Wishful thinking is a deeply ingrained human trait that has had
a long-term distorting effect on ethical thinking. Many influential
ethical views depend on the optimistic assumption that, despite
appearances to the contrary, the human and natural world in which
we live could, eventually, be made to make sense to us. In "A World
without Why," Raymond Geuss challenges this assumption.
The essays in this collection--several of which are published
here for the first time--explore the genesis and historical
development of this optimistic configuration in ethical thought and
the ways in which it has shown itself to be unfounded and
misguided. Discussions of Greco-Roman antiquity and of the
philosophies of Socrates, Plato, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and Adorno
play a central role in many of these essays. Geuss also ranges over
such topics as the concepts of intelligibility, authority,
democracy, and criticism; the role of lying in politics;
architecture; the place of theology in ethics; tragedy and comedy;
and the struggle between realism and our search for meaning.
Characterized by Geuss's wide-ranging interests in literature,
philosophy, and history, and by his political commitment and
trenchant style, "A World without Why" raises fundamental questions
about the viability not just of specific ethical concepts and
theses, but of our most basic assumptions about what ethics could
and must be.
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