Autonomy After Auschwitz

Download or read book Autonomy After Auschwitz written by Martin Shuster and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-09-12 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Could our modern commitment to freedom be related to or even cause a variety of extreme modern evils, most notably (but not exclusively) Auschwitz? Ever since Kant and Hegel, the notion of autonomythe idea that we are beholden to no law except one imposed upon ourselvesis considered the truest philosophical expression of free human agency. In this context, philosopher Martin Shuster examines the notion of autonomy and its relationship to modern evil. Taking its cue from the work of Theodor Adorno, this book shows that the notion of autonomy, as emblematically conceived in this German philosophical tradition, is not only self-defeating and unstable, but also dangerous and connected to extreme evils like genocide because it ultimately dissolves our capacities for reason, especially practical reason, and thereby our very standing as agents. Examining Adorno s understanding of modern evil in the context of his debate with Kant on autonomous agency, Shuster shows how Adorno developed a conception of autonomous agency that manages to avoid any connection to extreme evil. Throughout, Adorno is put into dialogue not only with many traditional European philosophical interlocutors (including Kant, Hegel, Horkheimer, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty), but innovatively, also with a variety of Anglo-American thinkers such as Richard Rorty, Stanley Cavell, Bernard Williams, John McDowell, and Robert Pippin. Shuster aims to integrate and situate Adorno s work, then, within both traditions discussions of freedom and autonomy, demonstrate the deep ethical stakes that are involved in these debates, and offer new insights and lessons from Adorno s writings."

Download or read book Moral Imagination written by Mark Johnson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-12-10 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using path-breaking discoveries of cognitive science, Mark Johnson argues that humans are fundamentally imaginative moral animals, challenging the view that morality is simply a system of universal laws dictated by reason. According to the Western moral tradition, we make ethical decisions by applying universal laws to concrete situations. But Johnson shows how research in cognitive science undermines this view and reveals that imagination has an essential role in ethical deliberation. Expanding his innovative studies of human reason in Metaphors We Live By and The Body in the Mind, Johnson provides the tools for more practical, realistic, and constructive moral reflection.

Download or read book New Television written by Martin Shuster and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-11-24 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even though it’s frequently asserted that we are living in a golden age of scripted television, television as a medium is still not taken seriously as an artistic art form, nor has the stigma of television as “chewing gum for the mind” really disappeared. Philosopher Martin Shuster argues that television is the modern art form, full of promise and urgency, and in New Television, he offers a strong philosophical justification for its importance. Through careful analysis of shows including The Wire, Justified, and Weeds, among others; and European and Anglophone philosophers, such as Stanley Cavell, Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger, and John Rawls; Shuster reveals how various contemporary television series engage deeply with aesthetic and philosophical issues in modernism and modernity. What unifies the aesthetic and philosophical ambitions of new television is a commitment to portraying and exploring the family as the last site of political possibility in a world otherwise bereft of any other sources of traditional authority; consequently, at the heart of new television are profound political stakes.

Download or read book The Actual and the Rational written by Jean-François Kervégan and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-07-15 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Hegel’s most controversial and confounding claims is that “the real is rational and the rational is real.” In this book, one of the world’s leading scholars of Hegel, Jean-François Kervégan, offers a thorough analysis and explanation of that claim, along the way delivering a compelling account of modern social, political, and ethical life. ?Kervégan begins with Hegel’s term “objective spirit,” the public manifestation of our deepest commitments, the binding norms that shape our existence as subjects and agents. He examines objective spirit in three realms: the notion of right, the theory of society, and the state. In conversation with Tocqueville and other theorists of democracy, whether in the Anglophone world or in Europe, Kervégan shows how Hegel—often associated with grand metaphysical ideas—actually had a specific conception of civil society and the state. In Hegel’s view, public institutions represent the fulfillment of deep subjective needs—and in that sense, demonstrate that the real is the rational, because what surrounds us is the product of our collective mindedness. This groundbreaking analysis will guide the study of Hegel and nineteenth-century political thought for years to come.

Download or read book Religion and Revelation after Auschwitz written by Balázs M. Mezei and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2013-04-11 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion After Auschwitz is a philosophical approach to the notion of revelation. Following such authors as A. Dulles, R. Swinburne, or K. Ward, Balazs Mezei investigates some of the main problems of revelation and connects them to the general problem of religion today. Religion is considered in the perspective of the age "after Auschwitz", an expression coined by Hans Jonas and further elaborated by J. B. Metz. Mezei develops the insights of these philosophers and investigates various aspects of religion and revelation "after Auschwitz": contemporary theistic philosophy, phenomenology, art, mysticism, and the question of university education today. A fascinating amalgam of subjects and approaches, Religion and Revelation After Auschwitz is an important contribution to contemporary discussions on the possibility of Catholic philosophy.

Download or read book Autonomy written by David Eden and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-08 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Autonomy: Capital, Class and Politics explores and critiques one of the most dynamic terrains of political theory, sometimes referred to as 'Autonomist Marxism' or post-Operaismo. This theory shot to prominence with the publication of Empire by Hardt and Negri and has been associated with cutting edge developments in political and cultural practice; yet there exists no work that critically examines it in its contemporary breadth. Taking three divergent manifestations of Autonomist Marxism found in the works of Antonio Negri and Paulo Virno, the Midnight Notes Collective and John Holloway, David Eden examines how each approach questions the nature of class and contemporary capitalism and how they extrapolate politics. Not only is such juxtaposition both fruitful and unprecedented but Eden then constructs critiques of each approach and draws out deeper common concerns. Suggesting a novel rethinking of emancipatory praxis, this book provides a much needed insight into the current tensions and clashes within society and politics.

Download or read book Hannah Arendt and the Limits of Total Domination written by Michal Aharony and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-03-05 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Responding to the increasingly influential role of Hannah Arendt’s political philosophy in recent years, Hannah Arendt and the Limits of Total Domination: The Holocaust, Plurality, and Resistance, critically engages with Arendt’s understanding of totalitarianism. According to Arendt, the main goal of totalitarianism was total domination; namely, the virtual eradication of human legality, morality, individuality, and plurality. This attempt, in her view, was most fully realized in the concentration camps, which served as the major "laboratories" for the regime. While Arendt focused on the perpetrators’ logic and drive, Michal Aharony examines the perspectives and experiences of the victims and their ability to resist such an experiment. The first book-length study to juxtapose Arendt’s concept of total domination with actual testimonies of Holocaust survivors, this book calls for methodological pluralism and the integration of the voices and narratives of the actors in the construction of political concepts and theoretical systems. To achieve this, Aharony engages with both well-known and non-canonical intellectuals and writers who survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. Additionally, she analyzes the oral testimonies of survivors who are largely unknown, drawing from interviews conducted in Israel and in the U.S., as well as from videotaped interviews from archives around the world. Revealing various manifestations of unarmed resistance in the camps, this study demonstrates the persistence of morality and free agency even under the most extreme and de-humanizing conditions, while cautiously suggesting that absolute domination is never as absolute as it claims or wishes to be. Scholars of political philosophy, political science, history, and Holocaust studies will find this an original and compelling book.