- Table View
- List View
Are Liberty and Equality Compatible?
by Jan Narveson James P. SterbaAre the political ideals of liberty and equality compatible? This question is of central and continuing importance in political philosophy, moral philosophy, and welfare economics. In this book, two distinguished philosophers take up the debate. Jan Narveson argues that a political ideal of negative liberty is incompatible with any substantive ideal of equality, while James P. Sterba argues that Narveson's own ideal of negative liberty is compatible, and in fact leads to the requirements of a substantive ideal of equality. Of course, they cannot both be right. Thus, the details of their arguments about the political ideal of negative liberty and its requirements will determine which of them is right. Engagingly and accessibly written, their debate will be of value to all who are interested in the central issue of what are the practical requirements of a political ideal of liberty.
Are Mental Disorders Brain Disorders? (Routledge Focus on Philosophy)
by Anneli JeffersonThe question of whether mental disorders are disorders of the brain has led to a long-running and controversial dispute within psychiatry, psychology and philosophy of mind and psychology. While recent work in neuroscience frequently tries to identify underlying brain dysfunction in mental disorders, detractors argue that labelling mental disorders as brain disorders is reductive and can result in harmful social effects. This book brings a much-needed philosophical perspective to bear on this important question. Anneli Jefferson argues that while there is widespread agreement on paradigmatic cases of brain disorder such as brain cancer, Parkinson's or Alzheimer’s dementia, there is far less clarity on what the general, defining characteristics of brain disorders are. She identifies influential notions of brain disorder and shows why these are problematic. On her own, alternative, account, what counts as dysfunctional at the level of the brain frequently depends on what counts as dysfunctional at the psychological level. On this notion of brain disorder, she argues, many of the consequences people often associate with the brain disorder label do not follow. She also explores the important practical question of how to deal with the fact that many people do draw unlicensed inferences about treatment, personal responsibility or etiology from the information that a condition is a brain disorder or involves brain dysfunction.
Are Numbers Real?: The Uncanny Relationship of Mathematics and the Physical World
by Brian Clegg“A lighthearted yet far-reaching look at the history of numbers and how we use them.” —Publishers WeeklyHave you ever wondered what humans did before numbers existed? How they organized their lives, traded goods, or kept track of their treasures? What would your life be like without them?Numbers began as simple representations of everyday things, but mathematics rapidly took on a life of its own, occupying a parallel virtual world. In Are Numbers Real?, Brian Clegg explores the way that math has become more and more detached from reality, and yet despite this is driving the development of modern physics. From devising a new counting system based on goats, through the weird and wonderful mathematics of imaginary numbers and infinity, to the debate over whether mathematics has too much influence on the direction of science, this fascinating and accessible book opens the reader’s eyes to the hidden reality of the strange yet familiar entities that are numbers.Praise for Are Numbers Real?“A compact, very readable, and highly entertaining history of the development and use of mathematics to answer the important practical questions involved in advancing civilization . . . a superb introduction to mathematics, science, and that branch of philosophy devoted to exploring the nature of reality.” —Dr. James Stein, California State University, Long Beach“Clegg tackles a very deep question in his usual way; with clarity, wit and a wonderfully clear narrative writing style. For me, numbers are like natural language: They obviously don’t exist in a physical sense—you cannot trip over the number 2 in the street—yet numbers are at the heart of understanding the universe. Clegg covers a wide variety of subjects to seek out the truth of the matter in an engaging and hugely accessible way. I personally couldn’t put it down.” —Dr. Peet Morris, University of Oxford
Are Statistics Only Made of Data?: Know-how and Presupposition from the 17th and 19th Centuries (Methodos Series #20)
by Éric BrianThis book examines several epistemological regimes in studies of numerical data over the last four centuries. It distinguishes these regimes and mobilises questions present in the philosophy of science, sociology and historical works throughout the 20th century. Attention is given to the skills of scholars and their methods, their assumptions, and the socio-historical conditions that made calculations and their interpretations possible. In doing so, questions posed as early as Émile Durkheim’s and Ernst Cassirer’s ones are revisited and the concept of symbolic form is put to the test in this particular survey, conducted over long period of time. Although distinct from a methodological and epistemological point of view, today these regimes may be found together in the toolbox of statisticians and those who comment on their conclusions. As such, the book is addressed to social scientists and historians and all those who are interested in numerical productions.
