The Ennobling of Democracy

The Challenge of the Postmodern Age
Revised Auflage
ISBN: 978-0-8018-4635-9
Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press

Buch, Englisch, 240 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 327 g

Reihe: The Johns Hopkins Series in Constitutional Thought

A searching critique of postmodernism and its implications for democratic political life and thought.

With the end of the Cold War, says Thomas L. Pangle, liberal democracy was deprived of its traditional enemy, and forced to re-examine its internal structure and fundamental aims. One result has been the moral-relativist "postmodernism" of mainstream Western intellectuals.

Focusing on Lyotard, Vattimo, and Rorty, The Ennobling of Democracy offers a searching critique of postmodernism and its implications for political life and thought. Pangle carefully examines the political dimensions of postmodernist teachings, including the rejection of the natural-rights doctrines of the Enlightenment, the discounting of public purposefulness, and the disenchantment with claims of civic virtue and reason. He argues that a serious challenge has been posed to postmodernism by the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe, which have directly experienced heroic political leadership, maintained a prominent place for religion, and preserved a belief in the virtues and duties of citizenship. They consequently make demands on Western thought that postmodernism has been unable to meet.

Drawing on the classical republican ideal, Pangle opens the door to a bold new synthesis in political philosophy. He argues that by reappropriating classical civic rationalism—and especially classical philosophy of education—a framework may be established to integrate the most significant findings of modern rationalism into a conception of humanity that encompasses, in an unprecedented way, the entire scope of the human condition.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Pangle, Thomas L

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements
Introduction: The Postmodern Predicament
Part I: The Inadequacy of the Postmodernist Response
Chapter 1. Postmodernism and the Avant-Garde
Chapter 2. The Heideggerian Roots of Postmodernism
Chapter 3. "Weak Thinking"
Chapter 4. American Postmodernism
Part II: The Spiritual Challenges of the Post-Cold War Era
Chapter 5. The Challenge For And From Europe
Chapter 6. The Need to Rethink Our Rights and Our Republicanism
Part III: Revitalizing the Intellectual Roots of Civid Culture
Chapter 7. Reinvigorating the Legacy of Classical Republicanism
Chapter 8. Rethinking the Foundations of Liberalism
Part IV: Education: Civic and Liberal
Chapter 9. Retrieving Civic Educations as the Heart of American Public Schooling
Chapter 10. Against Cannons and Canonicity: Dialectic as the Heart of Higher Education
Select List of Works Cited
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Pangle, Thomas L
Thomas L. Pangle holds the Joe R. Long Chair in Democratic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. His many acclaimed publications include The Ennobling of Democracy: The Challenge of the Postmodern Age and Political Philosophy and the God of Abraham, both published by Johns Hopkins. He has also published a number of translations of Platonic dialogues, including The Laws of Plato and The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues.

Thomas L. Pangle is professor of political science at the University of Toronto. His many acclaimed publications include Montesquieu's Philosophy of Liberalsim and The Spirit of Modern Republicanism: The Moral Vision of the American Founders and the Philosophy of Locke. He has also published a number of translations of Platonic dialogues, including The Laws of Plato and The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues.