Roberto Frega & Giovanni Maddelena – Can you recollect what the situation was concerning the study of pragmatism when you were in college? Richard J. Bernstein – I was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago from 1949 to 1951. At the time the “Hutchins College” was an unusual institution. The entire curriculum was fixed and it was organized around reading many of the great books of the Western tradition. From the time I arrived, I was (...) reading Plato, Aristotle, Galileo, Darwin, Herodotus... (shrink)

Drawing freely and expertly from Continental and analytic traditions, Richard Bernstein examines a number of debates and controversies exemplified in the works of Gadamer, Habermas, Rorty, and Arendt. He argues that a "new conversation" is emerging about human rationality—a new understanding that emphasizes its practical character and has important ramifications both for thought and action.

From the Introduction: This inquiry is concerned with the themes of praxis and action in four philosophic movements: Marxism, existentialism, pragmatism, and analytic philosophy. It is rare that these four movements are considered in a single inquiry, for there are profound differences of emphasis, focus, terminology, and approach represented by these styles of thought. Many philosophers believe that similarities among these movements are superficial and that a close examination of them will reveal only hopelessly unbridgeable cleavages. While respecting the (...) genuine fundamental differences of these movements, this inquiry is undertaken in the spirit of showing that there are important common themes and motifs in what first appears to be a chaotic babble of voices. I intend to show that the concern with man as an agent has been a primary focal point of each of these movements and further that each contributes something permanent and important to our understanding of the nature and context of human activity. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt is increasingly recognised as one of the most original social and political thinkers of the twentieth century. In this important book, Richard Bernstein sets out to show that many of the most significant themes in Arendt's thinking have their origins in their confrontation with the Jewish Question. By approaching her mature work from this perspective, we can gain a richer and more subtle grasp of her main ideas. Bernstein discusses some of the key experiences (...) and events in Arendt's life story in order to show how they shaped her thinking. He examines her distinction between the Jewish parvenu and the pariah, and shows how the conscious pariah becomes a basis for understanding the independent thinker. Arendt's deepest insights about politics emerged from her reflections on statelessness, which were based on her own experiences as a stateless person. By confronting the horrors of totalitarianism and the concentration camps, Arendt developed her own distinctive understanding of authentic politics - the politics required to express our humanity and which totalitarianism sought to destroy. Finally, Bernstein takes up Arendt's concern with the phenomenon of the banality of evil. He follows her use of Eichmann in order to explore how the failure to think and to judge is the key for grasping this new phenomenon. _Hannah Arendt and the Jewish Question _offers a new interpretation of Arendt and her work - one which situates her in her historical context as an engaged Jewish intellectual. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt is increasingly recognised as one of the most original social and political thinkers of the twentieth century. In this important book, Richard Bernstein sets out to show that many of the most significant themes in Arendt's thinking have their origins in their confrontation with the Jewish Question. By approaching her mature work from this perspective, we can gain a richer and more subtle grasp of her main ideas. Bernstein discusses some of the key experiences (...) and events in Arendt's life story in order to show how they shaped her thinking. He examines her distinction between the Jewish parvenu and the pariah, and shows how the conscious pariah becomes a basis for understanding the independent thinker. Arendt's deepest insights about politics emerged from her reflections on statelessness, which were based on her own experiences as a stateless person. By confronting the horrors of totalitarianism and the concentration camps, Arendt developed her own distinctive understanding of authentic politics - the politics required to express our humanity and which totalitarianism sought to destroy. Finally, Bernstein takes up Arendt's concern with the phenomenon of the banality of evil. He follows her use of Eichmann in order to explore how the failure to think and to judge is the key for grasping this new phenomenon. _Hannah Arendt and the Jewish Question _offers a new interpretation of Arendt and her work - one which situates her in her historical context as an engaged Jewish intellectual. (shrink)

From the Introduction: This inquiry is concerned with the themes of praxis and action in four philosophic movements: Marxism, existentialism, pragmatism, and analytic philosophy. It is rare that these four movements are considered in a single inquiry, for there are profound differences of emphasis, focus, terminology, and approach represented by these styles of thought. Many philosophers believe that similarities among these movements are superficial and that a close examination of them will reveal only hopelessly unbridgeable cleavages. While respecting the (...) genuine fundamental differences of these movements, this inquiry is undertaken in the spirit of showing that there are important common themes and motifs in what first appears to be a chaotic babble of voices. I intend to show that the concern with man as an agent has been a primary focal point of each of these movements and further that each contributes something permanent and important to our understanding of the nature and context of human activity. (shrink)