Are the Lips a Grave?: A Queer Feminist on the Ethics of Sex
by Lynne HufferLynne Huffer's ambitious inquiry redresses the rift between feminist and queer theory, traversing the space of a new, post-moral sexual ethics that includes pleasure, desire, connection, and betrayal. She begins by balancing queer theorists' politics of sexual freedoms with a moralizing feminist politics that views sexuality as harm. Drawing on the best insights from both traditions, she builds an ethics centered on eros, following Michel Foucault's ethics as a practice of freedom and Luce Irigaray's lyrical articulation of an ethics of sexual difference.Through this theoretical lens, Huffer examines everyday experiences of ethical connection and failure connected to sex, including queer sexual practices, sodomy laws, interracial love, pornography, and work-life balance. Her approach complicates sexual identities while challenging the epistemological foundations of subjectivity. She rethinks ethics "beyond good and evil" without underestimating, as some queer theorists have done, the persistence of what Foucault calls the "catastrophe" of morality. Elaborating a thinking-feeling ethics of the other, Huffer encourages contemporary intellectuals to reshape sexual morality from within, defining an ethical space that is both poetically suggestive and politically relevant, both conceptually daring and grounded in common sexual experience.
Are the Lips a Grave?
by Lynne HufferLynne Huffer's ambitious inquiry redresses the rift between feminist and queer theory, traversing the space of a new, post-moral sexual ethics that includes pleasure, desire, connection, and betrayal. She begins by balancing queer theorists' politics of sexual freedoms with a moralizing feminist politics that views sexuality as harm. Drawing on the best insights from both traditions, she builds an ethics centered on eros, following Michel Foucault's ethics as a practice of freedom and Luce Irigaray's lyrical articulation of an ethics of sexual difference.Through this theoretical lens, Huffer examines everyday experiences of ethical connection and failure connected to sex, including queer sexual practices, sodomy laws, interracial love, pornography, and work-life balance. Her approach complicates sexual identities while challenging the epistemological foundations of subjectivity. She rethinks ethics "beyond good and evil" without underestimating, as some queer theorists have done, the persistence of what Foucault calls the "catastrophe" of morality. Elaborating a thinking-feeling ethics of the other, Huffer encourages contemporary intellectuals to reshape sexual morality from within, defining an ethical space that is both poetically suggestive and politically relevant, both conceptually daring and grounded in common sexual experience.
Are We Postmodern Yet?: And Were We Ever?
by Reinhold KramerIn this book, Reinhold Kramer explores a variety of important social changes, including the resistance to objective measures of truth, the rise of “How-I-Feel” ethics, the ascendancy of individualism, the immersion in cyber-simulations, the push toward globalization and multilateralism, and the decline of political and religious faiths. He argues that the displacement, since the 1990s, of grand narratives by ego-based narratives and small narratives has proven inadequate, and that selective adherence, pluralist adaptation, and humanism are more worthy replacements. Relying on evolutionary psychology as much as on Charles Taylor, Kramer argues that no single answer is possible to the book title’s question, but that the term “postmodernity” – referring to the era, not to postmodernism – still usefully describes major currents within the contemporary world.
Are You an Illusion? (Heretics)
by Mary MidgleyIn Are You an Illusion? today’s scientific orthodoxy, which treats the self as nothing more than an elaborate illusion, comes under spirited attack. In an impassioned defence of the importance of our own thoughts, feelings and experiences, Mary Midgley shows that there’s much more to our selves than a jumble of brain cells.Exploring the remarkable gap that has opened up between our understanding of our own sense of self and today’s science, she exposes some very odd claims and muddled thinking on the part of cognitive scientists and psychologists when they talk about the self and shows that many well-known philosophical problems in causality and free have been glossed over.Midgley argues powerfully and persuasively that the rich variety of our imaginative life cannot be contained in the narrow bounds of a highly puritanical materialism that simply equates brain and self. Engaging with the work of prominent thinkers, Midgley investigates the source of our current attitudes to the self and reveals how ideas, traditions and myths have been twisted to fit in, seemingly naturally, with science’s current preoccupation with the physical and, in doing so, have made many other valuable activities and ideas appear as anti-scientific. Midgley shows that the subjective sources of thought – our own experiences – are every bit as necessary in helping to explain the world as the objective ones such as brain cells.Are You an Illusion? offers a salutary analysis of science’s claim to have done away with the self and a characteristic injection of common sense from one of our most respected philosophers into a debate increasingly in need of it.
