Critics of Enlightenment Rationalism Revisited

Critics of Enlightenment Rationalism Revisited

Author: Gene Callahan

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-09-10

Total Pages: 342

ISBN-13: 3031052269

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This book provides an overview of some of the most important critics of “Enlightenment rationalism.” The subjects of the volume (including, among others, Pascal, Vico, Schmitt, Weber, Anscombe, Scruton, and Tolkien) do not share a philosophical tradition as much as a skeptical disposition toward the notion, common among modern thinkers, that there is only one standard of rationality or reasonableness, and that that one standard is or ought to be taken from the presuppositions, methods, and logic of the natural sciences. The essays on each thinker are intended not merely to offer a commentary on that thinker, but also to place the person in the context of this larger stream of anti-rationalist thought.


Critics of Enlightenment Rationalism

Critics of Enlightenment Rationalism

Author: Gene Callahan

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-05-13

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 3030425991

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This book provides an overview of some of the most important critics of “Enlightenment rationalism.” The subjects of the volume—including, among others, Burke, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, T.S. Eliot, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, C.S. Lewis, Gabriel Marcel, Russell Kirk, and Jane Jacobs—do not share a philosophical tradition as much as a skeptical disposition toward the notion, common among modern thinkers, that there is only one standard of rationality or reasonableness, and that that one standard is or ought to be taken from the presuppositions, methods, and logic of the natural sciences. The essays on each thinker are intended not merely to offer a commentary on that thinker, but also to place that thinker in the context of this larger stream of anti-rationalist thought. Thus, while this volume is not a history of anti-rationalist thought, it may contain the intimations of such a history.


Barbarism Revisited

Barbarism Revisited

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2015-10-27

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 9004309276

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The figure of the barbarian has captivated the Western imagination from Greek antiquity to the present. Since the 1990s, the rhetoric of civilization versus barbarism has taken center stage in Western political rhetoric and the media. But how can the longevity and popularity of this opposition be accounted for? Why has it become such a deeply ingrained habit of thought that is still being so effectively mobilized in Western discourses? The twenty essays in this volume revisit well-known and obscure chapters in barbarism's genealogy from new perspectives and through contemporary theoretical idioms. With studies spanning from Greek antiquity to the present, they show how barbarism has functioned as the negative outside separating a civilized interior from a barbarian exterior; as the middle term in-between savagery and civilization in evolutionary models; as a repressed aspect of the civilized psyche; as concomitant with civilization; as a term that confuses fixed notions of space and time; or as an affirmative notion in philosophy and art, signifying radical change and regeneration. Proposing an original interdisciplinary approach to barbarism, this volume includes both overviews of the concept's travels as well as specific case studies of its workings in art, literature, philosophy, film, ethnography, design, and popular culture in various periods, geopolitical contexts, and intellectual traditions. Through this kaleidoscopic view of the concept, it recasts the history of ideas not only as a task for historians, but also literary scholars, art historians, and cultural analysts.


Freud Revisited

Freud Revisited

Author: R. Horrocks

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2001-02-13

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 0333985443

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Freud Revisited sees Freud as one of the last great exponents of Enlightenment rationalism; yet he also forms part of modernism - which shattered traditional forms in art - and he leads forward to certain postmodern ideas. The book examines some of Freud's themes which remain challenging and relevant today - for example, psychoanalysis as a form of narrative-construction, the creative nature of memory, the revolutionary nature of the knowledge gained through psychotherapy, and the unconscious, which subverts any notion of stable human identity.


Faith in the Enlightenment?

Faith in the Enlightenment?

Author: Lieven Boeve

Publisher: Rodopi

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 377

ISBN-13: 9042020679

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One of the urgent tasks of modern philosophy is to find a path between the rationalism of the Enlightenment and the relativism of postmodernism. Rationalism alone cannot suffice to solve today's problems, but neither can we dispense with reasonable critique. The task is to find ways to broaden the scope of rational thought without losing its critical power. The first part of this volume explores the ideas of Enlightenment philosophers and shows nuances often absent from the common view of the Enlightenment. The second part deals with some of the modern heirs of Enlightenment, such as Durkheim, Habermas, and Derrida. In the third part this volume looks at alternatives to Enlightenment thought in West European, Russian and Buddhist philosophy. Part four provides, over against the Enlightenment, a new starting point for the philosophy of religion in thinking about human beings, God, and the description of phenomena.


Faith in the Enlightenment?

Faith in the Enlightenment?

