Solidarity in the Conversation of Humankind

Solidarity in the Conversation of Humankind PDF Author: Norman Geras
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1789607132
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
What are the sources of solidarity? Do universalist motives have an important place among them? And how are they related to arguments about human nature and about truth? In this new book, Norman Geras engages with the work of Richard Rorty to explore the paradoxes of a liberalism which rejects any determinate view of human nature. He begins by examining Rorty's thesis concerning rescuer behavior during the Holocaust. Measuring it against existing research on the subject and the testimony of rescuers themselves, Geras questions Rorty's use of their moral example as a challenge to universalist assumptions. He then considers some of the problems in Rorty's anti-essentialism: his shifting usages of "human nature"; the paradoxical plea for extensive forms of solidarity on the basis of parochial communitarian premises; the relationship of pragmatist notions of truth to issues of justice; and the project of a democratic, would-be "humanist" utopia grounded only on contingencies. Solidarity in the Conversation of Humankind is an imagined dialogue with Rorty-influential, eloquent and unorthodox champion of a human radical liberalism.

Solidarity in the Conversation of Humankind

Solidarity in the Conversation of Humankind PDF Author: Norman Geras
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1789607132
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 169

Get Book Here

Book Description
What are the sources of solidarity? Do universalist motives have an important place among them? And how are they related to arguments about human nature and about truth? In this new book, Norman Geras engages with the work of Richard Rorty to explore the paradoxes of a liberalism which rejects any determinate view of human nature. He begins by examining Rorty's thesis concerning rescuer behavior during the Holocaust. Measuring it against existing research on the subject and the testimony of rescuers themselves, Geras questions Rorty's use of their moral example as a challenge to universalist assumptions. He then considers some of the problems in Rorty's anti-essentialism: his shifting usages of "human nature"; the paradoxical plea for extensive forms of solidarity on the basis of parochial communitarian premises; the relationship of pragmatist notions of truth to issues of justice; and the project of a democratic, would-be "humanist" utopia grounded only on contingencies. Solidarity in the Conversation of Humankind is an imagined dialogue with Rorty-influential, eloquent and unorthodox champion of a human radical liberalism.

Humankind

Humankind PDF Author: Timothy Morton
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1786631318
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
A radical call for solidarity between humans and non-humans What is it that makes humans human? As science and technology challenge the boundaries between life and non-life, between organic and inorganic, this ancient question is more timely than ever. Acclaimed Object-Oriented philosopher Timothy Morton invites us to consider this philosophical issue as eminently political. It is in our relationship with non-humans that we decided the fate of our humanity. Becoming human, claims Morton, actually means creating a network of kindness and solidarity with non-human beings, in the name of a broader understanding of reality that both includes and overcomes the notion of species. Negotiating the politics of humanity is the first and crucial step to reclaim the upper scales of ecological coexistence, not to let Monsanto and cryogenically suspended billionaires to define them and own them.

Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity

Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity PDF Author: Richard Rorty
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521367813
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
In this 1989 book Rorty argues that thinkers such as Nietzsche, Freud, and Wittgenstein have enabled societies to see themselves as historical contingencies, rather than as expressions of underlying, ahistorical human nature or as realizations of suprahistorical goals. This ironic perspective on the human condition is valuable on a private level, although it cannot advance the social or political goals of liberalism. In fact Rorty believes that it is literature not philosophy that can do this, by promoting a genuine sense of human solidarity. A truly liberal culture, acutely aware of its own historical contingency, would fuse the private, individual freedom of the ironic, philosophical perspective with the public project of human solidarity as it is engendered through the insights and sensibilities of great writers. The book has a characteristically wide range of reference from philosophy through social theory to literary criticism. It confirms Rorty's status as a uniquely subtle theorist, whose writing will prove absorbing to academic and nonacademic readers alike.