Are You an Illusion? (Routledge Classics)
by Mary MidgleyIn an impassioned defence of the importance of our own thoughts, feelings and experiences, the renowned philosopher Mary Midgley shows that there’s much more to our selves than a jumble of brain cells. Exploring the remarkable gap that has opened up between our understanding of our sense of self and today’s science, Midgley argues powerfully and persuasively that the rich variety of our imaginative life cannot be contained in the narrow bounds of a highly puritanical materialism that simply equates brain and self. Engaging with the work of prominent thinkers, Midgley investigates the source of our current attitudes to the self and reveals how ideas, traditions and myths have been twisted to fit in, seemingly naturally, with science’s current preoccupation with the physical and material. Midgley shows that the subjective sources of thought – our own experiences – are every bit as necessary in helping to explain the world as the objective ones such as brain cells. Are You an Illusion? offers a salutary analysis of science’s claim to have done away with the self and a characteristic injection of common sense from one of our most respected philosophers into a debate increasingly in need of it. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Foreword by Stephen Cave.
Are You Just Braaaiiinnnsss or Something More?
by Wayne YuenIn Are You Just Braaaiiinnnsss or Something More?, British Columbia-based philosopher Gordon Hawkes compares the zombies of The Walking Dead with the zombies philosophers argue about. Debate about whether zombies could possibly exist has been a hot topic in philosophy of mind over the last thirty years, though as Hawkes points out, these are not quite the same as the walkers in Robert Kirkman's epic tale. Philosophical zombies, or P-zombies for short, are beings who look and behave exactly like humans but have no inner mental life-no consciousness. Philosophers have lined up on both sides of this disputed proposition, and no agreement is yet in sight. A related question is how much consciousness is possessed by the walkers of The Walking Dead, and whether these shambling walkers are entitled to any moral consideration. Hawkes's piece is one of twenty chapters in The Walking Dead and Philosophy, edited by Wayne Yuen, in which philosophers draw fascinating and disturbing conclusions from The Walking Dead comics and TV show. The Walking Dead and Philosophy explores not only the nature of zombies, but the nature of human society as revealed by the impact of a zombie apocalypse.
Are You Liberal? Conservative? Or Confused? (An "Uncle Eric" Book #4)
by Richard J. Maybury Jane A. Williams"Are You Liberal? Conservative? or Confused?" discusses political labels. What do they mean? Liberal, conservative, left, right, democrat, republican, moderate, socialist, libertarian, communist what are their economic policies and what plans do their promoters have for your money? Clear, concise explanations. Facts and fallacies. Does inconsistency to the original American philosophy endanger liberty? To improve the student's learning experience, also purchase the student study guide for "Are You Liberal? Conservative? or Confused?" titled "A Bluestocking Guide: Political Philosophies" also available through Amazon. Can be used for courses in Government, Civics, Election Unit Studies, Economics, Business, Finance, History. Also recommended for further reading is the chapter on "Isms" from the book "Capitalism for Kids" also available through Amazon.