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2006-01-01

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 9401203369

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One of the urgent tasks of modern philosophy is to find a path between the rationalism of the Enlightenment and the relativism of postmodernism. Rationalism alone cannot suffice to solve today’s problems, but neither can we dispense with reasonable critique. The task is to find ways to broaden the scope of rational thought without losing its critical power. The first part of this volume explores the ideas of Enlightenment philosophers and shows nuances often absent from the common view of the Enlightenment. The second part deals with some of the modern heirs of Enlightenment, such as Durkheim, Habermas, and Derrida. In the third part this volume looks at alternatives to Enlightenment thought in West European, Russian and Buddhist philosophy. Part four provides, over against the Enlightenment, a new starting point for the philosophy of religion in thinking about human beings, God, and the description of phenomena.


Towards a Sociology of the Open Society

Towards a Sociology of the Open Society

Author: Masoud Mohammadi Alamuti

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-11-30

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 1000783634

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This book applies the general theory of critical rationalism in order to develop a new sociology of the open society, in general, and a new analysis of the transition from a closed society to an open society in particular. It presents a criticism of Karl Popper’s analysis of human action for opening up a closed society, followed by a critical study of the mainstream sociology to show how justificational models of knowledge and rational action have prevented sociology from addressing the contribution of human action to social change. This book provides new sociologies of closed and open societies. It argues that in the closed society "a low level" of critical rationality is activated by people to define the meaning of the good life and social institutions of law, polity and economy. Masoud Mohammadi Alamuti proposes five mechanisms of opening up closed society through the model of social change, inspired by the philosophy of critical rationalism. This volume is "the first systematic attempt" to apply the philosophy of critical rationalism in order to present a "normative sociology of the open society". It will be of interest to postgraduate researchers and professional readers in philosophy, sociology, moral science, law, politics and economics. In addition, this book would benefit research centres, policymakers and civil society activists interested in the ideas of critical rationalism and the open society.


Critical Rationalism, the Social Sciences and the Humanities

Critical Rationalism, the Social Sciences and the Humanities

Author: I.C. Jarvie

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-06-29

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 9401704414

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An outstanding feature of this book is the broad range of the contributors, drawn from Europe, the Middle East and North America, testifying both to the range of Professor Agassi's interests and the geographical spread of his influence. Most contributors use Agassi's ideas as a springboard to engage in debate on issues, or offer a contribution in an area that interests him. In this volume contributors consider such questions as Agassi's philosophy of education, in practice as well as in theory; the impact of psychologism in philosophy; the origins of critical rationalism in the Bible; the debates in economics stimulated by the work of Popper and Agassi, and many other topics. Besides the special topics, the reader gains some sense of the fruitfulness of critical rationalism in the hands of Agassi's friends and colleagues.


Moral Psychology

Moral Psychology

Author: Sergio Tenenbaum

Publisher: Rodopi

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 9042022264

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In recent decades the central questions of moral psychology have attracted renewed interest. Contemporary work on moral motivation and the rationality of moral action has broadened its focus to include a wide array of related issues. New interpretations of historical figures have also contributed to conceptual advances in moral psychology, in a way unparalleled in any other area of philosophy. This volume presents original work from some of the most prominent philosophers currently working on moral psychology, spanning both the historical and the contemporary problem-based approaches.


Interreligious Comparisons in Religious Studies and Theology

Interreligious Comparisons in Religious Studies and Theology

Author: Perry Schmidt-Leukel

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2016-07-14

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1474285155

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Can religions be compared? For decades the discipline of religious studies was based on the assumption that they can. Postmodern and postcolonial reflections, however, raised significant doubts. In social and cultural studies the investigation of the particular often took precedence over a comparative perspective. Interreligious Comparisons in Religious Studies and Theology questions whether religious studies can survive if it ceases to be comparative religion. Can it do justice to a globalized world if it is limited on the specific and turns a blind eye on the general? While comparative approaches have come under strong pressure in religious studies, they have started flourishing in Theology. Comparative theology practices interfaith dialogue by means of comparative research. This volume asks whether theology and religious studies are able to mutually benefit from their critical and constructive reflections. Can postcolonial criticism of neutrality and objectivity in religious studies create new links with the decidedly perspectival approach of comparative theology? In this collection scholars from theology and religious studies discuss the methodology of interreligious comparison in the light of recent doubts and current objections. Together with the contributors, Perry Schmidt-Leukel and Andreas Nehring argue that after decades of critique, interreligious comparison deserves to be reconsidered, reconstructed and reintroduced.