ONE of the most important and central claims in Hans-George Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics is that all understanding involves not only interpretation, but also application. Against an older tradition that divided up hermeneutics into subtilitas intelligendi, subtilitas explicandi, and subtilitas applicandi, a primary thesis of Truth and Method is that these are not three independent activities to be relegated to different sub-disciplines, but rather they are internally related. They are all moments of the single process of understanding. I want to explore (...) this integration of the moment of application into hermeneutic understanding which Gadamer calls the "rediscovery of the fundamental hermeneutic problem." For it not only takes us to the heart of what is distinctive about philosophical hermeneutics but it reveals some of the deep problems and tensions implicit in hermeneutics. First, I want to note some of the central features of what Gadamer means by philosophical hermeneutics. Then I can specify the problem that he is confronting when dealing with application. This will enable us to see what Gadamer seeks to appropriate from Aristotle, and especially from Aristotle's analysis of phronesis in book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics, in elucidating the sense in which all understanding involves application. Gadamer certainly realizes that "Aristotle is not concerned with the hermeneutical problem and certainly not with its historical dimension, but with the right estimation of the role that reason has to play in moral action", and yet Gadamer claims that "if we relate Aristotle's description of the ethical phenomenon and especially the virtue of moral knowledge to our own investigation, we find Aristotle's analysis is in fact a kind of model of the problems of hermeneutics". But Gadamer's own understanding, interpretation, and appropriation of Aristotle has much richer consequences. It is itself a model of what he means by hermeneutical understanding. It is an exemplar of effective-historical consciousness, the fusion of horizons, the positive role of temporal distance, how understanding is part of the process of the coming into being of meaning, the way in which tradition "speaks to us" and makes a "claim to truth" upon us, and what it means to say that "the interpreter dealing with a traditional text seeks to apply it to himself." Furthermore, when we see how Gadamer appropriates Aristotle's text, we gain a deeper understanding of why the Geisteswissenschaften are moral-practical disciplines in the sense in which the Ethics and the Politics are practical disciplines, and why Gadamer thinks that "hermeneutic philosophy is the heir of the older tradition of practical philosophy" whose chief task is to "justify this way of reason and defend practical and political reason against the domination of technology based on science." Gadamer's own understanding of philosophical hermeneutics can itself be interpreted as a series of footnotes and reflections on his decisive intellectual encounter with Aristotle, an encounter to which he frequently refers and which was initiated by his participation in Heidegger's seminar on the Nicomachean Ethics. (shrink)

The first comprehensive collection of the work of Richard Rorty, The Rorty Reader brings together the influential American philosopher’s essential essays from over four decades of writings. Offers a comprehensive introduction to Richard Rorty's life and body of work Brings key essays published across many volumes and journals into one collection, including selections from his final volume of philosophical papers, Philosophy as Cultural Politics ) Contains the previously unpublished essay, “Redemption from Egotism” Includes in-depth interviews, (...) and several revealing autobiographical pieces Represents the fullest portrait available today on Rorty’s relationship with American pragmatism and the trajectory of his thought. (shrink)

From the Introduction: This inquiry is concerned with the themes of praxis and action in four philosophic movements: Marxism, existentialism, pragmatism, and analytic philosophy. It is rare that these four movements are considered in a single inquiry, for there are profound differences of emphasis, focus, terminology, and approach represented by these styles of thought. Many philosophers believe that similarities among these movements are superficial and that a close examination of them will reveal only hopelessly unbridgeable cleavages. While respecting the (...) genuine fundamental differences of these movements, this inquiry is undertaken in the spirit of showing that there are important common themes and motifs in what first appears to be a chaotic babble of voices. I intend to show that the concern with man as an agent has been a primary focal point of each of these movements and further that each contributes something permanent and important to our understanding of the nature and context of human activity. (shrink)

We live in a time when we are overwhelmed with talk and images of violence. Whether on television, the internet, films or the video screen, we can’t escape representations of actual or fictional violence - another murder, another killing spree in a high school or movie theatre, another action movie filled with images of violence. Our age could well be called “The Age of Violence” because representations of real or imagined violence, sometimes fused together, are pervasive. But what do we (...) mean by violence? What can violence achieve? Are there limits to violence and, if so, what are they? In this new book Richard Bernstein seeks to answer these questions by examining the work of five figures who have thought deeply about violence - Carl Schmitt, Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt, Frantz Fanon, and Jan Assmann. He shows that we have much to learn from their work about the meaning of violence in our times. Through the critical examination of their writings he also brings out the limits of violence. There are compelling reasons to commit ourselves to non-violence, and yet at the same time we have to acknowledge that there are exceptional circumstances in which violence can be justified. Bernstein argues that there can be no general criteria for determining when violence is justified. The only plausible way of dealing with this issue is to cultivate publics in which there is free and open discussion and in which individuals are committed to listen to one other: when public debate withers, there is nothing to prevent the triumph of murderous violence. (shrink)

RICHARD RORTY has written one of the most important and challenging books to be published by an American philosopher in the past few decades. Some will find it a deeply disturbing book while others will find it liberating and exhilarating—both, as we shall see, may be right and wrong. Not since James and Dewey have we had such a devastating critique of professional philosophy. But unlike James and Dewey, who thought that once the sterility and artificiality of professional—and indeed (...) much of modern philosophy since Descartes—had been exposed, there was an important job for philosophers to do; Rorty leaves us in a much more ambiguous and unsettled state. I will examine Rorty’s book from a variety of perspectives, beginning with a general overview and then moving to more finely meshed descriptions. My aim is not only to illuminate the power and subtlety of Rorty’s analysis and to show its inner unity, but to locate basic issues that are left unresolved. (shrink)

