Communication plays a vital and unique role in society-often blamed for problems when it breaks down and at the same time heralded as a panacea for human relations. A sweeping history of communication, _Speaking Into the Air_ illuminates our expectations of communication as both historically specific and a fundamental knot in Western thought. "This is a most interesting and thought-provoking book.... Peters maintains that communication is ultimately unthinkable apart from the task of establishing a kingdom in which people can live (...) together peacefully. Given our condition as mortals, communication remains not primarily a problem of technology, but of power, ethics and art." —Antony Anderson, _New Scientist_ "Guaranteed to alter your thinking about communication.... Original, erudite, and beautifully written, this book is a gem." —_Kirkus Reviews_ "Peters writes to reclaim the notion of authenticity in a media-saturated world. It's this ultimate concern that renders his book a brave, colorful exploration of the hydra-headed problems presented by a rapid-fire popular culture." —_Publishers Weekly_ What we have here is a failure-to-communicate book. Funny thing is, it communicates beautifully.... _Speaking Into the Air_ delivers what superb serious books always do-hours of intellectual challenge as one absorbs the gradually unfolding vision of an erudite, creative author." —Carlin Romano, _Philadelphia Inquirer_. (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 ...

Construction of the Aesthetic intends to recuperate the sphere of the aesthetic from the dialectic of existence: 'not to forget in dreams the present world, but to change it by the strength of an image.'.

A reflection on everyday existence in the 'sphere of consumption of late Capitalism', this work is Adorno's literary and philosophical masterpiece.

Personal authenticity is out of fashion amongst analytic philosophers. Yet, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre and Camus were clearly preoccupied by its theoretical and practical viability. In this study, Jacob Golomb illuminates the writings of these philosophers in an attempt to explain their particular ethical stance on the subject. This book will prove invaluable reading for students and teachers of philosophy, literature and education and indeed for anyone who has ever empathized with Camus's Meursault, Sartre's Matthieu or Nietzsche's Zarathustra.

If the rhetorical and economic investment of educators, policy makers and the popular press in the United States is any indication, then unbridled enthusiasm for the introduction of computer mediated communication (CMC) into the educational process is wide-spread. In large part this enthusiasm is rooted in the hope that through the use of Internet-based CMC we may create an expanded community of learners and educators not principally bounded by physical geography. The purpose of this paper is to reflect critically upon (...) whether students and teachers are truly linked together as a``community'' through the use of Internet-based CMC. The paper uses the writings of Kierkegaard, and Hubert Dreyfus's exploration of Kierkegaardian ideas, to look more closely at the prospects and problems embedded in the use of Internet-based CMC to create "distributed communities" of teachers and learners. It is argued that from Kierkegaard's perspective, technologically mediated communications run a serious risk of attenuating interpersonal connectivity. Insofar as interpersonal connectivity is an integral component of education, such attenuation bodes ill for some, and perhaps many instances of Internet-based CMC. (shrink)

I shall translate Kierkegaard's account of the dangers and opportunities of what he called the Press into a critique of the Internet so as to raise the question: what contribution -- for good or ill -- can the World Wide Web, with its ability to deliver vast amounts of information to users all over the world, make to educators trying to pass on knowledge and to develop skills and wisdom in their students? I will then use Kierkegaard's three-stage answer to (...) the problem of lack of involvement posed by the Press -- his claim that to have a meaningful life the learner must pass through the aesthetic, the ethical and the religious spheres of existence -- to suggest that only the first two stages -- the aesthetic and the ethical -- can be implemented with Information Technology, while the final stage, which alone makes meaningful learning possible, is undermined rather than supported by the tendencies of the desituated and anonymous Net. (shrink)

The place of religion in society has changed profoundly in the last few centuries, particularly in the West. In what will be a defining book for our time, Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean, and what, precisely, happens when a society becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others.

Surveys Western literature and thought to reveal the evolution of the ideals of sincerity and authenticity.

Ostensibly, A Literary Review is a straightforward commentary by Søren Kierkegaard on the work of a contemporary novelist. On deeper levels, however, it becomes the existential philosopher's far-reaching critique of his society and age, and its apocalyptic final sections inspired the central ideas in Martin Heiddeger's influential work Being and Time. Embraced by many readers as prophetic, A Literary Review and its concepts remain relevant to our current debates on identity, addiction, and social conformity.

