to country is necessary to improve the lot of the poor and disadvantaged. This commitment to country may well require greater reliance on patriotic rituals in education and a reconsideration of the Supreme Court's extending the First Amendment to protect flag burning. Given the worldwide currents of parochialism and political decentralization, the task for us, Fletcher argues, is to renew our commitment to a single nation united in its diversity. Bringing to bear his expertise as a law professor, Fletcher reasons that the legal systems should defer to existing relationships of loyalty. Familial, professional, and religious loyalties should be respected as relationships beyond the limits of the law. Thus surrogate mothers should not be forced to surrender and betray their children, spouses should not be required to testify against each other in court, parents should not be prevented from willing their property to their children, and the religiously committed should not be forced to act contrary to conscience. Yet the question remains: Aren't loyalty, and particularly patriotism, dangerously one-sided? Indeed, they are, but no more than are love and friendship. The challenge, Fletcher maintains, is to overcome the distorting effects of impartial morality and to develop a morality of loyalty properly suited to our emotional and spiritual lives. Justice has its sphere, as do loyalties. In this book, Fletcher provides the first step toward a new way of thinking that recognizes the complexity of our moral and political lives.

American Philosophy

American Philosophy PDF Author: Erin McKenna
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1441178937
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 441

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Book Description
American Philosophy offers the first historically framed introduction to the tradition of American philosophy and its contemporary engagement with the world. Born out of the social and political turmoil of the Civil War, American philosophy was a means of dealing with conflict and change. In the turbulence of the 21st century, this remains as relevant as ever. Placing the work of present-day American philosophers in the context of a history of resistance, through a philosophical tradition marked by a commitment to pluralism, fallibilism and liberation, this book tells the story of a philosophy shaped by major events that call for reflection and illustrates the ways in which philosophy is relevant to lived experience. This book presents a survey of the historical development of American philosophy, as well as coverage of key contemporary issues in America including race theory, feminism, indigenous peoples, and environmentalism and is the ideal introduction to the work of the major American thinkers, past and present, and the sheer breadth of their ideas and influence.