Understanding Sellars presents a variety of difficulties. His range of interests is extremely broad. He has a subtle understanding of most of the major figures in the history of philosophy and many of the minor ones too. He is constantly attempting to extract the "truth" ingredient in opposing positions and to disentangle this from what he takes to be false, misleading, and confusing. Like Hegel, Sellars sometimes writes as if no major philosophic position has been completely mistaken. At the (...) same time Sellars is forging a new idiom. It is difficult to read any of his papers without a thorough acquaintance with twentieth century, anglo-saxon philosophy. His papers are packed and overflowing, connecting up with and frequently presupposing topics discussed in other places. Such a philosophic style places enormous demands upon reader. He is required to read back and forth in Sellars' already prolific writings, to master a new idiom, and to keep numerous dialectical threads in mind in following the devious paths of Sellars' arguments. (shrink)

How has philosophy contributed to bringing about a secular age? What role has philosophy played in bringing about a secular age in which belief and unbelief are both viable options? This paper does not address philosophy in general but rather focuses on a single thinker, Immanuel Kant, to argue that the consequences—both intended and unintended—of Kant's critical philosophy has had the greatest philosophical influence on making unbelief a legitimate alternative to faith in a transcendent God. Initially, the thesis may seem (...) paradoxical because Kant was a firm believer, a Christian who came from a strong pietistic background. He believed that Christianity was the true, universal, and rational religion. Yet the text posits that Kant not only provided a rationale for religious faith but did more than any other modern philosopher to support and legitimize those who seriously question faith in a transcendent God. (shrink)

The philosophy presented in this book is the philosophy of the age of the collapse of the Wall: of the Stone Wall of recent political history and of the many Walls of prejudice in the intellectual history from our century. Bernstein is considered, with Rorty and MacIntyre, one of the three emblematic figures of post-analytical philosophy. He shared with Rorty both the 'rediscovery' of European philosophy and the revival of pragmatism. Unlike From Rorty and the neophytes of (...) deconstructionism, however, Bernstein has made a different choice of partners in European philosophy and of mentors in the pragmatic tradition, and a different assessment of the legacy left by analytic philosophy. Among European philosophers, he is close to Gadamer and his dialogical ideal, to Habermas and his defence of the ethical-political ideals of modernity; in authors like Derrida and Foucault he discovers ethical-political instances complementary to those of Habermas; in recent developments of analytic philosophy he finds the same intuitions he recognizes in hermeneutics; and he wants to rescue the legacy left by Peirce, that is, the most rationalist among pragmatists. His previous books granted him a reputation of great "translator and interpreter" between currents of thought: critical theory, phenomenology, postempiricism, hermeneutics and neo-Aristotelianism. This book deals with 'postmodern' authors in the same ecumenical spirit: Lyotard, Derrida, Foucault, Heidegger, Rorty. To the postmodernists, he acknowledges the merit of having brought the ethical-political issues back to the fore by detecting the source of the malaise of our "modern/postmodern" moment, discomforts which have been given a name by such movements as feminism, resistance to apartheid, left-wing opposition in Eastern societies. Against Habermas, he proposes not to oppose the postmodern, but to overturn their self-destructive results from within. Essays: Philosophy, History, and Critique • The Rage Against Reason • Incommensurability and Otherness Revisited • Heidegger's Silence? Ethos and Technology • Foucault: Critique as a Philosophic Ethos • Serious Play: The Ethical-Political Horizon of Derrida • An Allegory of Modernity/Postmodernity: Habermas and Derrida • One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward: Rorty on Liberal Democracy • Rorty's Liberal Utopia, Reconciliation/Rupture . (shrink)

