A passionate critique of Enlightenment--both in its contemporary invocation and its historical and cultural use--and a call to arms to rethink human equality and liberty without the sacrifice of individual rights and ethnicities.

Ernest Gellner's final book, first published in 1998, is a synoptic interpretation of the thought of Wittgenstein and Malinowski.

When this edition was published, all competent students of the history of jurisprudence and political thought at once recognized that Professor Barker had made ...

All the writings of Plato generally considered to be authentic are here presented in the only complete one-volume Plato available in English. The editors set out to choose the contents of this collected edition from the work of the best British and American translators of the last 100 years, ranging from Jowett to scholars of the present day. The volume contains prefatory notes to each dialogue, by Edith Hamilton; an introductory essay on Plato's philosophy and writings, by Huntington Cairns; and (...) a comprehensive index which seeks, by means of cross references, to assist the reader with the philosophical vocabulary of the different translators. (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 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. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The Spirit of the Laws is, without question, one of the central texts in the history of eighteenth-century thought, yet there has been no complete, scholarly English-language edition since that of Thomas Nugent, published in 1750. This lucid translation renders Montesquieu's problematic text newly accessible to a fresh generation of students, helping them to understand quite why Montesquieu was such an important figure in the early enlightenment and why The Spirit of the Laws was, for example, such an influence upon (...) those who framed the American constitution. Fully annotated, this edition focuses attention upon Montesquieu's use of sources and his text as a whole, rather than upon those opening passages towards which critical energies have traditionally been devoted, and a select bibliography and chronology are provided for those coming to Montesquieu's work for the first time. (shrink)

v. 1. Language.--v. 2. Mythical thought.--v. 3. The phenomenology of knowledge.--v. 4. The metaphysics of symbolic forms.

Multiculturalism and “The Politics of Recognition.” An Essay by Charles Taylor with commentary by Amy Gutmann, editor, Steven C. Rockefeller, Michael Walzer, and Susan Wolf.

This brilliant study of the stages in the mind's necessary progress from immediate sense-consciousness to the position of a scientific philosophy includes an introductory essay and a paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of the text to help the reader understand this most difficult and most influential of Hegel's works.

The “global success” of nation states is currently brought into play by the new requirements of multicultural differentiation and globalization. After commenting on the common concepts of “state” and “nation” and discussing the formation of nation states, the author explains the particular achievement of the national state and the tension between republicanism and nationalism built into it. The challenges that arise from the multicultural differentiation of civil society and from trends towards globalization throw light on the limitations of this historical (...) type. (shrink)

This is a critical introduction to modern French philosophy, commissioned from one of the liveliest contemporary practitioners and intended for an English-speaking readership. The dominant 'Anglo-Saxon' reaction to philosophical development in France has for some decades been one of suspicion, occasionally tempered by curiosity but more often hardening into dismissive rejection. But there are signs now of a more sympathetic interest and an increasing readiness to admit and explore shared concerns, even if these are still expressed in a very different (...) idiom and intellectual context. Vincent Descombes offers here a personal guide to the main movements and figures of the last forty-five years. He traces over this period the evolution of thought from a generation preoccupied with the 'three H's' - Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger, to a generation influenced since about 1960 by the 'three masters of suspicion' - Marx, Nietzsche and Freud. In this framework he deals in turn with the thought of Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, the early structuralists, Foucault, Althusser, Serres, Derrida, and finally Deleuze and Lyotard. The 'internal' intellectual history of the period is related to its institutional setting and the wider cultural and political context which has given French philosophy so much of its distinctive character. (shrink)

This volume explores Plato and Aristotle's theories about good things, goodness, and the best life for human beings, and draws comparisons between ancient and modern theories of good and justice.

