Habermas' recent work makes a major claim: to be able to determine what is the most rational thing to do. Postmodernists, notably Lyotard, have perhaps successfully belittled this claim as too positivistic. This book does not dispute the validity of the postmodern critique but it is concerned to resist the irrationality which, thus far, seems to coincide with anti-positivism. The author looks at the concept of justice, as one that is both essential to Habermas and Lyotard but is also utilized (...) in their work only in constricted and unimaginative ways. (shrink)

This paper revisits the Derrida-Searle debate, an exchange that, unfortunately, did not lead to much, if any, mutual understanding. I will suggest that this failure can be traced back to key features of their respective theories. In that Searle and Derrida use their own theories of speech as resources in trying to understand each other, their unsuccessful communication can be used to reveal a great deal about the limitations of both their theories. My paper tries to draw out these limitations (...) by analyzing specific moments in the debate. I also suggest concrete proposals for overcoming defects in each of the theories, proposals that, arguably, would make some mutual understanding more possible. (shrink)

This article is concerned with exploring the idea of places as providing persons with nourishment. This version of person–place relations is displayed in a paper by McHugh and, in provocative fashion, in Michel Serres’s analysis of the human condition as a parasitic one. Unlike McHugh, Serres combines his analysis of parasites with a concern that principled actors may be insufficiently attached to places. His views are revealed in his interpretations of works by Molière and Plato. By reinterpreting these works, I (...) try to suggest that Serres’s well-founded scepticism as to the level of commitment of principled actors to the places that, as he rightly points out, are nourishing them, may not apply to the sub-set of principled actors who deserve to be called particular. (shrink)

The article addresses the problem of how to theorize generosity. It argues that generosity is a matter of social actors orienting to standards and suggests, drawing on an analysis by Derrida, that while he too sees the necessity of standards, for him this leads to certain dilemmas as to how actors can actually accomplish generosity. How can actors display the fulsomeness generosity requires while still respecting standards or limits? An attempt is made to resolve this problem by proposing, in line (...) with certain work by Blum and McHugh, and by Taylor, a distinction between merely calculating generosity and reflecting on it. Finally, the communal value of the version of generosity that the article develops is alluded to with the help of a Levinas-inspired version of self-other relations. (shrink)

Peter McHugh was an internationally known sociologist within the field of anti-positivist social theory. As the only collection of McHugh's sole-authored writings, Redefining the Situation presents a comprehensive yet surprising view of this key theorist's influence in his field. Redefining the Situation is a compendium of McHugh's published and unpublished short-form writings, along with three new essays on McHugh's work, one by his long-time collaborator and friend Alan Blum. The collection contributes to the project of reinventing social theory by providing (...) a new perspective from which to imaginatively rethink the development of sociology over the last fifty years. It locates McHugh's work not only within the modern and postmodern sociological tradition but also within contemporary social theory broadly, including hermeneutics, critical theory, deconstruction, and Hannah Arendt's political theory. The essays in this volume show the development of a method to analyze everyday behaviour in light of fundamental questions, exploring conflicts and connections between socialization and recidivism, fragmentation and ethnic cleansing, justice and affirmative action, teaching and university politics, and intimacy and aesthetics. This book moves beyond contemporary debates about big data/postmodernism, and along the way it identifies convergences in Anglo-American and Continental thought. By tracing the development of Analysis, the tradition of social inquiry, from its beginnings until today, Redefining the Situation re-establishes a prominent sociologist as one of the leading intellectuals in the field of interpretive social theory. (shrink)

This paper considers some of the potential implications for an interest in health of the basic fact that to live is to have been given something in advance. It is suggested that various thinkers such as Alfred Adler, Sartre, and Heidegger are unable to develop a positive attitude toward this fact and therefore are not logically in a position to be committed to health. An alternative to all of these is found in Hannah Arendt's notion that activity is an essential (...) part of life. Following her lead, the paper moves on to a consideration of various forms of human activity, labor, work, and finally action both in terms of how they constitute an advance over the givens of life and how they contribute to health. (shrink)

This paper begins by examining a text in which one writer, Richard Ford, is discussing both the persona and the work of another writer, Raymond Carver. Ford''s positive reaction to Carver provides us with a puzzle as to what the basis for it is. I suggest that what he is really admiring is a kind of originality that he detects in Carver. I try to specify the constitutive rules for the generation of this form of originality. They seem to take (...) the form of at once being able to preserve what is valuable in existing material and yet managing to add what could be said to be missing. I then argue that, if Carver is doing this sort of work, so too is Ford. Having seen various examples of a kind of originality, I argue that the process we have been seeing might be formulated as the exercise of imagination, and address the issue of the possible significance of accomplishing such imaginative work. If, as many contemporary philosophers and workers in the human sciences have argued, there is no escape from the need for interpretation, there is a problem of what could ever be a satisfactory interpretation. I suggest that the idea or the possibility of an imaginative interpretation could be a way of providing such satisfaction. (shrink)

I focus on some of Peter McHugh’s most recent papers. This is work that is not yet widely known, some of which has not even been published as yet. I try to show that while the work does not in any way contradict his life-long commitments, it still has the capacity to be not at all predictable.

This article argues that both courage and reason are necessary aspects of moral action. It begins by examining Plato’s changing conceptions of these two virtues, and, in particular, the settled view he arrives at in The Statesman. Sloterdijk’s recent attempt in his book advocating rage to appropriate this dialogue in order to criticize Habermas is then considered. I suggest, by interpreting various claims by these two authors, that neither understands that both reason and courage have essential roles in moral action. (...) Additional support for this conclusion is found, not just in Plato’s late work, but in a ‘third generation’ reworking of critical theory recently developed by Menke. (shrink)

Both sides in controversies tend to argue they have logic on their side. This book proposes that the interminable nature of these controversies suggests there is a problem with the main tool of logic, the syllogism. Drawing on contemporary developments in social theory and philosophy, Stanley Raffel argues that metaphors are not just aesthetic tools; they can also be used to judge phenomena. Featuring case studies drawn from both literary material and current controversial debates, _The Method of Metaphor_ ultimately demonstrates (...) the value of this neglected potential of metaphoric reasoning and shows its far-reaching implications in both moral behavior and moral education. (shrink)