In Professional Ethics and Civic Morals , Emile Durkheim outlined the core of his theory of morality and social rights which was to dominate his work throughout the course of his life. In Durkheim's view, sociology is a science of morals which are objective social facts, and these moral regulations form the basis of individual rights and obligations. This book is crucial to an understanding of Durkheim's sociology because it contains his much-neglected theory of the state as a moral institution, (...) and it provides an understanding of his critique of anomie and egoistic individualism. The growing interest in cultural revolution and moral regulation make this edition of Durkheim's classic work especially timely. The new preface by Bryan Turner sets the book in its intellectual and historical context, and illustrates the relevance of this work to present day debates on the state, society, and moral regulation. (shrink)

While some lament the slide of Western culture into relativism and nihilism and others celebrate the trend as a liberating sort of progress, Charles Taylor calls on us to face the moral and political crises of our time, and to make the most ...

Discusses contemporary notions of the self, and examines their origins, development, and effects.

'Most of us are still groping for answers about what makes life worth living, or what confers meaning on individual lives', writes Charles Taylor in Sources of the Self. 'This is an essentially modern predicament.' Charles Taylor's latest book sets out to define the modern identity by tracing its genesis, analysing the writings of such thinkers as Augustine, Descartes, Montaigne, Luther, and many others. This then serves as a starting point for a renewed understanding of modernity. Taylor argues that modern (...) subjectivity has its roots in ideas of human good, and is in fact the result of our long efforts to define and attain the good. The modern turn inwards is far from being a disastrous rejection of rationality, as its critics contend, but has at its heart what Taylor calls the affirmation of ordinary life. He concludes that the modern identity, and its attendant rejection of an objective order of reason, is far richer in moral sources that its detractors allow. Sources of the Self provides a decisive defence of the modern order and a sharp rebuff to its critics. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Including new material as well as previously published articles, John Rees here brings his abilities as both a historian of ideas and a political philosopher to bear in this combination of historical and textual research and philosophical analysis of liberty. A major contribution to the existing literature on Mill, it is also a tribute to an important scholar.

'It is great to see the re-publication of the classic Consumer Culture and Postmodernism. The extensive new material is erudite, informative and important, particularly locating consumer culture in the context of global climate change and postmodernism within a framing that seriously displaces the 'west' from centre-stage' - John Urry, Lancaster University The first edition of this contemporary classic can claim to have put 'consumer culture' on the map, certainly in relation to postmodernism. This expanded new edition includes: - A fully (...) revised preface that explores the developments in consumer culture since the first edition - A major new chapter on 'Modernity and the Cultural Question' - An update on postmodernism and the development of contemporary theory after postmodernism - An account of multiple and alternative modernities - The challenges of consumer culture in Japan and China The result is a book that shakes the boundaries of debate, from one of the foremost writers on culture and postmodernism of the present day. (shrink)

Baudrillard's bewildering thesis, a bold extrapolation on Ferdinand de Saussure's general theory of general linguistics, is in fact a clinical vision of contemporary consumer societies where signs don't refer anymore to anything except themselves. They all are generated by the matrix. Simulations never existed as a book before it was "translated" into English. Actually it came from two different bookCovers written at different times by Jean Baudrillard. The first part of Simulations, and most provocative because it made a fiction of (...) theory, was "The Procession of Simulacra." It had first been published in Simulacre et Simulations. The second part, written much earlier and in a more academic mode, came from L'Echange Symbolique et la Mort. It was a half-earnest, half-parodical attempt to "historicize" his own conceit by providing it with some kind of genealogy of the three orders of appearance: the Counterfeit attached to the classical period; Production for the industrial era; and Simulation, controlled by the code. It was Baudrillard's version of Foucault's Order of Things and his ironical commentary of the history of truth. The book opens on a quote from Ecclesiastes asserting flatly that "the simulacrum is true." It was certainly true in Baudrillard's book, but otherwise apocryphal.One of the most influential essays of the 20th century, Simulations was put together in 1983 in order to be published as the first little black book of Semiotext's new Foreign Agents Series. Baudrillard's bewildering thesis, a bold extrapolation on Ferdinand de Saussure's general theory of general linguistics, was in fact a clinical vision of contemporary consumer societies where signs don't refer anymore to anything except themselves. They all are generated by the matrix.In effect Baudrillard's essay was upholding the only reality there was in a world that keeps hiding the fact that it has none. Simulacrum is its own pure simulacrum and the simulacrum is true. In his celebrated analysis of Disneyland, Baudrillard demonstrates that its childish imaginary is neither true nor false, it is there to make us believe that the rest of America is real, when in fact America is a Disneyland. It is of the order of the hyper-real and of simulation. Few people at the time realized that Baudrillard's simulacrum itself wasn't a thing, but a "deterrence machine," just like Disneyland, meant to reveal the fact that the real is no longer real and illusion no longer possible. But the more impossible the illusion of reality becomes, the more impossible it is to separate true from false and the real from its artificial resurrection, the more panic-stricken the production of the real is. (shrink)