Objective journalism is blamed frequently for all sorts of journalistic failures and weaknesses, but the critiques typically are flawed because their authors fail to understand objectivity or to define it precisely. This defense of objective journalism defines objectivity and suggests that it is indispensable in a free society, summarizes major critiques of and alternatives to objectivity, and proposes that critics and defenders might serve journalism best by seeking common ground.

I shall translate Kierkegaard's account of the dangers and opportunities of what he called the Press into a critique of the Internet so as to raise the question: what contribution -- for good or ill -- can the World Wide Web, with its ability to deliver vast amounts of information to users all over the world, make to educators trying to pass on knowledge and to develop skills and wisdom in their students? I will then use Kierkegaard's three-stage answer to (...) the problem of lack of involvement posed by the Press -- his claim that to have a meaningful life the learner must pass through the aesthetic, the ethical and the religious spheres of existence -- to suggest that only the first two stages -- the aesthetic and the ethical -- can be implemented with Information Technology, while the final stage, which alone makes meaningful learning possible, is undermined rather than supported by the tendencies of the desituated and anonymous Net. (shrink)

This devastating polemical critique of the existentialist philosophy of Martin Heidegger is a monumental study in Adorno's effort to apply qualitative analysis to the content and impact of cultural phenomena.

This chapter explicates Theodor W. Adorno's dialectical engagement with inauthenticity and genuineness, two of the central tropes of his mature philosophy. The chapter discusses the extent to which Adorno's critique of genuineness in Minima Moralia and elsewhere was itself deeply indebted to Walter Benjamin's defense of mechanical reproduction against the aura and his notion of the mimetic faculty. It quickly becomes apparent that many of his “own” ideas betray precisely the kind of inauthenticity that he defended against the jargon. Or (...) if one wants to rely on his critical use of the term, it shows the non-auratic authenticity of the intellectual who knows himself not to be in full possession of his own ideas. Paradoxically, in his very lack of originality, his reworking without entirely duplicating many of his friend's most arresting ideas, Adorno took upon himself the stigma he urged everyone to embrace. (shrink)

The eminent philosopher and classical scholar Alexander Nehamas presents here a collection of his most important essays on Plato and Socrates. The papers are unified in theme by the idea that Plato's central philosophical concern in metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics was to distinguish the authentic from the fake, the original from its imitations. In approach, the collection displays Nehamas's characteristic combination of analytical rigor and sensitivity to the literary form and dramatic effect of Plato's work. Together, the papers represent Nehamas's (...) distinct and original contributions to scholarship on Plato and Socrates and serve as a comprehensive introduction to the thought of these two philosophers.In the book's opening section, Nehamas discusses Plato's representation of Socrates as a model of authentic human goodness, showing that Plato's Socrates is a more skeptical, troubling, and individualistic thinker than is usually supposed. The papers in the second section form a sustained defense of a new and important understanding of Plato's theory of the forms and the evolution of that theory in Plato's later writings. The third section examines Plato's contention that popular entertainment--by which he meant Greek epic and tragic poetry--misleads its audience into a debased life, an argument Nehamas relates to modern anxieties about television and other forms of popular culture. The collection also includes a discussion of Plato's use of the dialogue form in his representation of Socrates and carefully examines the combination of literary and philosophical elements in his work.Nehamas argues in the book that Plato's specific judgments of what is authentic are often flawed, but that his idea of authenticity as the mark of truth, beauty, and goodness is stronger than many modern scholars have assumed. In drawing together Nehamas's many influential ideas about Plato and Socrates, Virtues of Authenticity is a major contribution to the study of ancient Greek philosophy. (shrink)

Theodor W. Adorno is best known for his contributions to aesthetics and social theory. Critics have always complained about the lack of a practical, political or ethical dimension to Adorno's philosophy. In this highly original contribution to the literature on Adorno, J. M. Bernstein offers the first attempt in any language to provide an account of the ethical theory latent in Adorno's writings. Bernstein relates Adorno's ethics to major trends in contemporary moral philosophy. He analyses the full range of Adorno's (...) major works, with a special focus on Dialectic of Enlightenment, Minima Moralia and Negative Dialectics. In developing his account Bernstein lays particular stress on Adorno's contention that the event of Auschwitz demands a new categorical imperative. This book will be widely acknowledged as the standard work on Adorno's ethics and as such will interest professionals and students of philosophy, political theory, sociology, history of ideas, art history and music. (shrink)

