The Cultural Politics of Analytic Philosophy


Book Description

The Cultural Politics of Analytic Philosophy examines three generations of analytic philosophers, who between them founded the modern discipline of analytic philosophy in Britain. The book explores how philosophers such as Bertrand Russell, A.J. Ayer, Gilbert Ryle and Isaiah Berlin believed in a link between German aggression in the twentieth century and the nineteenth-century philosophy of Hegel and Nietzsche. Thomas L. Akehurst thus identifies in this political critique of continental philosophy the origins of the hugely significant faultline between analytic and continental thought, an aspect of twentieth-century philosophy that is still poorly understood. The book also uncovers a tripartite alliance in British analytic philosophy, between nation, political virtue and philosophical method. In revealing this structure behind the assumptions of certain analytical thinkers, Akehurst challenges the conventional wisdom that sees analytic philosophy as a semi-detached narrowly academic pursuit. On the contrary, this important book suggests that the analytic philosophers were espousing a national philosophy, one they believed operated in harmony with British thinking and the British values of liberty and tolerance.




Philosophy as Cultural Politics: Volume 4


Book Description

This volume presents a selection of the philosophical papers which Richard Rorty has written over the past decade, and complements three previous volumes of his papers: Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth, Essays on Heidegger and Others and Truth and Progress. Topics discussed include the changing role of philosophy in Western culture over the course of recent centuries, the role of the imagination in intellectual and moral progress, the notion of 'moral identity', the Wittgensteinian claim that the problems of philosophy are linguistic in nature, the irrelevance of cognitive science to philosophy, and the mistaken idea that philosophers should find the 'place' of such things as consciousness and moral value in a world of physical particles. The papers form a rich and distinctive collection which will appeal to anyone with a serious interest in philosophy and its relation to culture.




Philosophy and Real Politics


Book Description

A trenchant critique of established ideas in political philosophy and a provocative call for change Many contemporary political thinkers are gripped by the belief that their task is to develop an ideal theory of rights or justice for guiding and judging political actions. But in Philosophy and Real Politics, Raymond Geuss argues that philosophers should first try to understand why real political actors behave as they actually do. Far from being applied ethics, politics is a skill that allows people to survive and pursue their goals. To understand politics is to understand the powers, motives, and concepts that people have and that shape how they deal with the problems they face in their particular historical situations. Philosophy and Real Politics both outlines a historically oriented, realistic political philosophy and criticizes liberal political philosophies based on abstract conceptions of rights and justice.




A Brief History of Analytic Philosophy


Book Description

A Brief History of Analytic Philosophy: From Russell to Rawls presents a comprehensive overview of the historical development of all major aspects of analytic philosophy, the dominant Anglo-American philosophical tradition in the twentieth century. Features coverage of all the major subject areas and figures in analytic philosophy - including Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell, G.E. Moore, Gottlob Frege, Carnap, Quine, Davidson, Kripke, Putnam, and many others Contains explanatory background material to help make clear technical philosophical concepts Includes listings of suggested further readings Written in a clear, direct style that presupposes little previous knowledge of philosophy




What is Analytic Philosophy?


Book Description

Analytic philosophy is roughly a hundred years old, and it is now the dominant force within Western philosophy. Interest in its historical development is increasing, but there has hitherto been no sustained attempt to elucidate what it currently amounts to, and how it differs from so-called 'continental' philosophy. In this rich and wide-ranging book, Hans Johann Glock argues that analytic philosophy is a loose movement held together both by ties of influence and by various 'family resemblances'. He considers the pros and cons of various definitions of analytic philosophy, and tackles the methodological, historiographical and philosophical issues raised by such definitions. Finally, he explores the wider intellectual and cultural implications of the notorious divide between analytic and continental philosophy. His book is an invaluable guide for anyone seeking to understand analytic philosophy and how it is practised.




Deconstruction as Analytic Philosophy


Book Description

These twelve essays treat the thought of "deconstructive" philosophers from the perspective of analytic philosophy and relate the works of such thinkers as Davidson, Quine, and Wittgenstein to the writings of Derrida and de Man.




Imaginal Politics


Book Description

Between the radical, creative capacity of our imagination and the social imaginary we are immersed in is an intermediate space philosophers have termed the imaginal, populated by images or (re)presentations that are presences in themselves. Offering a new, systematic understanding of the imaginal and its nexus with the political, Chiara Bottici brings fresh perspective to the formation of political and power relationships and the paradox of a world rich in imagery yet seemingly devoid of imagination. Bottici begins by defining the difference between the imaginal and the imaginary, locating the imaginal's root meaning in the image and its ability to both characterize a public and establish a set of activities within that public. She identifies the imaginal's critical role in powering representative democracies and its amplification through globalization. She then addresses the troublesome increase in images now mediating politics and the transformation of politics into empty spectacle. The spectacularization of politics has led to its virtualization, Bottici observes, transforming images into processes with an uncertain relationship to reality, and, while new media has democratized the image in a global society of the spectacle, the cloned image no longer mediates politics but does the act for us. Bottici concludes with politics' current search for legitimacy through an invented ideal of tradition, a turn to religion, and the incorporation of human rights language.