Arendt: The Fate Of The Political (The Routledge Philosophers)
by Dana VillaHannah Arendt (1906–1975) was a philosopher and political theorist of astonishing range and originality and one of the leading thinkers of the twentieth century. A former student of Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers, she fled Nazi Germany to Paris in 1933, and subsequently escaped from Vichy France to New York in 1941. The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) made her famous. After visiting professorships at Princeton, Berkeley, and the University of Chicago, she took up a permanent position at the New School in 1967. Renowned for The Human Condition, On Revolution, and The Life of the Mind, she is also known for her brilliant but controversial reporting and analysis of Adolf Eichmann’s 1961 trial in Jerusalem—an experience that led to her to coin the phrase "the banality of evil." In this outstanding introduction to Arendt's thought Dana Villa begins with a helpful overview of Arendt's life and intellectual development, before examining and assessing the following important topics: Arendt's analysis of the nature of political evil and the arguments of The Origins of Totalitarianism political freedom and political action and the arguments of On the Human Condition, especially Arendt's return to the ancient Greek polis and her critique of modernity modernity and revolution and Arendt's text On Revolution responsibility and judgment and her reporting of the Eichmann trial Arendt's view of contemplation and the fundamental faculties of mental life Arendt's rich legacy and influence, including her civic republican understanding of freedom and her influence on the Frankfurt School, communitarianism, and democratic theory. Including a chronology, chapter summaries, and suggestions for further reading, this indispensable guide to Arendt's philosophy will also be useful to those in related disciplines such as politics, sociology, history, and economics.
Arendt, Agamben and the Issue of Hyper-Legality: In Between the Prisoner-Stateless Nexus
by Kathleen R. ArnoldIn the Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt famously argued that the stateless were so rightless, that it was better to be a criminal who at least had some rights and protections. In this book, Kathleen R. Arnold examines Arendt’s comparison in the context of post-1996 U.S. criminal and immigration policies, arguing that the criminal-stateless binary is significant to contemporary politics and yet flawed. A key distinction made today is that immigrant detention is not imprisonment because it is a civil system. In turn, prisoners are still citizens in some respects but have relatively few rights since the legal underpinnings of "cruel and unusual" have shifted in recent times. The two systems – immigrant detention and the prison system – are also concretely related as they often house both populations and utilize the same techniques (such as administrative segregation). Arnold compellingly argues that prisoners are essentially made into foreigners in these spaces, while immigrants in detention are cast as outlaws. Examining legal theory, political theory and discussing specific cases to illustrate her claims, Arendt, Agamben and the Issue of Hyper-Legality operates on three levels to expose the degree to which prisoners’ rights have been suspended and how immigrant policy and detention cast foreigners as inherently criminal. Less talked about, the government in turn expands sovereign, discretionary power and secrecy at the expense of openness, transparency and democratic community. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of contemporary political theory, philosophy and law, immigration, and incarceration.
Arendt and Adorno: Political and Philosophical Investigations
by Lars Rensmann Samir GandeshaHannah Arendt and Theodor W. Adorno, two of the most influential political philosophers and theorists of the twentieth century, were contemporaries with similar interests, backgrounds, and a shared experience of exile. Yet until now, no book has brought them together. In this first comparative study of their work, leading scholars discuss divergences, disclose surprising affinities, and find common ground between the two thinkers. This pioneering work recovers the relevance of Arendt and Adorno for contemporary political theory and philosophy and lays the foundation for a critical understanding of political modernity: from universalistic claims for political freedom to the abyss of genocidal politics.
Arendt and America
by Richard H. KingGerman-Jewish political philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906-75) fled from the Nazis to New York in 1941, and during the next thirty years in America she wrote her best-known and most influential works, such as The Human Condition, The Origins of Totalitarianism, and On Revolution. Yet, despite the fact that a substantial portion of her oeuvre was written in America, not Europe, no one has directly considered the influence of America on her thought--until now. In Arendt and America, historian Richard H. King argues that while all of Arendt's work was haunted by her experience of totalitarianism, it was only in her adopted homeland that she was able to formulate the idea of the modern republic as an alternative to totalitarian rule. Situating Arendt within the context of U. S. intellectual, political, and social history, King reveals how Arendt developed a fascination with the political thought of the Founding Fathers. King also re-creates her intellectual exchanges with American friends and colleagues, such as Dwight Macdonald and Mary McCarthy, and shows how her lively correspondence with sociologist David Riesman helped her understand modern American culture and society. In the last section of Arendt and America, King sets out the context in which the Eichmann controversy took place and follows the debate about "the banality of evil" that has continued ever since. As King shows, Arendt's work, regardless of focus, was shaped by postwar American thought, culture, and politics, including the Civil Rights Movement and the Cold War. For Arendt, the United States was much more than a refuge from Nazi Germany; it was a stimulus to rethink the political, ethical, and historical traditions of human culture. This authoritative combination of intellectual history and biography offers a unique approach for thinking about the influence of America on Arendt's ideas and also the effect of her ideas on American thought.