This paper explores the marginalized practice of sportswriting to demonstrate the limited ways in which the question "who is a journalist?" has been answered within the profession. Following John Dewey and Raymond Williams, we offer an alternative view of democratic culture that values narrative as well as information. We also discuss how "New Journalists" (and other writers since), in their quest for fresh, sophisticated storytelling strategies, turned to sports as a cultural activity worthy of serious examination. Our goal is to (...) demonstrate that sportswriting fundamentally resembles other forms of reporting and that journalism should not use sports as an ethical straw man against which to defend the virtue of its serious work. This suspension of our usual ethical judgments would deepen our sense of the moral significance of sportswriting and allow us to rethink journalism's relation to democratic culture in productive new ways. (shrink)

Nietzsche's mature masterpiece, Beyond Good and Evil considers the origins and nature of Judeo-Christian morality; the end of philosophical dogmatism and beginning of perspectivism; the questionable virtues of science and scholarship; liberal democracy, nationalism, and women's emancipation. A superb and new translation by Marion Faber, this highly annotated edition is complemented by a lucid introduction by one of the most eminent of Nietzsche scholars, Robert C. Holub.

Newspaper copy editors labor in anonymity and struggle for respect in their newsrooms. These conditions may make it difficult for them to realize their potential as the last line of defense against violations of ethical practice. By adopting existentialism as a guiding moral philosophy, however, copy editors can find the courage and confidence to act as final guardians of ethical journalism. This article examines how copy editors are often overlooked in the literature of journalism ethics and suggests ways in which (...) existential philosophy would address specific problems of copy editors. The article examines whether a model for the existential copy editor is morally defensible and how adopting it might benefit copy editors, their newsroom colleagues, and readers. (shrink)

_Internet_ is een van de eerste boeken waarin het filosofische inzicht -van Plato tot Kierkegaard - betrokken wordt op het debat over de mogelijkheden en onmogelijkheden van het internet. Dreyfus laat zien dat de onstoffelijke, 'vrij zwevende' websurfer zijn oorsprong vindt in Descartes' scheiding van geest en lichaam, en hoe Kierkegaards inzichten in de opkomst van het moderne leespubliek vooruitlopen op de nieuwsgierige, maar elk risico vermijdende internet-junkie. Uitgaande van recente onderzoeken naar het isolement dat veel internetgebruikers ervaren, toont Dreyfus (...) aan hoe het internet, door zijn nadruk op privé-ervaringen, gebruikers berooft van wezenlijke, belichaamde vermogens zoals vertrouwen, stemmingen en betrokkenheid bij met anderen gedeelde lokale aangelegenheden. _Internet_ is verplichte kost voor iedereen die on line is en is geïnteressseerd in onze plaats in de 'e-revolutie'. (shrink)

I shall translate Kierkegaard's account of the dangers and opportunities of what he called the Press into a critique of the Internet so as to raise the question: what contribution -- for good or ill -- can the World Wide Web, with its ability to deliver vast amounts of information to users all over the world, make to educators trying to pass on knowledge and to develop skills and wisdom in their students? I will then use Kierkegaard's three-stage answer to (...) the problem of lack of involvement posed by the Press -- his claim that to have a meaningful life the learner must pass through the aesthetic, the ethical and the religious spheres of existence -- to suggest that only the first two stages -- the aesthetic and the ethical -- can be implemented with Information Technology, while the final stage, which alone makes meaningful learning possible, is undermined rather than supported by the tendencies of the desituated and anonymous Net. (shrink)

Beyond Good and Evil is one of the most scathing and powerful critiques of philosophy, religion, science, politics and ethics ever written. In it, Nietzsche presents a set of problems, criticisms and philosophical challenges that continue both to inspire and to trouble contemporary thought. In addition, he offers his most subtle, detailed and sophisticated account of the virtues, ideas, and practices which will characterize philosophy and philosophers of the future. With his relentlessly energetic style and tirelessly probing manner, Nietzsche embodies (...) the type of thought he wants to foster, while defining its historical role and determining its agenda. This edition offers a new and readable translation, by Judith Norman, of one of the most influential texts in the history of philosophy, together with an introduction by Rolf-Peter Horstmann that sets it in its historical and philosophical context. (shrink)