HEIDEGGER tells us "to think is to confine yourself to a single thought that one day stands still like a star in the world's sky." This is a theme to which Heidegger keeps returning in his late writings when he searches for various "pathways" that will enable us to elicit and disclose thinking in its purity. It is the mark of genuine thinkers to possess and be possessed by a single thought that shines like a star and radiates throughout their (...) work and the pathways they pursue. Paul Weiss is such a thinker. Or to put the issue slightly differently, from his earliest work until his most recent book, there is a theme and variations that pervades all his speculative thinking. With nuanced subtlety he has persistently pursued the theme of the one and the many. Explicitly or implicitly, it is evident in everything he has written and is manifested in the entire range of his concerns whether they deal with the most speculative metaphysical and ontological issues or the most intimate aspects of human life. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt, who was Hans Jonas’s lifelong friend, always stressed the importance and rarity of the independent thinker. The independent thinker is the thinker who has the imagination to break new ground, who does not follow current fashions, and has the courage to pursue thought trains wherever they may lead. Her model was Lessing, but she might have considered Hans Jonas to be an outstanding twentieth century exemplar of the independent thinker. Although Hans Jonas was a student of both Heidegger (...) and Bultmann in the 1920’s, he did not become a disciple of anyone. Both of these teachers encouraged him to pursue his research into the history of Gnosticism. Jonas’s path-breaking achievement can be compared with what Gershom Scholem did for the study of the Kabbalah. For Jonas literally created a new field of research in the history of religions. His study of Gnosticism became one of those rare twentieth century landmarks that opened up our understanding of Gnosticism and revealed its powerful subterranean influence throughout the history of the West. The first volume of Jonas’s study, Gnosis und spätantiker Geist was published in Germany in 1934 only after he fled from Nazi Germany and decided to emigrate to Palestine. If Jonas had never published anything else he would be known today as the major twentieth-century scholar of Gnosticism.. But Jonas was much more than an original scholar. He was a creative thinker—and he remained one until his death in 1993, shortly before his ninetieth birthday. During the Second World War, he fought in the famous Jewish Brigade of the British army. It was during this period, when he faced death all around him on the battlefield, that the phenomenon of life in all its ramifications became his central philosophical preoccupation. Jonas had been compelled to suspend his scholarly research during the war years, but he never suspended his independent thinking. He felt it was his obligation to fight the Nazis, but his dream was to return to his true vocation—philosophical speculation. After fighting in the Israeli War of Independence, he accepted a fellowship at McGill University in Canada in 1949, and eventually accepted a position at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in 1955. The line of inquiry that he began when he was able to return to philosophical study resulted in the publication of The Phenomenon of Life. Jonas’s project was to understand what is distinctive about living organisms, and the emergence and consequences of life in the cosmos. But in order to do this, Jonas had to engage in a systematic radical critique of the dualisms of matter and mind, body and soul, which have dominated and shaped so much of modern thought. From Jonas’s perspective, even those philosophers who had rejected dualism were still tainted by the misguided ontology of dualism. The variety of monisms that arose in reaction to dualism tended to move to the extremes of materialism or idealism. Neither of these extremes is adequate for illuminating what is distinctive about bios. In German idealism there was a failure to do justice to the needs and character of the lived body. And in the varieties of “reductive materialism” that have been—and continue to be—so fashionable in twentieth century there is also a failure to appreciate what is distinctive about dynamic metabolic processes. To engage in a critique of dualism and its legacy, it was also necessary to rethink what can be learned from the biological sciences, and especially, the theory of evolution. Here we also witness the philosophical daring of Jonas. A dominant prejudice of the twentieth century has been that philosophy as a discipline has nothing significant to contribute to our understanding of biological processes. All that philosophy can do is to reflect on the methodological and epistemological status of the sciences because, presumably, the only legitimate source of knowledge about living organisms is what we learn from the natural sciences. Jonas argues that this prevailing prejudice has led to disastrous intellectual consequences. Of course, philosophers qua philosophers cannot and should not engage in “armchair” scientific speculation. Furthermore, they must be fully informed about the hypotheses and claims of the best biological research. But at the same time it is a philosophical endeavor to understand critically the meaning of what we learn from the sciences, and to develop an adequate philosophical account of the meaning of nature. Philosophers cannot and should not abandon this task. There is an important distinction to be drawn between the scientific achievements and the philosophical reflection on their meaning—a distinction that too frequently is forgotten or neglected. (shrink)

