A review of Peter Steele’s Plenty, a book in which each poem is faced by a colour plate of the painting or object which sparked it off. Hollander’s ecphrasis and Krieger’s ekphrasis are held in – possibly unresolvable – dialectic by Steele’s poems. The only resolution which one can find is one of wit rather than of philosophy.

For much of our century, pragmatism has enjoyed a charmed life, holding the dominant point of view in American politics, law, education, and social thought in general. After suffering a brief eclipse in the post-World War II period, pragmatism has experienced a revival, especially in literary theory and such areas as poststructuralism and deconstruction. In this critique of pragmatism and neopragmatism, one of our leading intellectual historians traces the attempts of thinkers from William James to Richard Rorty to find a (...) response to the crisis of modernism. John Patrick Diggins analyzes the limitations of pragmatism from a historical perspective and dares to ask whether America's one original contribution to the world of philosophy has actually fulfilled its promise. "Diggins, an eminent historian of American intellectual life, has written a timely and impressive book charting the rich history of American pragmatism and placing William James, Charles Peirce, John Dewey, George Herbert Mead, Sidney Hook, and Richard Rorty in their times and in the light of contemporary concerns. The book also draws on an alternative set of American thinkers to explore the blind spots in the pragmatic temper."—William Connolly, _New York Times Book Review_ "An extraordinarily ambitious work of both analysis and synthesis.... Diggins's book is rewarding in its thoughtfulness and its nuanced presentation of ideas."—Daniel J. Silver, _Commentary_ "Diggins's superbly informed book comprises a comprehensive history of American pragmatic thought.... It contains expert descriptions of James, John Dewey and Charles Sanders Peirce, the first generation of American pragmatists.... Diggins is just as good on the revival of pragmatism that's taken place over the last 20 years in America.... [A] richly intelligent book."—Mark Edmundson, _Washington Post Book World_. (shrink)

The book also draws on an alternative set of American thinkers to explore the blind spots in the pragmatic temper."—William Connolly, New York Times Book Review "An extraordinarily ambitious work of both analysis and synthesis. . .

Barack Obama has called him “one of my favorite philosophers.” John McCain wrote that he is “a paragon of clarity about the costs of a good war.” Andrew Sullivan has said, “We need Niebuhr now more than ever.” For a theologian who died in 1971, Reinhold Niebuhr is maintaining a remarkably high profile in the twenty-first century. In _Why Niebuhr Now?_ acclaimed historian John Patrick Diggins tackles the complicated question of why, at a time of great uncertainty (...) about America’s proper role in the world, leading politicians and thinkers are turning to Niebuhr for answers. Diggins begins by clearly and carefully working through Niebuhr’s theology, which focuses less on God’s presence than his absence—and the ways that absence abets the all-too-human sin of pride. He then shows how that theology informed Niebuhr’s worldview, leading him to be at the same time a strong opponent of fascism and communism and a leading advocate for humility and caution in foreign policy. Turning to the present, Diggins highlights what he argues is a misuse of Niebuhr’s legacy on both the right and the left: while neoconservatives distort Niebuhr’s arguments to support their call for an endless war on terror in the name of stopping evil, many liberal interventionists conveniently ignore Niebuhr’s fundamental doubts about power. Ultimately, Niebuhr’s greatest lesson is that, while it is our duty to struggle for good, we must at the same time be wary of hubris, remembering the limits of our understanding. The final work from a distinguished writer who spent his entire career reflecting on America’s history and promise, _Why Niebuhr Now? _is a compact and perceptive book that will be the starting point for all future discussions of Niebuhr. (shrink)

