Sketching a new portrait of the human self in this thought-provoking book, leading American philosopher Calvin O. Schrag challenges bleak deconstructionist and postmodernist views of the self as something ceaselessly changing, without origin or purpose. Discussing the self in new vocabulary, he depicts an action-oriented self defined by the ways in which it communicates. The self, says Schrag, is open to understanding through its discourse, its actions, its being with other selves, and its experience of transcendence. In his (...) discussion, Schrag responds critically to both modernists and postmodernists, avoiding what he calls the modernists' overdetermination of unity and identity and the postmodernists' self-enervating pluralism. He agrees with postmodernist attacks on both the classical theory of the self as a metaphysical substance and the modern epistemological construal of the self as transparent mind, yet he maintains that jettisoning the self as understood in these terms does not mean jettisoning it altogether. The self as subject is not dead, nor are the constitutive features of self-formation and self-understanding. In addressing the role of culture in the dynamics of self-formation, the author offers a critique of Max Weber's and Jürgen Habermas's view of modernity as a radical differentiation of three cultural spheres: science, morality, and art; he adds religion as a legitimate fourth cultural sphere. The overview of Schrag's philosophy that _The Self after Postmodernity_ provides will appeal to readers with an interest in literary criticism and religion as well as philosophy. (shrink)

This is a book about the human sciences. However, it is not a treatise on scientific methodology nor is it a proposal for a unification of the human sciences through an integration of their findings within a general conceptual scheme.

. This work will be useful to all who wonder what to do about the largely negative results of postmodern thought.Ó ÑJoseph C. Flay The Resources of Rationality addresses the postmodernist assault on the claim of reason and develops a ...

Speaking as one of the founders of American Continental philosophy, Calvin O. Schrag offers an exceptionally clear, balanced, and informative discussion of a complex questions vexing postmodern currents of philosophical and theological reflection: Does the "death" of the god conceived as a "highest being" in Western, and especially modern, traditions open a new space within which to rethink God in terms of a "gift" or "giving" that would stand beyond the usual spate of metaphysical categories? Schrag draws with (...) grace, ease, and precision upon the history of Western metaphysics, from Plato and Aristotle through Nietzsche and Heidegger. Most important to his central question of God as "otherwise than Being," however, are such influential post-Heideggerian thinkers as Jean-Luc Marion, Jacques Derrida, and Emmanuel Levinas. Schrag's inquiry engages these thinkers at a serious level and also expands recent discussions by relating them to the work of figures hitherto overlooked or underplayed, most notably Paul Tillich. (shrink)

The central task which defines the intention of my investigation has to do with a statement and further elucidation of some of the central issues arising in an analysis, description, and interpretation of human existence. My argument throughout will be that human existence must be understood from an historical point of view, and I will seek to delineate the peculiar methodology and distinctive categories of interpretation which are demanded by such an approach. The human self is historical and must be (...) understood through its history. Ever since philosophers have taken history seriously there has been an increasing awareness that any philosophy of human existence, if it is to remain true to the immediately given data, must be rooted in man's concrete, historically lived experience. This development of the historical consciousness has added a new dimension to man's attempt to understand himself in his existence. But it has also posed certain unavoidable questions for the philosopher. Chief among these is the question concerning the relation of history and ontology. Is an ontology of historical existence possible? Wilhelm Dilthey, one of the seminal historical thinkers of the modern age, answered the above question in the negative by arguing that existence, as an historical Erlebnis, is never more than a discontinuous succession of subjectively lived experiences. He thus bequeathed to his historically minded successors the difficult problem of reconciling history and ontology. Does the concrete-historical, by virtue of its particularity and subjectivity, render impossible any rational clarification? Or is the concrete-historical in some sense a bearer of universal structures which define the ontological condition for historical existence as such? This is the problem of our investigation. Stated in its broadest formulation, our question has to do with the possibility of an ontology of human historicity. Are there discernible structures of being which underlie and qualify man's concrete historical actualization? The intention of the author is to show that such an ontology is possible. This will be done by clarifying the methodological procedures and developing the categorial analysis which is required by such a program. (shrink)

Philosophical Papers is useful for readers interested in the story of twentieth century continental philosophy. The book leads the reader throughout the shifts and turns in the often serpentine development of the philosophical perspectives within continental thought that have now become the legacy of our time. The author carries on a conversation, which at times congeals into a confrontation, with the principal proponents of the various philosophical persuasions. They include Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Levi-Strauss, Foucault, Ricoeur, Gadamer, Habermas, Derrida, Deleuze, (...) and Lyotard. Insofar as three nineteenth century philosophers—in particular, Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche—figured so decisively in the shaping of twentieth century continental thought, they too become part of the wider story being told. The concluding essays in the volume display the most recent efforts of the author to come to grips with the consequences of rationality between the universal claims of reason in modernity and the particular, heterogeneous, and local narratives of power and desire in postmodernity. The location of rationality betwixt and between the modern and the postmodern provides a space for a dynamics of transversal rationality oriented toward a convergence without coincidence, both in the life of thought and the life of action. (shrink)

Thomas McCarthy has provided a trenchant critique of the deconstructionist turn in recent philosophy and has outlined a program of reconstruction in its aftermath. He develops his version of reconstructionist philosophy against the backdrop of Kant's doctrine of critical reason and the critical theory of Jürgen Habermas. However, McCarthy's reconstructionist design is not simply an appropriation and defense of Habermas. He provides a critical reformulation of the Habermasian position, deftly using Habermas against himself. The author is in accord both with (...) McCarthy's disposition to problematize the premises of deconstruction and his call for philosophical reconstruction. In continuing the conversation, however, he distances himself farther than does McCarthy from the criteriological concept of rationality that was proposed by Kant and which continues to inform Habermas's requirement for the grounding of validity claims. In the process the author proposes a new approach to the resources of reason along the lines of what he has come to call the dynamics of transversal rationality. (shrink)

Engages contemporary European thought on a variety of philosophical topics.