Richard Rorty (1931–2007) was one of the most provocative and controversial philosophers of the past 50 years. He had a rare ability to combine sophisticated arguments with wit, charm, and humor. He was never dull – and he reached a wide public throughout the world. Originally trained in the history of philosophy and the grand tradition of metaphysics, he became fascinated with the linguistic turn in philosophy. During his early philosophical career, he wrote articles that were at the cutting (...) edge of analytic philosophy. He developed a new approach to the mind-body problem and raised troubling questions about the viability of the conceptual analysis of ordinary language. Soon, he began to question what he called the “Kantian foundations” of analytic philosophy. In 1979, he published Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, a book that became an immediate sensation. Rorty, employing ingenious arguments, questioned the basis of analytic philosophy, and more generally the very idea of systematic philosophy. He called into question the Descartes-Locke-Kant tradition and claimed that the metaphor of the “mirror of nature” had misled philosophers into thinking that the task of philosophy is to “get things right” by representing objective reality. In the mid-twentieth century, the analytic-continental split in philosophy became bitterly entrenched. Many Anglo-American philosophers were convinced that linguistic analytic philosophy is “the only game in town.” They disdained what they took to be the lack of clarity and argumentative rigor among continental thinkers. The “compliment” was returned by continental thinkers who thought that much of analytic philosophy was trivial and insignificant. Rorty employed clever analytic techniques to challenge the pretentions of analytic philosophy. Many of his professional colleagues were furious. At the same time, Rorty engaged thinkers like Sartre, Heidegger, Gadamer, Habermas, Derrida, and Foucault. This delighted aficionados of continental philosophy – although they frequently judged his interpretations of these thinkers to be distorted caricatures. Rorty was one of the rare philosophers who transcended the analytic-continental split. At the same time, Rorty increasingly identified himself with the American pragmatic tradition. He entitled his 1982 collection of essays, “Consequences of Pragmatism,” which included his famous 1979 presidential address to the American Philosophical Association: “‘Pragmatism’ is a vague, ambiguous, and overworked word. Nevertheless it names the glory of our country’s intellectual tradition. No other American writers have offered so radical suggestion for making our future different from the past, as have James and Dewey” (Rorty 1982, p. 160). Rorty helped to revive a serious interest in James and Dewey. In the Introduction to Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, he declared that the three most important philosophers of the twentieth century were Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Dewey. Analytic philosophers might agree about the importance of Wittgenstein; continental thinkers might acknowledge the importance of Heidegger; but virtually no professional philosopher (except devotees of Dewey) would have ranked Dewey with the other two. Rorty claimed that each of these three thinkers had originally sought to find a new way to make philosophy “foundational,” but they came to realize that their earlier work was self-deceptive and they spent the rest of their time warning us against the temptations to which they had succumbed. “Their later work is therapeutic rather than constructive, edifying rather than systematic, designed to make the reader question his own motives for philosophizing rather than supply him with a new philosophical program.” (Rorty 1979, pp. 5–6) Rorty acknowledged that Dewey lacked Wittgenstein’s “dialectical acuity” and Heidegger’s “historical learning,” but Dewey articulated a vision of a new type of society. “In his ideal society, culture is no longer dominated by the ideal of objective cognition but by that of aesthetic enhancement. In that culture, as he said, the arts and sciences would be the ‘unforced flowers of life.” (Rorty 1979, p. 13) This was also Rorty’s vision of a liberal utopia. He developed this vision in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, where the central figure becomes the liberal ironist. Whereas Philosophy and the Mirror and Nature was filled with brilliant (although controversial) arguments, Rorty now debunked the role of argument in philosophy. “On the view of philosophy which I am offering, philosophers should not be asked for arguments against, for example, the correspondence theory of truth or the idea of the ‘intrinsic nature of reality’.” (Rorty 1989, p. 8) He favored redescription rather than argument. “I am not going to offer arguments against the vocabulary I want to replace. Instead, I am going to try to make the vocabulary I favor look attractive by showing how it may redescribe a variety of topics.” (Rorty 1989, p. 9) Interesting philosophy is not really a matter of argument at all but rather “a contrast between an entrenched vocabulary which has become a nuisance and a half-formed vocabulary which vaguely promises great things” (Rorty 1989, p. 9). Rorty deflated what many philosophers took to be the central concerns of philosophy, the nature of truth, reality, objectivity, knowledge, and morality. He sought to replace the appeal to objectivity with the appeal of solidarity. He is famous for his slogan “Take care of freedom and truth will take care of itself” (Rorty 1989, p. 176). Even admirers of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature were distressed by the radical turn of Contingency where he suggested that novels, journalism, and literary reflection might be more effective than philosophical argumentation in bringing about his liberal utopia. Some of his fiercest critics claimed that Rorty could no longer be taken seriously as a philosopher. Contingency was savagely criticized and ridiculed, so much so that Rorty was provoked to write his revealing and delightful autobiographical sketch, “Trotsky and the Wild Orchids.” “I am sometimes told, by critics from both ends of the political spectrum, that my views are so weird as to be merely frivolous. They suspect that I will say anything to get a gasp, that I am just amusing myself by contradicting everybody else. This hurts. So I have tried, in what follows, to say something about how I got into my present position—how I got into philosophy, and then found myself unable to use philosophy for the purpose I had originally in mind.” (Rorty 1999, p. 5) What follows is an account of how Rorty grew up in a family that was deeply committed to furthering social justice. (“Trotsky” is a synecdoche for social justice.) Rorty also tells of his early nerdish love of the wild orchids of New Jersey. (“Wild orchids” is the synecdoche for private pleasures.) When Rorty became interested in philosophy, he wanted to find some intellectual or esthetic framework that would hold reality and justice in a single vision – one that would integrate social justice and private idiosyncratic pleasures. He tells the story of his eventual discovery that there was no such overarching framework and his growing realization that there was no need for such a framework. As a public citizen, one can be deeply committed to advancing social justice and at the same time, as a private person, enjoy idiosyncratic pleasures. There is no need to reconcile or synthesize these two incommensurable dimensions of human life. (shrink)

Perhaps we can say that the book has had a "negative" influence; the mistakes of the Tractatus have helped us to become clearer about the correct way of philosophizing. The difficulty with this view is that many of the criticisms of the Tractatus have been wide of the mark. In denying the influence of the Tractatus, I do not intend to slight its importance. On the contrary, we must distinguish the Tractatus from both logical positivism and Russell's logical atomism, (...) as well as from the subsequent criticisms of these positions, if we are to understand and appreciate it. (shrink)

