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The Retreat of Reason - A dilemma in the philosophy of life (Paperback)
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The Retreat of Reason - A dilemma in the philosophy of life (Paperback)
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One of the main original aims of philosophy was to give us guidance
about how to live our lives. The ancient Greeks typically assumed
that a life led in accordance with reason, a rational life, would
also be the happiest or most fulfilling. Ingmar Persson's book
resumes this project, which has been largely neglected in
contemporary philosophy. But his conclusions are very different; by
exploring the irrationality of our attitudes to time, our identity,
and our responsibility, Persson shows that the aim of living
rationally conflicts not only with the aim of leading the most
fulfilling life, but also with the moral aim of promoting the
maximization and just distribution of fulfillment for all. Persson
also argues that neither the aim of living rationally nor any of
the fulfillment aims can be rejected as less rational than any
other. We thus face a dilemma of either having to enter a retreat
of reason, insulated from everyday attitudes, or making reason
retreat from its aspiration to be the sole controller of our
attitudes.
The Retreat of Reason explores three areas in which there is a
conflict between the rational life and a life dedicated to
maximization of fulfillment. Persson contends that living
rationally requires us to give up, first, our temporal biases;
secondly, our bias towards ourselves; and, thirdly, our
responsibility to the extent that it involves the notion of desert
and desert-entailing notions. But giving up these attitudes is so
overwhelmingly hard that the effort to do so not only makes our own
lives less fulfilling, but also obstructs our efficient pursuit of
the moral aim of promoting a maximum of justly distributed
fulfillment.
Ingmar Persson brings backto philosophy the ambition of offering a
broad vision of the human condition. The Retreat of Reason
challenges and disturbs some of our most fundamental ideas about
ourselves.
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