Design and Solidarity

Design and Solidarity PDF Author: Rafi Segal
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231555342
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
In times of crisis, mutual aid becomes paramount. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, new forms of sharing had gained momentum to redress precarity and stark economic inequality. Today, a diverse array of mutualistic organizations seek to fundamentally restructure housing, care, labor, food, and more. Yet design, art, and architecture play a key role in shaping these initiatives, fulfilling their promise of solidarity, and ensuring that these values endure. In this book, artist Marisa Morán Jahn and architect Rafi Segal converse about the transformative potential of mutualism and design with leading thinkers and practitioners: Mercedes Bidart, Arturo Escobar, Michael Hardt, Greg Lindsay, Jessica Gordon Nembhard, Ai-jen Poo, and Trebor Scholz. Together, they consider how design inspires, invigorates, and sustains contemporary forms of mutualism—including platform cooperatives, digital-first communities, emerging currencies, mutual aid, care networks, social-change movements, and more. From these dialogues emerge powerful visions of futures guided by communal self-determination and collective well-being.

Mutual Aid

Mutual Aid PDF Author: Dean Spade
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1839762128
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
Mutual aid is the radical act of caring for each other while working to change the world. Around the globe, people are faced with a spiralling succession of crises, from the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change-induced fires, floods, and storms to the ongoing horrors of mass incarceration, racist policing, brutal immigration enforcement, endemic gender violence, and severe wealth inequality. As governments fail to respond to—or actively engineer—each crisis, ordinary people are finding bold and innovative ways to share resources and support the vulnerable. Survival work, when done alongside social movement demands for transformative change, is called mutual aid. This book is about mutual aid: why it is so important, what it looks like, and how to do it. It provides a grassroots theory of mutual aid, describes how mutual aid is a crucial part of powerful movements for social justice, and offers concrete tools for organizing, such as how to work in groups, how to foster a collective decision-making process, how to prevent and address conflict, and how to deal with burnout. Writing for those new to activism as well as those who have been in social movements for a long time, Dean Spade draws on years of organizing to offer a radical vision of community mobilization, social transformation, compassionate activism, and solidarity.

Richard Rorty

Richard Rorty PDF Author: Michael Bacon
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 9780739114988
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description
Richard Rorty is both the most prominent and the most provocative recent exponent of pragmatism. This book offers a sympathetic reconstruction of Rorty's account of pragmatism, in which the aspiration to underwrite inquiry by reference to standards outside of any particular community is given up in favor of a view of inquiry as answerable exclusively to the norms implicit within contingent human practices. Rorty hopes that pragmatism so conceived can help effect a transition towards what he calls an "anti-authoritarian" society, a society in which responsibility is owed solely to one's fellow citizens. The book examines the relationship between pragmatism and political liberalism, a form of liberalism which sets aside discussion of truth and value and seeks instead to derive a constitutional settlement in which citizens can freely pursue their individual projects and purposes. It presents a critical assessment of Rorty's ideal of a liberal utopia, inhabited by strong poets and liberal ironists. By focusing on the relationship between the philosophical and political, the book argues that Rorty provides a compelling statement of pragmatism, containing insights that command the attention of contemporary liberal philosophers. Through textual analysis and reconstruction, it argues that while Rorty's account needs to be amended at several points, it remains a powerful and attractive one, and not the incoherent and pernicious folly that critics often take it to be. Well researched, lively, and succinct, Richard Rorty: Pragmatism and Political Liberalism is ideally suited to specialists and graduate students in philosophy and political theory.

Society of Fear

Society of Fear PDF Author: Heinz Bude
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 150951953X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
From the rise of terrorism to the uncertainties associated with economic crisis and recession, our age is characterized by fear. Fear is the expression of a society on unstable foundations. Most of us feel that our social status is under threat and our future prospects in jeopardy. We are overwhelmed by a sense of having been catapulted into a world to which we no longer belong. Tracing this experience of fear, Heinz Bude uncovers a society marked by disturbing uncertainty, suppressed anger and quiet resentment. This is as true in our close relationships as it is in the world of work, in how we react to politicians as much as in our attitudes towards bankers and others in the financial sector. Bude shows how this fear is not derived so much from a 'powerful other' but rather from the seemingly endless range of possibilities which we face. While this may seem to offer us greater autonomy and freedom, in reality the unknown impact and meaning of each option creates a vacuum which is filled by fear. What conditions lead people to feel anxious and fearful for themselves and others? How can individuals withstand fear and develop ways of making their fears intelligible? Probing these and other questions, Bude provides a fresh analysis of some of the most fundamental features of our societies today.