Fred Dallmayr is one of the most perceptive commentators on the implications of continental philosophy for political thinking. Following Hannah Arendt he describes his essays as "exercises in contemporary political theory." Whether exploring the meaning of Heidegger's reflections on freedom, Gadamer, Oakeshott or Rorty on conversation and dialogue, Habermas on communicative action and rationality, or Foucault on power, Dallmayr has the rare gift of enabling texts "to speak to us" in new and illuminating ways. He beautifully exhibits a theme that (...) he explores in several of these essays--authentic conversation, where he shows us how to listen to the other and to pursue in depth the common subject matter--die Sache. These exercises continue the investigations begun in his Twilight of Subjectivity: Contributions to a Post-Individualist Theory of Politics. The important and intriguing aspect of Dallmayr's project is the way in which he confronts contemporary critiques of individualism, subjectivism, and humanism--and yet dialectically seeks to incorporate the "truth" of what is being criticized. His primary concern is with reconstruction rather than deconstruction. Throughout there is the exercise of good judgment and phronësis in his balanced interpretations. The dominant figure in Dallmayr's own meditative thinking is Heidegger. Dallmayr presents us with one of the most judicious, sensitive, and insightful interpretations of Heidegger's relevance for understanding the meaning of polis and praxis. The opening sentence of Heidegger's Letter on Humanism may well be taken as an epigraph for the entire volume: "We are still far from pondering the essence of action seriously enough." Like Heidegger, Dallmayr wants to dislodge the concepts of freedom and power from human willfulness and subjectivity, and to show that the essence of freedom involves solidarity--a reciprocal effort of liberation or a mutual "letting-be." Dallmayr underscores "the exploratory, non-systematic, or en route" character of his essays. One source of uneasiness that a reader may feel arises from the sheer variety of political views represented by the thinkers that Dallmayr examines including Strauss, Heidegger, Gadamer, Oakeshott, Rorty, Arendt, Merleau-Ponty, and Foucault. For they cover the political spectrum. There are many directions that a post-individualist theory of politics may take. It is not entirely clear from these exploratory essays where we or Dallmayr are being led. To use a Hegelian turn of phrase, one needs more "determinate negation"--more specificity--in Dallmayr's own Holzwege. The type of tensions that have been characteristic of the Hegelian legacy where one can read Hegel as a potentially radical and revolutionary thinker or as a fundamentally conservative thinker--tensions which have continued to plague a good deal of political thinking since Hegel are implicit in and not yet resolved by Dallmayr. Nevertheless, although one follows the many pathways opened up for us with a certain amount of intellectual caution, the journey is an exciting and revealing one.-Richard J. Bernstein, Haverford College. (shrink)

During her lifetime Hannah Arendt's provocative writings attracted a strong group of admirers who drew inspiration from them. She also provoked some sharp controversies, especially in regard to her notion of the "banality of evil," which is elaborated in her report of Eichmann's trial. But Arendt's "independent thinking" never fit easily with conventional academic philosophy and political science. Was she an occasional thinker responding to the events of her time, or can one detect a more systematic endeavor in her (...) varied writings? (shrink)

It may seem perplexing to read a book that ranges from a fresh interpretation of the myth of Demeter and Persephone to a detailed sensuous discussion of the smell, taste, production, and the regional localities of French cheeses; that moves from a new reading of Antigone—one that challenges many standard feminist readings and argues that the real hero of the play is Ismene—to a critique of corporate capitalism with its relentless drive to commodify everything, including our body parts; (...) that begins with a close reading of Hobbes and Rousseau and concludes with the “right to joyful.” Yet, I hope to show that there is a deep thematic unity that underlies Mary C. Rawlinson’s varied discussions. Just... (shrink)

During the first week of June 1970, Marquette University sponsored a symposium to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of Hegel’s birth. For many of us who attended the symposium, it was a memorable week. It was among the very best meetings that I have ever attended - the very model of what civilized speech can be. The symposium was beautifully organized by our hosts at Marquette. A rare group of international scholars were invited to participate. In addition to Hegel scholars (...) from the United States and Canada, Otto Pöggeler from Germany, Eric Weil and Jean-Yves Calvez from France, David McLellan from England, Nathan Rotenstreich and Shlomo Avineri from Israel were present. Papers were distributed to all participants, and there was plenty of opportunity for formal and informal discussion. But what made the symposium so unusual was the spirit that pervaded it. There was a collective sense that we were on the threshold of a new era of Hegel scholarship in the Anglo-Saxon world. As Frederick G. Weiss reported in his “Critical Survey of Hegel Scholarship in English: 1962–69,” there was already clear evidence of a renaissance of serious interest in Hegel. If we consider the works bearing on Hegel that have been published since 1970, the evidence is now overwhelming. (shrink)

