Author: Carlin Romano
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0345804708
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 690
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Book Description
This bold, insightful book argues that America today towers as the most philosophical culture in the history of the world, an unprecedented marketplace for truth and debate. With verve and keen intelligence, Carlin Romano—Pulitzer Prize finalist, award-winning book critic, and professor of philosophy—takes on the widely held belief that the United States is an anti-intellectual country. Instead he provides a richly reported overview of American thought, arguing that ordinary Americans see through phony philosophical justifications faster than anyone else, and that the best of our thinkers ditch artificial academic debates for fresh intellectual enterprises. Along the way, Romano seeks to topple philosophy’s most fiercely admired hero, Socrates, asserting that it is Isocrates, the nearly forgotten Greek philosopher who rejected certainty, whom Americans should honor as their intellectual ancestor. America the Philosophical is a rebellious tour de force that both celebrates our country’s unparalleled intellectual energy and promises to bury some of our most hidebound cultural clichés.
Author: Carlin Romano
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307958213
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 690
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Book Description
A bold, insightful book that rejects the myth of America the Unphilosophical, arguing that America today towers as the most philosophical culture in the history of the world, an unprecedented marketplace of truth and argument that far surpasses ancient Greece or any other place one can name. With verve and keen intelligence, Carlin Romano—Pulitzer Prize finalist, award-winning book critic, and professor of philosophy—takes on the widely held belief that ours is an anti–intellectual society. Instead, while providing a richly reported overview of American thought, Romano argues that ordinary Americans see through phony philosophical justifications faster than anyone else, and that the best of our thinkers abandon artificial academic debates for fresh intellectual enterprises, such as cyberphilosophy. Along the way, Romano seeks to topple philosophy’s most fiercely admired hero, Socrates, asserting that it is Isocrates, the nearly forgotten Greek philosopher who rejected certainty, whom Americans should honor as their intellectual ancestor. America the Philosophical introduces readers to a nation whose existence most still doubt: a dynamic, deeply stimulating network of people and places drawn together by shared excitement about ideas. From the annual conference of the American Philosophical Association, where scholars tack wiseguy notes addressed to Spinoza on a public bulletin board, to the eruption of philosophy blogs where participants discuss everything from pedagogy to the philosophy of science to the nature of agency and free will, Romano reveals a world where public debate and intellectual engagement never stop. And readers meet the men and women whose ideas have helped shape American life over the previous few centuries, from well-known historical figures like William James and Ralph Waldo Emerson, to modern cultural critics who deserve to be seen as thinkers (Kenneth Burke, Edward Said), to the iconoclastic African American, women, Native American, and gay mavericks (Cornel West, Susan Sontag, Anne Waters, Richard Mohr) who have broadened the boundaries of American philosophy. Smart and provocative, America the Philosophical is a rebellious tour de force that both celebrates our country’s unparalleled intellectual energy and promises to bury some of our most hidebound cultural clichés.
Author: John Kaag
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374713111
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 273
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Book Description
The epic wisdom contained in a lost library helps the author turn his life around John Kaag is a dispirited young philosopher at sea in his marriage and his career when he stumbles upon West Wind, a ruin of an estate in the hinterlands of New Hampshire that belonged to the eminent Harvard philosopher William Ernest Hocking. Hocking was one of the last true giants of American philosophy and a direct intellectual descendent of William James, the father of American philosophy and psychology, with whom Kaag feels a deep kinship. It is James’s question “Is life worth living?” that guides this remarkable book. The books Kaag discovers in the Hocking library are crawling with insects and full of mold. But he resolves to restore them, as he immediately recognizes their importance. Not only does the library at West Wind contain handwritten notes from Whitman and inscriptions from Frost, but there are startlingly rare first editions of Hobbes, Descartes, and Kant. As Kaag begins to catalog and read through these priceless volumes, he embarks on a thrilling journey that leads him to the life-affirming tenets of American philosophy—self-reliance, pragmatism, and transcendence—and to a brilliant young Kantian who joins him in the restoration of the Hocking books. Part intellectual history, part memoir, American Philosophy is ultimately about love, freedom, and the role that wisdom can play in turning one’s life around.
Author: John E. Smith
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226763675
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 226
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Book Description
In these previously uncollected essays, Smith argues that American philosophers like Peirce, James, Royce, and Dewey have forged a unique philosophical tradition—one that is rich and complex enough to represent a genuine alternative to the analytic, phenomenological, and hermeneutical traditions which have originated in Britain or Europe. "In my judgment, John Smith has no equal today in combining two scholarly qualities: the analysis of philosophical texts with penetration and rigor, and the discernment of what it is in these texts that matters. These qualities are in evidence throughout the essays in America's Philosophical Vision. Whether he is evaluating Rorty's view of Dewey; the pragmatic theory of experience and truth; theories of freedom, creativity, and the self; Royce's conception of community; or synoptic philosophic visions, Smith always succeeds in uniting a comprehensive understanding of philosophic writings with a sure grasp of their import for human culture and aspiration. It is a great benefit to students of American thought that these papers have now been collected into one volume."—James Gouinlock, Emory University
Author: Maurizio Valsania
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813933579
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 303
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Book Description
Although scholars have adequately covered Thomas Jefferson's general ideas about human nature and race, this is the first book to examine what Maurizio Valsania terms Jefferson's "philosophical anthropology"--philosophical in the sense that he concerned himself not with describing how humans are, culturally or otherwise, but with the kind of human being Jefferson thought he was, wanted to become, and wished for citizens to be for the future of the United States. Valsania's exploration of this philosophical anthropology touches on Jefferson's concepts of nationalism, slavery, gender roles, modernity, affiliation, and community. More than that, Nature's Man shows how Jefferson could advocate equality and yet control and own other human beings. A humanist who asserted the right of all people to personal fulfillment, Jefferson nevertheless had a complex philosophy that also acknowledged the dynamism of nature and the limits of human imagination. Despite Jefferson's famous advocacy of apparently individualistic rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, Valsania argues that both Jefferson's yearning for the human individual to become something good and his fear that this hypothetical being would turn into something bad were rooted in a specific form of communitarianism. Absorbing and responding to certain moral-philosophical currents in Europe, Jefferson's nature-infused vision underscored the connection between the individual and the community.
