Social Philosophy Books - Page 16

Recovering the Social Contract

Ron Replogle

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Editorial Review:

The author defends a novel philosophical thesis about the nature and foundation of moral rights. The thesis maintains that rights-claims derive their credibility from a distinctive idea of equality according to which persons are not just equally valuable but equally invaluable. The egalitarian ideal derives its normative content from widely acknowledged norms of competence that are distinguishable from and conceptually prior to the norms of rationality and morality that have exercised contemporary theorists of rational choice and justice. When its nature and foundation are appreciated, rights-based justice can be seen to be more powerful and, in an important sense, less ideological than alternative conceptions. In defending this view, the author considers how ideology corrupts thinking about justice and maintains that contemporary theorists are ideological in a sense that disqualifies them from setting credible normative standards.

The Soul of Economies: Spiritual Evolution Goes to the Marketplace

Denise Breton, Christopher Largent

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Spiritual Economics 101 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This is a must book for anyone who thinks that our economic system and civilization can be improved and is looking for the way to accomplish this. This is a very thoughtful book that suggests that we create our economies. We need not be slaves to "the system." The authors challenge the philosophical basis for ideas popular today.

Frankly, I love all of their books. 5 out of 5 stars.
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Denise Breton and Chris Largent have written several books together. The Paradigm Conspiracy, and Love Soul and Freedom are two others I've read by them. They are packed with information but so eloquently written you don't want to put them down.

Bereft of Reason: On the Decline of Social Thought and Prospects for Its Renewal (Morality and Society)

Eugene Halton

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Editorial Review:

In this radical critique of contemporary social theory, Eugene Halton argues that both modernism and postmodernism are damaged philosophies whose acceptance of the myths of the mind/body dichotomy make them incapable of solving our social dilemmas.

Claiming that human beings should be understood as far more than simply a form of knowledge, social construction, or contingent difference, Halton argues that contemporary thought has lost touch with the spontaneous passions—or enchantment—of life. Exploring neglected works in twentieth century social thought and philosophy—particularly the writings of Lewis Mumford and Charles Peirce—as well as the work of contemporary writers such as Vaclav Havel, Maya Angelou, Milan Kundera, Doris Lessing, and Victor Turner, Halton argues that reason is dependent upon nonrational forces—including sentiment, instinct, conjecture, imagination, and experience. We must, he argues, frame our questions in a way which encompasses both enchantment and critical reason, and he offers an outline here for doing so.

A passionate plea for a fundamental reexamination of the entrenched assumptions of the modern era, this book deals with issues of vital concern to modern societies and should be read by scholars across disciplines.

"Bereft of Reason is a thoughtful critique informed by a passionate commitment to the renewal of critical concerns. For this reason alone it should be widely read and inform current debates."—Lauren Langman, Sociological Inquiry

"Halton takes the 'ghost in the machine' as a dominant defining metaphor for modern thought and life, and criticizes it with gusto, wit, wide reading, and philosophical acumen."—Robert J. Mulvaney, Review of Metaphysics

Pierre Bourdieu: Agent Provocateur

Michael Grenfell

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Editorial Review:

The French social theorist Pierre Bourdieu is now recognised as a leading intellectual of the late twentieth-century, and one whose ideas are very much relevant for the twenty-first.

This comprehensive account of Bourdieu's life and work locates both in their social and political context, thereby tracing the origins of his ideas and theories. It explains and explores just what Bourdieu argued for and why. It also illustrates the social, political and philosophical strands that run through his work. Michael Grenfell's broad scope takes in Bourdieu's response to The Algerian Crisis, his ideas for the reform of state education and his views on aesthetics and the mass media. Detailed attention is also paid to Bourdieu's overtly political stance, including his critique of capitalism and his opposition to recent Western military action in Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan.

This book offers a reading of Bourdieu's work as a coherent and valuable response to those key social and political issues, events and trends that combined to shape contemporary society. The implications and consequences of his work are laid out and assessed, along with suggestions for where his ideas might be taken from here. This is the clearest and most thorough account of Bourdieu's work available; as such, it will be invaluable to students, researchers and teachers of contemporary social theory.

The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class.

Alvin Ward Gouldner

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Critical Hermeneutics: A Study in the Thought of Paul Ricoeur and Jürgen Habermas

John B. Thompson

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This is a study in the philosophy of social science. It takes the form of a comparative critique of three contemporary approaches: ordinary language philosophy, hermeneutics and critical theory, represented here respectively by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Paul Ricoeur and Jürgen Habermas. Part I is devoted to an exposition of these authors' views and of the traditions to which they belong. Its unifying thread is their common concern with language, a concern which nonetheless reveals important differences of approach. For whereas ordinary language philosophers tend to treat linguistic activity as the ultimate object of inquiry, both Ricoeur and Habermas regard it as a medium which betrays more fundamental dimensions of human experience and the social world. Part II complements the exposition with a critical analysis of its central themes: the conceptualisation of action, the methodology of interpretation, and the theory of reference and truth. The author defends many aspects of the work of Ricoeur and Habermas, such as the emphasis on power and ideology, the strategy of depth interpretation, and the link between consensus and truth; but he argues that there are serious deficiencies and obscurities in their work. He proposes solutions to these difficulties and concludes with a sketch of a critical and rationally justified theory for the interpretation of action - a critical hermeneutics.

Philosophy and the Passions: Towards a History of Human Nature (Literature and Philosophy)

Michel Meyer

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Editorial Review:

The subject of the passions has always haunted Western philosophy and, more often than not, aroused harsh judgments. For the passions represent a force of excess and lawlessness in humanity that produces troubling, confusing paradoxes. In this book, noted European philosopher Michel Meyer offers a wide-ranging exegesis, the first of its kind, that systematically retraces the history of philosophic conceptions of the passions in the work of such thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Spinoza, Descartes, Hobbes, Rousseau, Kant, and Freud. The great ruptures that led to passion's condemnation as sin, and to its romantic exultation as the truth of existence, are meticulously registered and the logic governing them astutely explicated. Meyer thus provides new insight into an age-old dilemma: Does passion torture people because it blinds them, or, on the contrary, does it permit them to apprehend who and what we really are?

Utopian Thought in the Western World

Frank E. Manuel, Fritzie P. Manuel

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This masterly study has a grand sweep. It ranges over centuries, with a long look backward over several millennia. Yet the history it unfolds is primarily the story of individuals: thinkers and dreamers who envisaged an ideal social order and described it persuasively, leaving a mark on their own and later times.

The roster of utopians includes men of all stripes in different countries and eras--figures as disparate as More and Fourier, the Marquis de Sade and Edward Bellamy, Rousseau and Marx. Fascinating character studies of the major figures are among the delights of the book.

Utopian writings run the gamut from fictional narratives to theoretical treatises, from political manifestos to constitutions for a new society. The Manuels have structured five centuries of utopian invention by identifying successive constellations, groups of thinkers joined by common social and moral concerns. Within this framework they analyze individual writings, in the context of the author's life and of the socio-economic, religious, and political exigencies of his time. Concentrating on innovative works, they highlight disjunctures as well as continuities in utopian thought from the Renaissance through the twentieth century.

Witty and erudite, challenging in its interpretations and provocative in the questions it poses, the Manuels' anatomy of utopia is an adventure in ideas.

Equality Tolerance and Loyalty: Virtues Serving the Common Purpose of Democracy (Andrew R Cecil Lectures on Moral Values in a Free Society)

Andrew R. Cecil

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Bentham and the Oppressed (Publications of the European University Institute, Series C: Political and Social Science. Vol 1)

Lea Campos Boralevi

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