_John Dewey and Continental Philosophy_ provides a rich sampling of exchanges that could have taken place long ago between the traditions of American pragmatism and continental philosophy had the lines of communication been more open between Dewey and his European contemporaries. Since they were not, Paul Fairfield and thirteen of his colleagues seek to remedy the situation by bringing the philosophy of Dewey into conversation with several currents in continental philosophical thought, from post-Kantian idealism and the work of Friedrich (...) Nietzsche to twentieth-century phenomenology, hermeneutics, and poststructuralism. This unique volume includes discussions comparing and contrasting Dewey with the German philosophers G. W. F. Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Hans-Georg Gadamer on such topics as phenomenology, naturalism, organicism, contextualism, and poetry. Others investigate a series of connections between Dewey and contemporary French philosophy, including the notions of subjectivity, education, and the critique of modernity in Michel Foucault; language and politics in Jacques Derrida; and the concept of experience in Gilles Deleuze. Also discussed is the question of whether we can identify traces of _Bildung_ in Dewey’s writings on education, and pragmatism’s complex relation to twentieth-century phenomenology and hermeneutics, including the problematic question of whether Heidegger was a pragmatist in any meaningful sense. Presented in intriguing pairings, these thirteen essays offer different approaches to the material that will leave readers with much to deliberate. _ John Dewey and Continental Philosophy_ demonstrates some of the many connections and opportunities for cross-traditional thinking that have long existed between Dewey and continental thought, but have been under-explored. The intersection presented here between Dewey’s pragmatism and the European traditions makes a significant contribution to continental and American philosophy and will spur new and important developments in the American philosophical debate. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Remembering Richard J. Bernstein (1932–2022)Tara Mastrelli and Mark SandersRemembrance for Richard J. BernsteinMy name is Tara Mastrelli. I am a graduate student at the New School for Social Research.1 Dick Bernstein was my teacher and my friend. I was also the TA for his final seminar on American Pragmatism this past spring, an experience that I want to share with you today.In the months leading (...) up to this seminar, Dick said something shifted for him in the way he understood pragmatism—a sort of awakening on his part. He redesigned his syllabus into two parts—the first, working through the classical pragmatists, namely, Peirce, James, and Dewey, as he had done for sixty-eight years. And then the second half would—in Dewey's words—turn toward "the problems of men" (though Dick would always say human beings), engaging with themes and texts from Black and feminist thinkers. To be clear, for Dick, this was not an expansion of the canon or an exercise in who should or should not count as a pragmatist. Rather his aim was something different altogether—to see if we could begin to understand pragmatism not as a canon at all, but rather as a living, evolving movement.Now the point is not that this was the perfect syllabus—it wasn't. The point is what redesigning his syllabus can tell us about the type of person and teacher that Dick was. At almost 90 years old, teaching a subject he had taught for almost seventy years, he did not sit back and say that he knew everything. He wanted to learn more—from his colleagues, his students, the world around him—to experience more, to challenge his assumptions, to understand more. [End Page 103]Beyond the syllabus, another factor that made this seminar unique was Dick's health. His illness started at the beginning of the semester. He taught our first class from an emergency room in New York City during the Omicron wave of COVID-19. He was wearing a mask and breathing tubes. Machines were beeping all around him. Nurses came in from time to time to check on him. Nonetheless … his enthusiasm was not remotely diminished. Laying out his aims and ambitions for the course, he referred to it as "an exciting adventure"—for him and for us.The syllabus was not perfect, and Dick's health ebbed and flowed throughout, and yet—as the course itself progressed—it evolved into the very thing he was hoping for, which was pragmatism as a living, evolving movement. He read and added new work from a colleague examining Black feminist pragmatism and its relationship to the Movement for Black Lives, adding a full session dedicated to it. On certain days, when his breath was weak, he asked me to lead our discussions, which took on more of an almost jazz-like character—my classmates and I riffing off each other as we tried to wrestle with concepts such as DuBois's color line against the backdrop of gentrification in our own neighborhoods. When I decided to run a progressive stack for our discussions on feminism, Dick replied, "Good for you!" and enthusiastically used the hand-raising function, patiently waiting his turn.At the end of the semester, he seemed to be feeling better—his voice was strong and his eyes were bright during our final session. He conveyed his sense that, despite his recurring lament that we did not have more time (he had always envisioned the course as two semesters, or sometimes two full years), the seminar had achieved what he had wanted to achieve: "Philosophy has come alive." A return to philosophy, "not just as a discipline to master, but something to be caught up in; the excitement of dealing with life—a return to a genuine Socratic conception of philosophy."I am sure many of you may know that Dick wrote his dissertation on Dewey. What you may not know is that he originally wanted to write it on Plato. (Phaedrus was his favorite.) But once he sat down, he realized he did not want to write something about Plato that, as he said... (shrink)

As the title of the book indicates, Bernstein’s 2010 work The Pragmatic Turn is the common ground for this collection of twelve essays, with each contributor taking a theme from Bernstein’s volume and using it as a foundation to raise further issues concerning pragmatism after the “pragmatic turn.” Many essays also offer constructive criticism of Bernstein’s thought and positions, often suggesting possible alternatives. In a style reminiscent of the long-running Library of Living Philosophers series, Bernstein (...) provides a short response to each essay, clarifying his thought in light of the points raised by the contributors. For those interested in Dewey specifically, rather than pragmatism more broadly, there are... (shrink)

Over many decades, Richard Bernstein has interpreted contemporary philosophy’s three traditions, roughly distinguished as analytic, pragmatic, and Continental, emphasizing their mutual affinities. Despite this reference to the continent of Europe, it would be wrong to identify any of these traditions geographically or linguistically; even to call them ‘traditions’ is stretching a point. Pragmatism originated in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but it has spread from there, transmogrifying in the process and claiming surprising allies, such as Heidegger; the label ‘pragmatist’ has (...) even been affixed to Hegel! That its day has come is the theme of this, Bernstein’s latest book. Its title is a play on Richard Rorty’s famous.. (shrink)

Leading philosophers and social thinkers, including Richard Rorty, Jacques Derrida, and Jurgen Habermas, pay tribute to the influential American philosopher Richard J. Bernstein.

Richard J. Bernstein is Vera List Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research. The Essays: Philosophy, History, and Critique.

"A fascinating and timely treatment of the objectivism versus relativism debates occurring in philosophy of science, literary theory, the social sciences, ...