Arendt and America
by Richard H. KingGerman-Jewish political philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906–75) fled from the Nazis to New York in 1941, and during the next thirty years in America she wrote her best-known and most influential works, such as The Human Condition, The Origins of Totalitarianism, and On Revolution. Yet, despite the fact that a substantial portion of her oeuvre was written in America, not Europe, no one has directly considered the influence of America on her thought—until now. In Arendt and America, historian Richard H. King argues that while all of Arendt’s work was haunted by her experience of totalitarianism, it was only in her adopted homeland that she was able to formulate the idea of the modern republic as an alternative to totalitarian rule. Situating Arendt within the context of U.S. intellectual, political, and social history, King reveals how Arendt developed a fascination with the political thought of the Founding Fathers. King also re-creates her intellectual exchanges with American friends and colleagues, such as Dwight Macdonald and Mary McCarthy, and shows how her lively correspondence with sociologist David Riesman helped her understand modern American culture and society. In the last section of Arendt and America, King sets out the context in which the Eichmann controversy took place and follows the debate about “the banality of evil” that has continued ever since. As King shows, Arendt’s work, regardless of focus, was shaped by postwar American thought, culture, and politics, including the Civil Rights Movement and the Cold War. For Arendt, the United States was much more than a refuge from Nazi Germany; it was a stimulus to rethink the political, ethical, and historical traditions of human culture. This authoritative combination of intellectual history and biography offers a unique approach for thinking about the influence of America on Arendt’s ideas and also the effect of her ideas on American thought.
Arendt and Augustine: A Pedagogy of Desiring and Thinking for Politics (Transforming Political Theologies)
by Mark AloysiusThis book addresses a lacuna in scholarship concerning Hannah Arendt’s Augustinian heritage that has predominantly focused on her early work. It de-canonises the sources that political theology has appealed to by shifting the interpretive focus to her mature treatment in The Life of the Mind. Arendt’s initial criticism of Augustinian desiring is that it generates 'worldlessness'. In her later works, Arendt develops a more nuanced reading of the movements of thinking, desiring, and loving in her engagement with Augustine. This study attends to these movements and inspects the spatio-temporal framework which structure Arendt’s conception of the political. The author assesses the claim that Arendt’s conception of the political is drawn from a pedagogy of desiring and thinking from Augustine severed from his mystagogy. Although respecting the method of political theory, the author contends that Arendt’s severing of Augustinian pedagogy from mystagogy brings her to an insurmountable aporia. Instead, the author embeds these pedagogical practices within Augustine’s theology and suggests how that aporia might be overcome and used to develop a mystagogy for contemporary political life. The book will be of particular interest to scholars of political theology, as well as political theory, and political philosophy.
Arendt and Heidegger: The Fate of the Political
by Dana VillaTheodor Adorno once wrote an essay to "defend Bach against his devotees." In this book Dana Villa does the same for Hannah Arendt, whose sweeping reconceptualization of the nature and value of political action, he argues, has been covered over and domesticated by admirers (including critical theorists, communitarians, and participatory democrats) who had hoped to enlist her in their less radical philosophical or political projects. Against the prevailing "Aristotelian" interpretation of her work, Villa explores Arendt's modernity, and indeed her postmodernity, through the Heideggerian and Nietzschean theme of a break with tradition at the closure of metaphysics. Villa's book, however, is much more than a mere correction of misinterpretations of a major thinker's work. Rather, he makes a persuasive case for Arendt as the postmodern or postmetaphysical political theorist, the first political theorist to think through the nature of political action after Nietzsche's exposition of the death of God (i.e., the collapse of objective correlates to our ideals, ends, and purposes). After giving an account of Arendt's theory of action and Heidegger's influence on it, Villa shows how Arendt did justice to the Heideggerian and Nietzschean criticism of the metaphysical tradition while avoiding the political conclusions they drew from their critiques. The result is a wide-ranging discussion not only of Arendt and Heidegger, but of Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, Habermas, and the entire question of politics after metaphysics.
