Online research in philosophy

Exploring how personal inheritances of the Holocaust?the Shoah?shaped particular familial silences, I show how they created a need for philosophy and social theories that helped grasp the truth of what remained unspoken. As my parents? generation insisted on having exclusive ownership of the past, while tacitly contracting that children create futures that can redeem their survival, I was concerned with learning how to live a meaningful human life. I was drawn to feminisms and sexual politics that focused upon the quality (...) of everyday experience in ways that both Marx and Kant?quite differently?remained tied to traditions of Enlightenment rationalism. While it has taken time to face these traumatic histories and their legacies, they have also shaped my sense of the significance of moral learning and theories of moral development that engage with the evils that were perpetrated, while also ensuring, as much as we can, that they are not repeated. (shrink)

Recovering the Self seeks to place issues of morality and justice at the heart of social theory. Because of the breakdown of traditional forms of authority, respect for authorities can no longer be taken for granted. Increasingly people believe that respect has to be earned and people have to discover sources of authority within themselves. Victor Seidler seeks to establish a framework to rethink the relation between self and society, identities and power. Through exploring the works of Marx, Weber, and (...) Durkheim he shows the hidden complexities of a modernity too often identified with a unified vision of the rational self. Reinstating the body and emotional life into the discussion, Seidler sets new terms for respect and equality by showing ways the self is undermined in its sense of self-worth and adequacy through the working of relationships of power and subordination. (shrink)

I INTRODUCTION: RESPECT, EQUALITY AND THE AUTONOMY OF MORALITY We often invoke a notion of respect to express our sense of human equality. ...