Richard J. Bernstein argues that many of the important themes in philosophy during the past 150 years are variations and developments of ideas that were prominent in the classical American pragmatists: Charles S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and George H. Mead. The pragmatic thinkers reject a sharp dichotomy between subject and object, mind-body dualism, the quest for certainty, and the spectator theory of knowledge. They seek to bring about a sea change in philosophy that highlights the social (...) character of human experience and normative social practices, the self-correcting nature of all inquiry, and the continuity of theory and practice. And they - especially James, Dewey, and Mead - emphasize the democratic ethical-political consequences of a pragmatic orientation. Many of the themes developed by the pragmatic thinkers were central to the work of major twentieth-century philosophers such as Wittgenstein and Heidegger, but the so-called analytic/Continental split obscures this underlying continuity. Bernstein develops an alternative reading of contemporary philosophy that brings out the persistence and continuity of pragmatic themes. He explains why the discussion of pragmatism is alive, varied, and widespread"--Jacket. (shrink)

All of these essays focus on the concept of modernity in the philosophical work of Jurgen Habermas - an ambitious and carefully argued intellectual project that invites, indeed demands, rigorous scrutiny. Following an introductory overview of Habermas's work by Richard Bernstein, Albrecht Wellmer's essay places the philosopher within the tradition of Hegel, Marx, Weber, and Critical Theory. Martin Jay discusses Habermas's views on art and aesthetics, and Joel Whitebook examines his interpretations of Freud and psychoanalysis, Anthony Giddens offers (...) a critical reading of Habermas's major work, "The Theory of Communicative Action. Richard Rorty criticizes the whole thrust of his program by way of a comparison with the work of the French philosopher of postmodernity, Jean-Francois Lyotard. And Thomas McCarthy concentrates on the question of the selectivity of rationalization processes in the modern age. Habermas himself has three contributions - on Marcuse, on neoconservativism, and a reply to the other essayists. Richard J. Bernstein is T. Wistar Brown Professor of Philosophy at Haverford College. He was editor of the journal "Praxis International, in which these essays recently appeared. "Habermas and Modernity "is included in the series Studies in contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy. (shrink)

At present, there is an enormous gulf between the visibility of evil and the paucity of our intellectual resources for coming to grips with it. We have been flooded with images of death camps, terrorist attacks and horrendous human suffering. Yet when we ask what we mean by radical evil and how we are to account for it, we seem to be at a loss for proper responses. Bernstein seeks to discover what we can learn about the meaning of (...) evil and human responsibility. He turns to philosophers such as Kant, who coined the expression 'radical evil', as well as to Hegel and Schelling. He also examines more recent explorations of evil, namely the thinking of Freud and Nietzsche on the moral psychology of evil. Finally, he looks at the way in which three post-Holocaust thinkers - Emmanuel Levinas, Hans Jonas, and Hannah Arendt - have sought to come to grips with evil "after Auschwitz." Bernstein's primary concern throughout this challenging book is to enrich and deepen our understanding of evil in the contemporary world, and to emphasize the vigilance and personal responsibility required for combating it. Radical Evil will be essential reading for students and scholars of philosophy, social and political theory, and religious studies. (shrink)

"Bernstein argues that many themes that emerged in the course of Arendt's attempts tounderstand specifically Jewish issues shaped her thinking about politics in general and the life ofthe mind.

In this major new work, Bernstein explores the ethical and political dimensions of the modernity/post-modernity debate. Bernstein argues that modernity / post-modernity should be understood as a kind of mood - one which is amorphous, shifting and protean but which exerts a powerful influence on our current thinking. Focusing on thinkers such as Heidegger, Derrida, Foucault, Habermas and Rorty, Bernstein probes the strengths and weaknesses of their work, and shows how they have contributed to the formation of (...) a new mood, a new and distinctive constellation of ideas. This new constellation has put ethical and political issues back on the philosophical agenda, forcing us to confront anew, the Socratic question 'How should I live?'. (shrink)

"The ancient and modern question of what is the nature of man and his activity and what ought to be the directions pursued in this activity is once again being ...

"Just as philosophy begins with doubt, so also a life that may be called human begins with irony" so wrote Kierkegaard. While we commonly think of irony as a figure of speech where someone says one thing and means the opposite, the concept of irony has long played a more fundamental role in the tradition of philosophy, a role that goes back to Socrates Ð the originator and exemplar of the urbane ironic life. But what precisely is Socratic irony and (...) what relevance, if any, does it have for us today? Bernstein begins his inquiry with a critical examination of the work of two contemporary philosophers for whom irony is vital: Jonathan Lear and Richard Rorty. Despite their sharp differences, Bernstein argues that they complement one other, each exploring different aspects of ironic life. In the background of Lear’s and Rorty’s accounts stand the two great ironists: Socrates and Kierkegaard. Focusing on the competing interpretations of Socratic irony by Gregory Vlastos and Alexander Nehamas, Bernstein shows how they further develop our understanding of irony as a form of life and as an art of living. Bernstein also develops a distinctive interpretation of Kierkegaard’s famous claim that a life that may be called human begins with irony. Bernstein weaves together the insights of these thinkers to show how each contributes to a richer understanding of ironic life. He also argues that the emphasis on irony helps to restore the balance between two different philosophical traditions philosophy as a theoretical discipline concerned with getting things right and philosophy as a practical discipline that shapes how we ought to live our lives. (shrink)