Arendt Contra Sociology: Theory, Society and its Science (Classical And Contemporary Social Theory Ser.)
by Philip WalshHannah Arendt is today widely regarded today as a political theorist, who sought to rescue politics from society, and political theory from the social sciences. But this view has had the effect of distracting attention from many of Arendt's most important insights concerning the constitution of society, and the significance of its 'science', sociology. Arendt Contra Sociology re-assesses the relationship between Arendt's work and the theoretical foundations of sociology, bringing her insights to bear on some key themes within contemporary theoretical sociology. Re-reading Arendt's distinctions between labour, fabrication and action as a theory of the fundamental ontology of human societies, this book assesses her criticism of the tendency of many sociological paradigms to conflate the activity of fabrication with that of action. It re-examines Arendt's understanding of central areas of research within contemporary theoretical sociology - including the meaning of power, the trajectory of modern science, the rise of consumerism and the problem of reflexivity. This volume offers a comprehensive reconstruction of Arendt's thought, uncovering its refutation of, or latent contribution to, key sociological approaches. It will be of interest to sociologists, social and political theorists and philosophers of social science.
Arendt on Freedom, Liberation, and Revolution (Philosophers in Depth)
by Kei HirutaThis edited volume focuses on what Hannah Arendt famously called “the raison d’être of politics”: freedom. The unique collection of essays clarifies her flagship idea of political freedom in relation to other key Arendtian themes such as liberation, revolution, civil disobedience, and the right to have rights. In addressing these, contributors to this volume juxtapose Arendt with a number of thinkers from Isaiah Berlin, John Rawls and Philip Pettit to Karl Marx, Frantz Fanon and Geoffroy de Lagasnerie. They also consider the continuing relevance of Arendt’s work to some of the most dramatic events in recent years, including the current global refugee crisis, the Arab uprisings of the 2010s, and the ongoing crisis of liberal democracy in the West and beyond. Contributors include Keith Breen, Joan Cocks, Tal Correm, Christian J. Emden, Patrick Hayden, Kei Hiruta, Anthony F. Lang Jr., Shmuel Lederman, Miriam Leonard, Natasha Saunders, William Smith, and Shiyu Zhang.
Arendt on the Political
by David ArndtWhat is politics? How is politics different from other spheres of human life? What is behind the debasement of political life today? This book argues that the most illuminating answers to these questions have come from Hannah Arendt. Arendt held that Western philosophy has never had a 'pure concept of the political', and that political philosophers have been guided and misguided by the assumptions implicit in their metaphysical questions. Her project was 'to look at politics … with eyes unclouded by philosophy', and to retrieve the non-theoretical understanding of politics implicit in ancient Greek literature and history. David Arndt's original and accessible study shows how Arendt reworked some of the basic concepts of political philosophy, which in turn led her to a re-interpretation of American political history and even to a profoundly original reading of the US Declaration of Independence.
Arendt's Judgment: Freedom, Responsibility, Citizenship
by Jonathan Peter SchwartzIn Arendt's Judgment, Jonathan Peter Schwartz explores the nature of human judgment, the subject of the planned third volume of Hannah Arendt's The Life of the Mind, which was left unwritten at the time of her death. Arguing that previous interpretations of Arendt failed to fully appreciate the central place of judgment in her thought, Schwartz contends that understanding Arendt's ideas requires not only interpreting her published work but also reconstructing her thinking from a broader range of sources, including her various essays, lecture course notes, unpublished material, and correspondence. When these sources are taken into account, it becomes clear that, for Arendt, political judgment was the answer to the question of how human freedom could be realized in the modern world.This new approach to understanding Arendt leads to what Schwartz argues are original insights Arendt can teach us about the nature of politics beyond sovereignty and the role of human agency in history. Above all, her novel understanding of the authentic nature and purpose of political philosophy is finally revealed. Schwartz claims that in her theory of political judgment Arendt presented a vision of political philosophy that is improved and deepened by the contributions of ordinary, active citizens. Along with challenging previous interpretations, Arendt's Judgment provides a roadmap to her published and unpublished work for scholars and students.