Barack Obama has called him “one of my favorite philosophers.” John McCain wrote that he is “a paragon of clarity about the costs of a good war.” Andrew Sullivan has said, “We need Niebuhr now more than ever.” For a theologian who died in 1971, Reinhold Niebuhr is maintaining a remarkably high profile in the twenty-first century. In _Why Niebuhr Now?_ acclaimed historian John Patrick Diggins tackles the complicated question of why, at a time of great uncertainty (...) about America’s proper role in the world, leading politicians and thinkers are turning to Niebuhr for answers. Diggins begins by clearly and carefully working through Niebuhr’s theology, which focuses less on God’s presence than his absence—and the ways that absence abets the all-too-human sin of pride. He then shows how that theology informed Niebuhr’s worldview, leading him to be at the same time a strong opponent of fascism and communism and a leading advocate for humility and caution in foreign policy. Turning to the present, Diggins highlights what he argues is a misuse of Niebuhr’s legacy on both the right and the left: while neoconservatives distort Niebuhr’s arguments to support their call for an endless war on terror in the name of stopping evil, many liberal interventionists conveniently ignore Niebuhr’s fundamental doubts about power. Ultimately, Niebuhr’s greatest lesson is that, while it is our duty to struggle for good, we must at the same time be wary of hubris, remembering the limits of our understanding. The final work from a distinguished writer who spent his entire career reflecting on America’s history and promise, _Why Niebuhr Now? _is a compact and perceptive book that will be the starting point for all future discussions of Niebuhr. (shrink)

Volume 11 brings together all of Dewey's writings for 1918 and 1919. A Modern Language Association Committee on Scholarly Editions textual edition. Dewey's dominant theme in these pages is war and its after-math. In the Introduction, Oscar and Lilian Handlin discuss his philosophy within the historical context: The First World War slowly ground to its costly conclusion; and the immensely more difficult task of making peace got painfully under way. The armi-stice that some expected would permit a return to normalcy (...) opened instead upon a period of turbulence that agitated fur-ther a society already unsettled by preparations for battle and by debilitating conflict overseas. After spending the first half of 1918-19 on sabbatical from Columbia at the University of California, Dewey traveled to Japan and China, where he lectured, toured, and assessed in his essays the relationship between the two nations. From Peking he reported the student revolt known as the May Fourth Move-ment. The forty items in this volume also include an analysis of Thomas Hobbe's philosophy; an affectionate commemorative tribute to Theodore Roosevelt, our Teddy; the syllabus for Dewey's lectures at the Imperial University in Tokyo, which were later revised and published as Reconstruction in Philosophy; an exchange with former disciple Randolph Bourne about F. Mat-thias Alexander's Man's Supreme Inheritance; and, central to Dew-ey's creed, Philosophy and Democracy. His involvement in a study of the Polish-American community in Philadelphia--resulting in an article, two memoranda, and a lengthy report--is discussed in detail in the Introduction and in the Note on the Confidential Report ofConditions among the Poles in the United States. (shrink)

The fine editions of the Aristotelian Commentary Series make available long out-of-print commentaries of St. Thomas on Aristotle. Each volume has the full text of Aristotle with Bekker numbers, followed by the commentary of St. Thomas, cross-referenced using an easily accessible mode of referring to Aristotle in the Commentary. Each volume is beautifully printed and bound using the finest materials. All copies are printed on acid-free paper and Smyth sewn. They will last.

Critical theory has recently charted the rise of an unprecedented wave of social acceleration transforming Western capitalism. Within that body of work, a tendency has emerged to frame this new temporality as a stable structure lacking in the possibility for visions of alternatives, let alone for substantive revolt or challenge. This essay argues that recent struggles like Occupy and 15-M experimented with an alternative, utopian temporality that challenged and disrupted acceleration, revealing the latter to be prone to generating and expanding (...) the conditions of temporal struggle. Acceleration is therefore unstable, and cannot be adequately understood apart from its increasing cultivation of visions of and experiments in other temporalities. (shrink)

Critical theory has recently charted the rise of an unprecedented wave of social acceleration transforming Western capitalism. Within that body of work, a tendency has emerged to frame this new temporality as a stable structure lacking in the possibility for visions of alternatives, let alone for substantive revolt or challenge. This essay argues that recent struggles like Occupy and 15-M experimented with an alternative, utopian temporality that challenged and disrupted acceleration, revealing the latter to be prone to generating and expanding (...) the conditions of temporal struggle. Acceleration is therefore unstable, and cannot be adequately understood apart from its increasing cultivation of visions of and experiments in other temporalities. (shrink)

