The Ennobling of Democracy: The Challenge of the Postmodern AgeWith the end of the Cold War, says Thomas L. Pangle, liberal democracy was deprived of its traditional enemy, and forced to re-examine its internal structure and fundamental aims. One result has been the moral-relativist "postmodernism" of mainstream Western intellectuals. Focusing on Lyotard, Vattimo, and Rorty, The Ennobling of Democracy offers a searching critique of postmodernism and its implications for political life and thought. Pangle carefully examines the political dimensions of postmodernist teachings, including the rejection of the natural-rights doctrines of the Enlightenment, the discounting of public purposefulness, and the disenchantment with claims of civic virtue and reason. He argues that a serious challenge has been posed to postmodernism by the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe, which have directly experienced heroic political leadership, maintained a prominent place for religion, and preserved a belief in the virtues and duties of citizenship. They consequently make demands on Western thought that postmodernism has been unable to meet. Drawing on the classical republican ideal, Pangle opens the door to a bold new synthesis in political philosophy. He argues that by reappropriating classical civic rationalism--and especially classical philosophy of education--a framework may be established to integrate the most significant findings of modern rationalism into a conception of humanity that encompasses, in an unprecedented way, the entire scope of the human condition. "Pangle's argument forces me to articulate and deepen my own views. The book, consequently, is a fine example of the dialectic which it is part of Pangle's purpose to defend, and will makean important contribution to civic education."-- Wilson Carey McWilliams, Rutgers University |
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... dialectic in one of his treatises on logic ( Topics 101a37 - b4 ) . Dialectic , Aristotle there says , is used with a view to the first principles in each science . For from its own first principles , any given science is incapable of ...
... dialectic as from a sort of nihilism unless the soul has firm and firsthand experience of what it means to possess clarity and grounding in truth based on knowledge as opposed to opinion . It is the teachable , demonstrable , arts and ...
... dialectic sound more attractive ; but on the other hand , he stresses at the end the very grave dangers dialectic , or the attempt to educate in dialectic , may pose to the student , to society - and to philosophy itself , insofar as ...
Contents
PART I | 13 |
The Heideggerian Roots of Postmodernism | 34 |
3 Weak Thinking | 48 |
Copyright | |
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The Ennobling of Democracy: The Challenge of the Postmodern Age Thomas L. Pangle Limited preview - 1993 |