Arendt's Solidarity: Anti-Semitism and Racism in the Atlantic World (Cultural Memory in the Present)
by David D. KimHannah Arendt's work inspires many to stand in solidarity against authoritarianism, racial or gender-based violence, climate change, and right-wing populism. But what if a careful analysis of her oeuvre reveals a darker side to this intellectual legacy? What if solidarity, as she conceives of it, is not oriented toward equality, freedom, or justice for all, but creates a barrier to intersectional coalition building? In Arendt's Solidarity, David D. Kim illuminates Arendt's lifelong struggle with this deceptively straightforward yet divisive concept. Drawing upon her publications, unpublished documents, private letters, radio and television interviews, newspaper clippings, and archival marginalia, Kim examines how Arendt refutes solidarity as an effective political force against anti-Semitism, racial injustice, or social inequality. As Kim reveals, this conceptual conundrum follows the arc of Arendt's forced migration across the Atlantic and is directly related to every major concern of hers: Christian neighborly love, friendship, Jewish assimilation, Zionism, National Socialism, the American republic, Black Power, revolution, violence, and the human world. Kim places these thoughts in dialogue with dissenting voices, such as Thomas Mann, Gershom Scholem, Jean-Paul Sartre, James Baldwin, Frantz Fanon, James Forman, and Ralph Ellison. The result is a full-scale reinterpretation of Arendt's oeuvre.
Areopagitica and Other Prose Works
by John Milton C. E. VaughanAn uncompromising defender of liberty as well as a sublime poet, John Milton published the "Areopagitica" in 1644, at the height of the English Civil War. The impetus arose from Parliament's Licensing Order, which censored all printed materials and ultimately led to arrests, book burnings, and other authoritarian abuses. Milton's polemic, strengthened by biblical and classical allusions, remains enduringly significant and ranks among the world's most eloquent defenses of the right to free speech.In addition to the "Areopagitica," this collection of Milton's most significant prose works includes "Of Education," a tract on educational reform; "Meditation Upon Divine Justice and The Death of King Charles the First," a rationale for the overthrow of the monarchy; "The Doctrine and Disciple of Divorce," in which the author urges the enactment of a virtually unheard-of reform allowing divorce for incompatibility and the right of remarriage; and "Autobiographical Extracts," featuring highlights from Milton's memoirs.
Argentina's "Dirty War": An Intellectual Biography
by Donald C. HodgesArgentines ask how their ultracivilized country, reputedly the most European in Latin America, could have relapsed into near-barbarism in the 1970s. This enlightening study seeks to answer that question by reviewing the underlying political events and intellectual foundations of the "dirty war" (1975-1978) and overlapping Military Process (1976-1982). It examines the ideologies and actions of the main protagonists-the armed forces, guerrillas, and organized labor- over time and traces them to their roots. In the most comprehensive treatment of the subject to date, Hodges examines primary materials never seen by other researchers, including clandestinely published guerrilla documents, and interviews important actors in Argentina's political drama. His wide-ranging scholarship traces the origins of the national security and national salvation doctrines to the Spanish Inquisition, sixteenth-century witch hunts, and nineteenth-century reactions to the modernizing ideologies of liberalism, democracy, socialism, and communism. Hodges posits that the "dirty war," Military Process, and revolutionary war to which they responded represented the culmination of social tensions that arose in 1930 with the launching of the Military Era by Argentina's first successful twentieth-century coup. He offers the disquieting hypothesis that as long as the "Argentine Question" remains unsettled the military may intervene again, the resistance movement will remain strong, and violence may continue even under a democratic government. Donald C. Hodges (1923-2009) was professor of philosophy and affiliate professor of political science at Florida State University.