Even academics who would retreat in horror from the idea of
cracking an Irish joke suffer, Duddy argues, from a tendency to
underestimate the Irish as thinkers. According to him, they assume
that unlike, say, France, Germany, England or Japan, Ireland lacks
the 'continuities of culture, institution, and civic life that are
the prerequisite for a national, ethnically distinctive
intellectual history'. This book aims to make them reconsider. To
do this, Duddy provides an ambitious intellectual history,
stretching from the seventh century to the 20th. Along the way, we
meet the Irish Augustine, who attempted to explain all the miracles
in the Bible as God operating within, rather than violating, the
laws of the universe; John Scottus Eriugena, who thought that
reality could be interpreted in five different, mutually exclusive
ways; Robert Boyle, who is included on the grounds that he had
large landholdings in Ireland; a few famous names like George
Berkeley and Jonathan Swift; and modern Princeton philosopher
Philip Pettit, who makes a relatively convincing argument for
supporting what he calls republicanism over liberalism. As this is
a history of thought, rather than of writing (Ireland's credentials
in the poetry department always having been widely known to be top
notch), Wilde and Yeats, although present, get short shrift; and
Joyce does not appear at all. This is a lucid, if somewhat dry,
work of intellectual history that presents a number of intriguing
capsule descriptions of its various thinkers. It is possible that
'Irish Thought' is a meaningless category in the first place, and
Duddy's defence of it is one of the weakest points in the book.
Nevertheless, it's a well-written and interesting textbook which
should be of use to students of philosophy and Irish history.
(Kirkus UK)
Contents:
Preface Acknowledgements
1 Interpreting Marvels: The Irish Augustine
Enter, the Irish Augustine The theology of the Flood The theology of marvels The theology of angelic ministry The Irish Augustine and the African Doctor
2 The Philosophy of Creation: John Scottus Eriugena
The five modes of interpretation The four conceptions of nature Nature, theophany, and pantheism The gendered and the pristine body The return to God Eriugena and the cult of the Free Spirit Scholars or thinkers: A postscript on Peter of Ireland and Richard Fitzralph
3 Nature Observed: Robert Boyle, William Molyneux, and the New Learning
Robert Boyle, the Christian virtuoso Touching the spring of the air: A new departure ' A piece of green-wood burning': Boyle against the elements A thinking gentleman: William Molyneux, new learner and patriot Mr Molyneux to Mr Locke: An Anglo-Irish correspondence Against the self-image of the age: Michael Moore, a Paris Aristotelian from Ireland
4 John Toland and the Ascendancy of Reason
Reason, revelation, and meaning Tyranny, superstition, and the politics of pantheism 'As in a glass darkly': Peter Browne and the argument from analogy Other partisans of mystery: Edward Synge and Philip Skelton God, good, and privation: The theodicy of William King Spirit and motion: The Philosophical animism of Robert Clayton
Wonderfully Mending the World: George Berkeley and Jonathan Swift
Seeing things: Berkeley's theory of vision Seeing (and not seeing) things: Berkeley's philosophy of perception The visible language of god The converting imagination: Swift against the moderns Modernism as madness: The moral of the Tale Abolishing Christianity: Swift against the free thinkers An unsentimental journey: Gulliver and the perversion of reason
6 Against the Selfish Philosophers: Francis Hutcheson, Edmund Burke, and James Usher
Hutcheson and the stratagems of self-love The pleasures of morality Vice and cruelty explained The politics of happiness and the pleasures of civil union Reflection and reaction: the life and thought of Edmund Burke The taste of fear: Burke's aesthetics of sublimity From the sublime to the political: Burke and the philosophy of custom 'Shadowy similitudes': James Usher on the limits of language 'A benevolent conspiracy': Ireland and the thought of revolution
7 Peripheral Visions (1): Irish Thought in the Nineteenth Century
Daniel O'Connell and Benthamism Anti-Union, anti-Credo, anti-Malthus: The subversive thought of George Ensor Producing happiness: The radical utilitarianism of William Thompson Happiness and suffrage: The feminist utilitarianism of Anna Doyle Wheeler The power of circumstance: The holistic philosophy of Henry MacCormac
8 Peripheral Visions (2): Irish Thought in the Nineteenth Century
English theory, Irish facts: John Elliot Cairnes and the turn of political economy Religion and the science of genesis: Darwin in Ireland - John Tyndall, scientific evangelist Three non-Darwinian evolutionists:Gerald Molloy, J.J. Murphy, and G.G. Stokes Religion, rivalry, & progress: The social Darwinism of Benjamin Kidd Ethics and the primal nebula: Frances Power Cobbe - Varieties of Irish idealism: From William Rowan Hamilton to Oscar Wilde
9 Between Extremities: Irish Thought in the Twentieth Century
Between self and anti-self: The visionary idealism of W.B. Yeats The dreams of reason: J.O. Wisdom on the unconscious origins of thought Against method: M. O'C. Drury on the imprisoned mind 'Unutterable particularities': Iris Murdoch on the ethics of attention Being in the middle: William Desmond on tragedy, 'idiocy', and intimacy 'A vision of being free': Philip Pettit on mind, society, and the res publica
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