A particular notion of reason has pervaded studies of practical action throughout the whole tradition of western philosophy up to Wittgenstein and Heidegger. This notion has been centrally located in contexts other than the specific study of practical action itself.This essay examines the relation of reason and practical action by reviewing Habermas' and Husserl's theories of the relation between discourse and action (I), and then proposing Garfinkel's ethnomethodological studies of practical action as an alternative to Husserl's and Habermas' preoccupation with (...) the primacy of theoretical discourse (II). In a final section I shall interpret Garfinkel's studies, following his own suggestions as studies in practical ethics, and make reference to similar themes in philosophical ethics (Ill). (shrink)

This book is best understood if one places it into the specific context of present-day debates about the shortcomings of American liberalism. With Alasdair MacIntyre and other communitarians on the one hand, and the "new constitutionalist right" on the other hand, mainstream liberalism in the United States reaching from Dewey to Rawls appears to be under pressure. Macedo does his best to salvage it without relying on support from left-wing communitarians or moderate defenders of social democracy such as Charles Taylor (...) or M. Walzer. The title "liberal virtues" is, after all, almost provocative; at least we begin to hear it that way, having become accustomed to separating virtue from liberalism and attributing an almost premodern meaning to the term virtue. Therefore Macedo puts much effort into a reconstruction of the historical ancestry of American liberalism and shows that liberalism was integral to the constitutional history of the United States. He takes his argument through a consideration of a number of relevant Supreme Court decisions, all the while clearly recognizing that republican and democratic virtues have sources other than those available through constitutional adjudication. What interests the author is the relation between the public virtues of reasonableness, tolerance, critical reflection as moral virtues and their legal counterparts. He thus makes a case for a liberal public morality or ethos, without which political liberalism or liberalism in constitutional law cannot overcome a "shortfall of legitimacy and moral justification". (shrink)

In all of his works Habermas pursues the elucidation of the modern age and of the principles and processes constitutive of it. The affirmation of modernity and its critique are integral to the elucidation. This book also pursues these themes. It is a collection of four recently published essays, all dealing with the issue of ethics, and concludes with a long and informative interview. There is also a lengthy, useful introduction by the translator. The translation is adequate, even good. The (...) theme of the essays is the possibility of a "discourse theory of morality". This theory is largely a form of deontological cognitivist metaethics defending a "universalistic concept of morality". The essays fit together thematically and are more lucid than a few earlier writings by Habermas on the same topic. (shrink)

In these essays, appearing for the first time in English, Gadamer addresses practical questions about recent politics in Europe, about education and university reform, and about the role of poetry in the modern world. This book also includes a series of interviews that the editors conducted in 1986. Gadamer elaborates on his experiences in education and politics, touching on the collapse of the Weimar Republic, the early Frankfurt School, Heidegger and the Nazis, university life in East Germany, and the prospects (...) for Europe in the coming years. Hans-Georg Gadamer was probably Heidegger’s leading interpreter in Germany, and in the 1950s and 1960s he became the world’s leading exponent of hermeneutics. His hermeneutical theory explains how it is that ancient art and philosophy still speak to us today. His influential idea of the “fusion of horizons” also shows how it is that we understand what is remote form our own culture. (shrink)