Richard Rorty

Richard Rorty PDF Author: Richard Rumana
Publisher: Rodopi
ISBN: 9789042014404
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 166

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Book Description
Demonstrating Richard Rorty's breadth of scholarship and his influence on diverse issues across the social sciences and humanities, this comprehensive bibliography contains 1,165 citations. A unique reference work on neo-pragmatism, this bibliography is essential for anyone researching Rorty's work and its impact on philosophy, literature, the arts, religion, the social sciences, politics, and education.

Conversations About Reflexivity

Conversations About Reflexivity PDF Author: Margaret S. Archer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135268606
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 598

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Book Description
" Reflexivity" is defined as the regular exercise of the mental ability, shared by all normal people, to consider themselves in relation to their (social) contexts and vice versa. In addition to this sociological interest, it allows us to hold idle or trivial internal conversations. Focussing fully on this phenomenon, this book discusses the three main questions associated with this subject in detail. Where does the ability to be "reflexive" comes from? What part do our internal reflexive deliberations play in designing the courses of action we take: subordinate to habitual action or not? Is "reflexivity" a homogeneous practice for all people and invariant over history? In addressing these questions, contributors engage critically with the most relevant studies by luminaries such as G.H Mead, C.S. Pierce, Habermas, Luhmann, Beck, Giddens and Bourdieu. Most contributors are leading Pragmatists or Critical Realists, associated with the "Reflexivity Forum" an informal, international and inter-disciplinary group. This combination of reference to influential writers of the past, and the best of modern theory has produced a fascinating book that is essential reading for all students with a serious interest in social theory or critical realism.

Humankind

Humankind PDF Author: Rutger Bregman
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316418552
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The “lively” (The New Yorker), “convincing” (Forbes), and “riveting pick-me-up we all need right now” (People) that proves humanity thrives in a crisis and that our innate kindness and cooperation have been the greatest factors in our long-term success as a species. If there is one belief that has united the left and the right, psychologists and philosophers, ancient thinkers and modern ones, it is the tacit assumption that humans are bad. It's a notion that drives newspaper headlines and guides the laws that shape our lives. From Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Pinker, the roots of this belief have sunk deep into Western thought. Human beings, we're taught, are by nature selfish and governed primarily by self-interest. But what if it isn't true? International bestseller Rutger Bregman provides new perspective on the past 200,000 years of human history, setting out to prove that we are hardwired for kindness, geared toward cooperation rather than competition, and more inclined to trust rather than distrust one another. In fact this instinct has a firm evolutionary basis going back to the beginning of Homo sapiens. From the real-life Lord of the Flies to the solidarity in the aftermath of the Blitz, the hidden flaws in the Stanford prison experiment to the true story of twin brothers on opposite sides who helped Mandela end apartheid, Bregman shows us that believing in human generosity and collaboration isn't merely optimistic—it's realistic. Moreover, it has huge implications for how society functions. When we think the worst of people, it brings out the worst in our politics and economics. But if we believe in the reality of humanity's kindness and altruism, it will form the foundation for achieving true change in society, a case that Bregman makes convincingly with his signature wit, refreshing frankness, and memorable storytelling. "The Sapiens of 2020." —The Guardian "Humankind made me see humanity from a fresh perspective." —Yuval Noah Harari, author of the #1 bestseller Sapiens Longlisted for the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction One of the Washington Post's 50 Notable Nonfiction Works in 2020