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Author: David Roochnik
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000448533
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 196
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Book Description
First Published in 1991. This book attempts to defend a conception of reason—or to use the Greek word "logos"—that I contend can be extracted from the dialogues of Plato. The very notion of defending Plato may seem strange. Why would a philosopher enshrined for centuries as "classic" need a defense? A defense against whom and what charge? What does it mean to defend an author so long dead? Can he somehow be revived? In other words, what significance can a defense of Plato possibly attain for a contemporary audience?
Author: David Roochnik
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000448533
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 196
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Book Description
First Published in 1991. This book attempts to defend a conception of reason—or to use the Greek word "logos"—that I contend can be extracted from the dialogues of Plato. The very notion of defending Plato may seem strange. Why would a philosopher enshrined for centuries as "classic" need a defense? A defense against whom and what charge? What does it mean to defend an author so long dead? Can he somehow be revived? In other words, what significance can a defense of Plato possibly attain for a contemporary audience?
Author: David Roochnik
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100036285X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 216
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Book Description
The classical conception of reason (or logos) has been repeatedly attacked in the modern era. Its enemies range from Descartes, who complains that logos is not sufficiently useful or precise, to Derrida who hopes to liberate Western thought from its bondage to "logocentrism." At least since the time of Nietzsche, Plato has been damned as the chief architect of the classical conception of logos. He is accused of overvaluing reason and thereby devaluing the other, more human aspects of life. As it was originally formulated in Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy, Plato has been taken to be the arch-enemy of tragedy, which for Nietzsche was the most life-affirming of all the art forms of Greek culture. Originally published in 1990, The Tragedy of Reason defends Plato against his accusers. Employing a mode of exposition which exhibits Plato’s position, Roochnik presents the Platonic conception of logos in confrontation with texts by Homer, Hesiod, Heraclitus, Aristotle, Descartes, Porty, and Derrida. In clear language, unencumbered by technical terminology, Roochnik shows that Platonic conception of logos is keenly aware of the strength of its opponents. The result is a presentation of Plato as a "tragic philosopher" whose conception of logos is characterized by an affirmation of its own limits as well as its goodness.
Author: Stanley Cavell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190284935
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 544
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Book Description
The first three parts of this book deal with the tension between ordinary language philosophy (as envisioned in the writings of J.L. Austin and the later Wittgenstein) and the 'tradition.' In the fourth part the author explores the problem of skepticism and takes a broad view of its consequences.
Author: George W. Harris
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139457136
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 9
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Book Description
Reason's Grief takes W. B. Yeats's comment that we begin to live only when we have conceived life as tragedy as a call for a tragic ethics, something the modern West has yet to produce. Harris argues that we must turn away from religious understandings of tragedy and the human condition and realize that our species will occupy a very brief period of history, at some point to disappear without a trace. We must accept an ethical perspective that avoids pernicious fantasies about ultimate redemption but that sees tragic loss as a permanent and pervasive aspect of our daily lives, yet finds a way to think, feel and act with both passion and hope. Reason's Grief takes us back through the history of our thinking about value to find our way. The call is for nothing less than a paradigm shift for understanding both tragedy and ethics.
Author: David Roochnik
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271041420
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 318
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Book Description
A comprehensive discussion of Plato's treatment of techne (technical knowledge), which shows that the final goal of Platonic philosophy is nontechnical wisdom. The Greek word &"techne,&" typically translated as &"art,&" but also as &"craft,&" &"skill,&" &"expertise,&" &"technical knowledge,&" and even &"science,&" has been decisive in shaping our &"technological&" culture. Here David Roochnik comprehensively analyzes Plato's treatment of this crucial word. Roochnik maintains that Plato's understanding of both the goodness of techne, as well as its severe limitations and consequent need to be supplemented by &"nontechnical&" wisdom, can speak directly to our own concerns about the troubling impact technology has had on contemporary life. For most commentators, techne functions as a positive, theoretical model through which Plato attempts to articulate the nature of moral knowledge. Scholars such as Terence Irwin and Martha Nussbaum argue that Plato&’s version of moral knowledge is structurally similar to techne. In arguing thus, they attribute to Plato what Nietzsche called &"theoretical optimism,&" the view that technical knowledge can become an efficient panacea for the dilemmas and painful contingencies of human life. Conventional wisdom has it, in short, that for Plato technical, moral knowledge can solve life's problems. By systematically analyzing Socrates&’ analogical arguments, Roochnik shows the weakness of the conventional view. The basic pattern of these arguments is this: if moral knowledge is analogous to techne, then insurmountable difficulties arise, and moral knowledge becomes impossible. Since moral knowledge is not impossible, it cannot be analogous to techne. In other words, the purpose of Socrates' analogical arguments is to reveal the limitations of techne as a model for the wisdom Socrates so ardently seeks. For all the reasons Plato is so careful to present in his dialogues, wisdom cannot be rendered technical; it cannot become techne. Thus, Roochnik concludes, Plato wrote dialogues instead of technical treatises, as they are the appropriate vehicle for his expression of nontechnical wisdom.