During the 1970s, monetarism and the new classical macroeconomics ushered in an era of neoliberal economic policymaking. Keynesian economics was pushed aside. It was almost forgotten that when Keynesian thinking had dominated economic policymaking in the middle decades of the twentieth century, it had coincided with postwar economic reconstruction in both Europe and Japan, and the unprecedented prosperity and stable growth of the 1950s and 1960s. The global financial crisis of 2007-2009 and the recession that followed changed all that. Influential (...) voices in both academic economics and amongst policy-makers and commentators began to remind us how useful Keynesian ways of thinking could be, especially in coming to terms with our current economic predicaments. When politicians across the globe were confronted with economic crisis, they introduced pragmatic and workable measures that bore all the hallmarks of Keynesianism. This book is about the fall and rise of Keynesian economics.Eatwell and Milgate range widely across the landscape that defines their subject matter. They consider how powerful Keynesian ideas can be when applied to past and present economic problems. They show how helpful these ideas are in explaining why we came to find ourselves in the disorder we are in. They examine where and how the analytical and methodological foundations of conventional macroeconomic wisdom went wrong. They set out a blueprint for an alternative that provides a clearer, more consistent, and more applicable approach to understanding how markets work. They also highlight the interpretive shortcomings that have come to characterize Keynes scholarship itself. They do all of this within the context of a provocative reconsideration of some of the most pressing economic problems that confront financial markets and the global economy today. They conclude that Keynesian ideas are not just for crises, but for constructive economic policy making at all times. (shrink)

In much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. — Ecclesiastes.

In much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.—Ecclesiastes.

In his recent articulation and defense of what he calls autonomy-minded anti-perfectionism, Ben Colburn relies on a distinction he draws between first-order and second-order values. In this paper I argue that his approach fails to make good on its promise to offer a distinct third way, is either too restrictive or too permissive and relies crucially on a kind of formal analysis that undercuts the central claim upon which rests his unification of neutrality-minded and perfectionistic liberalism.

In his recent articulation and defense of what he calls autonomy-minded anti-perfectionism, Ben Colburn relies on a distinction he draws between first-order and second-order values. In this paper I argue that his approach (1) fails to make good on its promise to offer a distinct third way, (2) is either too restrictive or too permissive and (3) relies crucially on a kind of formal analysis that undercuts the central claim upon which rests his unification of neutrality-minded (“political”) and perfectionistic (“comprehensive”) (...) liberalism. (shrink)

Diggins brings Reinhold Niebuhr into the post-structuralist dialogue, and demonstates that his writings are the more constructive about the human predicament. "[I]n Niebuhr power and morality meet in one, with a suspicious glance at the disavowal of power and the pretensions of morality.".

Diggins observes in this essay that, while Nozick and Hook shared a passion for freedom and for understanding liberty in all its complexities, the two philosophers, one a libertarian and the other a democratic socialist, occupied different worlds when it came to how they viewed property and power. Nozick believed that freedom and justice depended upon a minimal state that would be severely restricted in its exercise of power. Sidney Hook never renounced his conviction, born of his early attraction to (...) Marxism, that truly dangerous power is wielded not principally by government but by private individuals of great material wealth: by industrialists. Diggins examines the divergent views of these two seminal thinkers on such issues as human rights, private property, democracy, and judicial review. The differences are profound, yet they shared a common interest in the life of the mind and in exploring such hoary philosophical topics as free will versus determinism and the grounding of moral values. (shrink)

In this rejoinder to Ben Colburn, I further press, while modulating, my charge that his autonomy-minded anti-perfectionism is insufficiently novel, articulate a new and distinct worry about the formal analysis that is at the center of his argument, and enhance my criticism that the view Colburn defends is too permissive.

In his recent articulation and defense of what he calls autonomy-minded anti-perfectionism, Ben Colburn relies on a distinction he draws between first-order and second-order values. In this paper I argue that his approach (1) fails to make good on its promise to offer a distinct third way, (2) is either too restrictive or too permissive and (3) relies crucially on a kind of formal analysis that undercuts the central claim upon which rests his unification of neutrality-minded (“political”) and perfectionistic (“comprehensive”) (...) liberalism. (shrink)