Philosophy and the Return to Self-knowledgeThis book contends that both Anglo-American analytic philosophy and Continental philosophy have lost their vitality, and it offers an alternative in their place. Donald Phillip Verene advocates a renewal of contemporary philosophy through a return to its origins in Socratic humanism and to the notions of civil wisdom, eloquence, and prudence as guides to human action. Verene critiques reflection--the dominant form of philosophical thought that developed from Descartes and Locke--and shows that reflection is not only a philosophical doctrine but is also connected to the life-form of technological society. He analyzes the nature of technological society and argues that, based on the expansion of human desire, such a society has eliminated the values embodied in the tradition of human folly as understood by Brant, Erasmus, and others. Focusing in particular on the traditions of some of the late Greeks and the Romans, Renaissance humanism, and the thought of Giambattista Vico, this book's concern is to revive the ancient Delphic injunction, "Know thyself," an idea of civil wisdom Verene finds has been missing since Descartes. The author recovers the meaning of the vital relations that poetry, myth, and rhetoric had with philosophy in thinkers like Cicero, Quintilian, Isocrates, Pico, Vives, and Vico. He arrives at a conception of philosophy as a form of memory that requires both rhetoric and poetry to accomplish self-knowledge. |
Contents
Prometheus and Descartes | 1 |
Barbarism of Reflection | 41 |
Technological Desire | 141 |
Philosophical Memory | 192 |
The Tablet of Philosophy | 243 |
Notes261 | 261 |
Credits for Illustrations | 287 |
Common terms and phrases
A. V. Miller action ancient barbarism of reflection becomes beginning Brant's Camillo Cassirer Cicero civil wisdom conception consciousness critical Critique Descartes desire dialectic divine Donald Phillip Verene Ellul eloquence Epimetheus Erasmus Ernesto Grassi Ernst Cassirer existence fable fire folly fool fool's G. W. F. Hegel Giambattista Vico gods Hegel says Hesiod human humanist Ibid imagination imitation individual intellect inversion irony Jacques Ellul Jove Kant knower knowledge language laughter learned master Max Harold Fisch means memory metaphor Metaphysics method mind modern Momus moral Muses myth nature object origin Oxford Phenomenology Phenomenology of Spirit philosophy Plato poets principle Promethean Prometheus prudence Pythagoras reality reason René Descartes requires satyr self-knowledge senex sense simply Socrates soul speculative speech technical technique technological society theater things thought tion trans true truth Understanding University Press Vico says Vico's virtue words York Zeus Zijderveld