How can liberal democracy best be realized in a world fraught with conflicting new forms of identity politics and intensifying conflicts over culture? This book brings unparalleled clarity to the contemporary debate over this question. Maintaining that cultures are themselves torn by conflicts about their own boundaries, Seyla Benhabib challenges the assumption shared by many theorists and activists that cultures are clearly defined wholes. She argues that much debate--including that of "strong" multiculturalism, which sees cultures as distinct pieces of a (...) mosaic--is dominated by this faulty belief, one with grave consequences for how we think injustices among groups should be redressed and human diversity achieved. Benhabib masterfully presents an alternative approach, developing an understanding of cultures as continually creating, re-creating, and renegotiating the imagined boundaries between "us" and "them." Drawing on contemporary cultural politics from Western Europe, Canada, and the United States, Benhabib develops a double-track model of deliberative democracy that permits maximum cultural contestation within the official public sphere as well as in and through social movements and the institutions of civil society. Agreeing with political liberals that constitutional and legal universalism should be preserved at the level of polity, she nonetheless contends that such a model is necessary to resolve multicultural conflicts. Analyzing in detail the transformation of citizenship practices in European Union countries, Benhabib concludes that flexible citizenship, certain kinds of legal pluralism and models of institutional powersharing are quite compatible with deliberative democracy, as long as they are in accord with egalitarian reciprocity, voluntary self-ascription, and freedom of exit and association. The Claims of Culture offers invaluable insight to all those, whether students or scholars, lawyers or policymakers, who strive to bridge the gap between the theory and practice of cultural politics in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

These essays explore the relationship between culture and politics in the modern world. They range in space from Iran to Algeria, and the eastern marchlands of Europe to the Atlantic, and in time over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But they are all inspired by a cluster of linked preoccupations with the nature of the social order now emerging in the world and the kinds of moral and political legitimation it requires and permits. The essays are also linked by Ernest (...) Gellner's distinctive, and highly arresting, intellectual temper and style. The volume will interest a wide range of readers in the social sciences and philosophy. (shrink)

Charles Taylor has been one of the most original and influential figures in contemporary philosophy: his 'philosophical anthropology' spans an unusually wide range of theoretical interests and draws creatively on both Anglo-American and Continental traditions in philosophy. A selection of his published papers is presented here in two volumes, structured to indicate the direction and essential unity of the work. He starts from a polemical concern with behaviourism and other reductionist theories which aim to model the study of man on (...) the natural sciences. This leads to a general critique of naturalism, its historical development and its importance for modern culture and consciousness; and that in turn points, forward to a positive account of human agency and the self, the constitutive role of language and value, and the scope of practical reason. The volumes jointly present some two decades of work on these fundamental themes, and convey strongly the tenacity, verve and versatility of the author in grappling with them. They will interest a very wide range of philosophers and students of the human sciences. (shrink)

The transformation of the writing of history in the nineteenth century is to a large degree the work of the great German masters from Niebuhr and Boeckh to ...

Hegel's phenomenological method is meant to provide a pathway for a "finite consciousness" to the objective viewpoint of philosophical "science".

Establishes the intellectual foundations of a new movement in American thought: communitarianism. Emerging in part as a response to the excesses of American individualism, communitarianism seeks to restore the balance between individual rights and social responsibilities.

One of the most original political thinkers of the Enlightenment, Montesquieu utilized his passionate belief in toleration and the moral benefits of science to construct a naturalistic system of political science based on the study of history, comparative government, and human behavior. This volume reveals Montesquieu's purpose by exploring the range of his literary output, focusing on his scandalous novel, The Persian Letters (1721), his philosophical history, Considerations on the Greatness and Decline of the Romans (1734), and his magnum opus, (...) The Spirit of the Laws (1748). (shrink)

Why do most of us consider ourselves free but also believe there is little we can change in the way the world is run - individually, severally, or even collectively? Why has the growth of individual freedom coincided with the growth of collective impotence? Bauman argues that this condition hangs on the agora - the space where private and public meet to seek the creation of 'public good', a 'just society', or 'shared values'. The problem is that little remains of (...) such old style spaces. We cannot, he argues, overcome our collective impotence without resorting to politics and using the vehicle of political agency. Three orientation points for a reconstruction of politics are suggested: the republican model of the state and of citizenship, basic income as a universal entitlement, and re-enabling the institutions of autonomous society by catching up with the controlling extraterritorial powers in an age of globalization. (shrink)