Analytical Political Philosophy


Book Description

In Analytical Political Philosophy: From Discourse, Edification, distinguished Canadian philosopher David Braybrooke explores this movement by bringing together some of his earlier free-standing studies of the concepts of needs, rights, and rules.




Philosophy in Culture


Book Description

This book explores the symbiotic relationship between philosophy and culture. Every philosophy emerges as a reaction to, or as justification for a particular culture and it is for this reason that philosophy may differ from one culture to another. It argues that philosophy is an essential part of every culture. Philosophy is the means by which every culture provides itself with justification for its values, beliefs and worldview and also serves as a catalyst for progress. Philosophy critically questions and confronts established beliefs, customs, practices, and institutions of a society. As reflective critical thinking, philosophy is linked to a way of life; a form of enquiry intended to guide behaviour; a form of thinking that sharpens and broadens our intellectual horizon, scrutinizes our assumptions, and clarifies the beliefs and values by which we live. Philosophy helps to liberate the individual from the imprisonment of ignorance, prejudice, superstition, narrow-mindedness, and the despotism of custom. Culture constitutes the raw data, the laboratory from which philosophers do their analytic experimentation. Culture is considered as philosophy of the first order activity. The book maintains that any genuine global philosophy must include philosophical traditions from all cultures and regions of the world, as it is by seeking alternative philosophical answers to some of the thorniest problems facing humanity that we are most likely to find more lasting solutions to some global problems. In this commitment to a universal humanity, we cannot afford to depend on solutions from a single culture or from the most influential cultures.




Pedagogics of Liberation


Book Description

Enrique Dussel is considered one of the founding philosophers of liberation in the Latin American tradition, an influential arm of what is now called decoloniality. While he is astoundingly prolific, relatively few of his works can be found in English translation - and none of these focus specifically on education. Founding members of the Latin American Philosophy of Education Society David I. Backer and Cecilia Diego bring to us Dussel's THE PEDAGOGICS OF LIBERATION: A Latin American Philosophy of Education, the first English translation of Dussel's thinking on education, and also the first translation of any part of his landmark multi-volume work Towards an Ethics of Latin American Liberation. Dussel's ouevre is an impressive intellectual mosaic that uses Europeans to disrupt European thinking. This mosaic has at its center French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, but also includes Ancient Greek philosophy, Thomist theology, modern Enlightenment philosophy, analytic philosophy of language, Marxism, psychoanalysis (Freud, Klein, evolutionary psychology, neuroscience), phenomenology (Sartre, Heidegger, Husserl, Hegel), critical theory (Frankfurt School, Habermas), and linguistics. Dussel joins these traditions to Latin American history, literature, and philosophy, specifically the work of Octavio Paz, Ivan Illich, and the philosophers of liberation whom Dussel studied with in Argentina before his exile to Mexico in the late 1970s. Drawing heavily from the ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, Dussel examines the dominating and liberating features of intimate, concrete, and observable interactions between different kinds of people who might sit down and have face-to-face encounters, specifically where there may be an inequality of knowledge and a responsibility to guide, teach, learn, care, or study: teacher-student, politician-citizen, doctor-patient, philosopher-nonphilosopher, and so on. Those occupying the superior position of these face-to-face encounters (teachers, politicians, doctors, philosophers) have a clear choice for Dussel when it comes to their pedagogics. They are either open to hearing the voice of the Other, disrupting their sense of what is and should be by a newness beyond what they know; or, following the dominant pedagogics, they can try to communicate and instruct their sense of what is and should be to the (supposed) tabula rasas in their charge. Dussel calls that sense of what is and should be "lo Mismo." This groundbreaking translation makes possible a face-to-face encounter between an Anglo Philosophy of Education and Latin American Pedagogics. "Pedagogics" should be considered as a type of philosophical inquiry alongside ethics, economics, and politics. Dussel's pedagogics is a decolonizing pedagogics, one rooted in the philosophy of liberation he has spent his epic career articulating. With an Introduction by renowned philosopher Linda Martin Alcoff, this book adds an essential voice to our conversations about teaching, learning, and studying, as well as critical theory in general. ENRIQUE DUSSEL was born in 1934 in the town of La Paz, in the region of Mendoza, Argentina. He first came to Mexico in 1975 as a political exile and is currently a Mexican citizen, Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the Iztapalapa campus of the Universidad Aut�noma Metropolitana (Autonomous Metropolitan University, UAM), and also teaches courses at the Universidad Nacional Aut�noma de M�xico (National Autonomous University of Mexico, UNAM). He has an undergraduate degree in Philosophy (from the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo/National University of Cuyo in Mendoza, Argentina), a Doctorate from the Complutense University of Madrid, a Doctorate in History from the Sorbonne in Paris, and an undergraduate degree in Theology obtained through studies in Paris and M�nster.