Author: Kelly A. Parker
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498581064
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
The essays in Pragmatist and American Philosophical Perspectives on Resilience offer a survey of the ways that “resilience” is becoming a key concept for understanding our world, as well as providing deeper insight about its specific actual and proposed applications. As a concept with multiple theoretical and practical meanings, “resilience” promises considerable explanatory power. At the same time, current uses of the concept can be diverse and at times inconsistent. The American philosophical tradition provides tools uniquely suited for clarifying, extending, and applying emerging concepts in more effective and suggestive ways. This collection explores the usefulness of theoretical work in American philosophy and pragmatism to practices in ecology, community, rurality, and psychology.
Author: Scott L. Pratt
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253108906
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 342
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Book Description
Pragmatism is America's most distinctive philosophy. Generally it has been understood as a development of European thought in response to the "American wilderness." A closer examination, however, reveals that the roots and central commitments of pragmatism are indigenous to North America. Native Pragmatism recovers this history and thus provides the means to re-conceive the scope and potential of American philosophy. Pragmatism has been at best only partially understood by those who focus on its European antecedents. This book casts new light on pragmatism's complex origins and demands a rethinking of African American and feminist thought in the context of the American philosophical tradition. Scott L. Pratt demonstrates that pragmatism and its development involved the work of many thinkers previously overlooked in the history of philosophy.
Author: George Yancy
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415921008
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 372
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Book Description
First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Author: Mathew A. Foust
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438464754
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 196
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Book Description
A comparative analysis of Confucianism and the American Transcendentalist and Pragmatist traditions. In this highly original work, Mathew A. Foust breaks new ground in comparative studies through his exploration of the connections between Confucianism and the American Transcendentalist and Pragmatist movements. In his examination of a broad range of philosophers, including Confucius, Mencius, Xunzi, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Charles Peirce, William James, and Josiah Royce, Foust traces direct lines of influence from early translations of Confucian texts and brings to light conceptual affinities that have been previously overlooked. Combining resources from both traditions, Confucianism and American Philosophy offers fresh insights into contemporary problems and exemplifies the potential of cross-cultural dialogue in an increasingly pluralistic world. Authoritative and insightful, this book fills two lacunae in East-West comparative studies. First, it rounds out several general thematic connections by taking a broad view, rather than focusing narrowly on just one figure from each tradition. And, in so doing, it sheds much needed light on Confucian comparisons that have been previously understated or completely unnoticed. Christopher C. Kirby, editor of Dewey and the Ancients: Essays on Hellenic and Hellenistic Themes in the Philosophy of John Dewey
Author: Ran Lahav
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 9780819199737
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 242
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Book Description
In the first book written in English on this growing field of applied philosophy, Essays on Philosophical Counseling is a collection of 14 articles by leading philosophical counselors from five countries. The book presents the reader with the major approaches to philosophical counseling, by combing theoretical discussions with a large number of case studies. Divided into three parts, Essays on Philosophical Counseling first discusses the theoretical and historical background of philosophical counseling, then deals with the relationship between philosophical counseling and psychotherapy and last, focuses on specific types of problems and predicaments and how they are addressed philosophically. Contents: Philosophical Counseling: The General Picture; A Conceptual Framework for Philosophical Counseling: Worldview Interpretation, Ran Lahav; Philosophical Counseling in Holland: History and Open Issues, Ida Jongsma; The Training of a Philosophical Counselor, Dries Bole; Philosophical Counseling: The Arts of Ecological Relationship and Interpretation, Barbara Norman; Philosophical Counceling and Psychotherapy; Philosophy, Philosophical Practice, and Psychotherapy, Gerd A. Achenbach; Philosophical Counseling as a Critical Examination of Life-Directing Conceptions, Michael Schefczyk; Some Reflections on Philosophical Counseling and Psychotherapy, Ben Mijuskovic; Meaning Crisis: Philosophical Counseling and Psychotherapy, Steven Segal; Philosophical Counseling: Some Roles of Critical Thinking, Elliot D. Cohen; Specific Topics for Counseling; Philosophy in Marriage Counseling, Anette Prins-Bakker; Philosophical Practice, Pastoral Work, and Suicide Survivors, Will A.J.F. Gerbers; The Philosopher in the Business World as a Vision Developer, Ad Hoogendijk; On the Emergence of Ethical Counseling: Considerations and Two Case Studies, Louis Marinoff; Supplement: The Legal Perspective; Legal Issues in Philosophical Counseling, Barton Bernstein and Linda Bolin.
