Following in the wake of Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American
Mind - a valiant attempt by Pangle (Political Science/Univ. of
Toronto) to deconstruct deconstructionism and to post a warning of
the threat of postmodernism. Pangle asserts that it is a mistake,
despite the collapse of Communism, to believe that the threat to
the West and to traditional conceptions of liberal education is
over. He argues that, while we possess powerful technological and
economic resources, they "fuel a society that is deeply unsure of
its moral purpose and foundations" and that has come to be
"increasingly penetrated and shaped by a new, highly problematic
and skeptical (not to say nihilistic) cultural dispensation known
as 'postmodernism.'" It is in this trend, dominant in many
universities and hostile to the principles of liberal democracy,
that Pangle finds civic irresponsibility, spiritual deadliness, and
a philosophical dogmatism - all of which require a serious
response. He traces the roots of postmodernism in Heidegger and in
the recent work of Lyotard, Derrida, Vattimo, Rorty, and Levinson,
and he finds the proper response to be a reexamination of the views
of the founders of American republicanism, and of the Greek
philosophers who so powerfully affected their thinking. Pangle
believes that many aspects of Greek and early American thought,
including a responsiveness to the emancipation of women, have been
lost, and that a rediscovery of that thought would provide grounds
for a regeneration of public life not only in the US but in
countries like Canada, where some of these values also, he says,
have fallen away. The prose is dense, sometimes clotted, but Pangle
provides a useful warning of the possible dangers of current modes
of thought. (Kirkus Reviews)
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.
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