Author: Christopher Spriggs
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 178372496X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 191
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Book Description
Rich with insights and inspiration, personal discoveries and unforgettable encounters, The Reason I Run is an astonishing story that will make you laugh, weep and wonder. Join Chris on an incredible journey that will stay with you for the rest of your life.
Author: Joshua Billings
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691176361
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 279
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Book Description
Why did Greek tragedy and "the tragic" come to be seen as essential to conceptions of modernity? And how has this belief affected modern understandings of Greek drama? In Genealogy of the Tragic, Joshua Billings answers these and related questions by tracing the emergence of the modern theory of the tragic, which was first developed around 1800 by thinkers associated with German Idealism. The book argues that the idea of the tragic arose in response to a new consciousness of history in the late eighteenth century, which spurred theorists to see Greek tragedy as both a unique, historically remote form and a timeless literary genre full of meaning for the present. The book offers a new interpretation of the theories of Schiller, Schelling, Hegel, Hölderlin, and others, as mediations between these historicizing and universalizing impulses, and shows the roots of their approaches in earlier discussions of Greek tragedy in Germany, France, and England. By examining eighteenth-century readings of tragedy and the interactions between idealist thinkers in detail, Genealogy of the Tragic offers the most comprehensive historical account of the tragic to date, as well as the fullest explanation of why and how the idea was used to make sense of modernity. The book argues that idealist theories remain fundamental to contemporary interpretations of Greek tragedy, and calls for a renewed engagement with philosophical questions in criticism of tragedy.
Author: Steven S. Schwarzschild
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438468377
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 337
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Book Description
Steven S. Schwarzschild (1924–1989) was arguably the leading expositor of German-Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen (1842–1918), undertaking a lifelong effort to reintroduce Cohen's thought into contemporary philosophical discourse. In The Tragedy of Optimism, George Y. Kohler brings together all of Schwarzschild's work on Cohen for the first time. Schwarzschild's readings of Cohen are unique and profound; he was conversant with both worlds that shaped Cohen's thought, neo-Kantian German idealism and Jewish theology. The collection covers a wide range of subjects, from ethics, socialism, the concept of human selfhood, and the mathematics of the infinite to more explicitly Jewish themes. This volume includes two of Schwarzschild's previously unpublished manuscripts and a scholarly introduction by Kohler. Schwarzschild shows that despite its seeming defeat by events of the twentieth century, Cohen's optimism about human progress is a rational, indeed necessary, path to peace.
Author: Daniel Greenspan
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110211173
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 349
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Book Description
The Passion of Infinity generates a historical narrative surrounding the concept of the irrational as a threat which rational culture has made a series of attempts to understand and relieve. It begins with a reading of Sophocles' Oedipus as the paradigmatic figure of a reason that, having transgressed its mortal limit, becomes catastrophically reversed. It then moves through Aristotle's ethics, psychology and theory of tragedy, which redefine reason's collapses in moral-psychological rather than religious terms. By changing the way in which the irrational is conceived, and the nature of its relation to reason, Aristotle eliminates the concept of an irrationality which reason cannot in principle dissolve. The book culminates in an extensive reading of Kierkegaard's pseudonyms, who, in a critical retrieval of both Greek tragedy and Aristotle, prescribe their apparently pathological age a paradoxical task: develop a finite form of subjectivity willing to undergo an unthinkable thought ‐ allow the transcendence of a god to enter into the mind as well as the marrow, to make a tragic appearance in which a limit to the immanence of human reason can again be established.
Author: Martha C. Nussbaum
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107393779
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 587
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Book Description
This book is a study of ancient views about 'moral luck'. It examines the fundamental ethical problem that many of the valued constituents of a well-lived life are vulnerable to factors outside a person's control, and asks how this affects our appraisal of persons and their lives. The Greeks made a profound contribution to these questions, yet neither the problems nor the Greek views of them have received the attention they deserve. This book thus recovers a central dimension of Greek thought and addresses major issues in contemporary ethical theory. One of its most original aspects is its interrelated treatment of both literary and philosophical texts. The Fragility of Goodness has proven to be important reading for philosophers and classicists, and its non-technical style makes it accessible to any educated person interested in the difficult problems it tackles. This edition, first published in 2001, features a preface by Martha Nussbaum.
