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The introduction by Merold Westphal sets the scene: Two books, two
visions of philosophy, two friends and sometimes colleagues....
Modernity and Its Discontents is a debate between Caputo and Marsh
in which each upheld their opposing philosphical positions by
critical modernism and post-modernism. The book opens with a
critique of each debater of the other's previous work. With its
passionate point-counterpoint form, the book recalls the
philosphical dialogues of classical times, but the writing style
remains lucid and uncluttered. Taking the failure of Englightenment
ideals as their common ground, the debaters challenge each other's
ideas on the nature of post-foundationalist critique. At the core
of the argument lies the timely question of the role that each
person can play in creating a truly humane society.
Although this book derives its inspiration and model from
Descartes' Meditations and Husserl's Cartesian Meditations, it
attempts to overcome Cartesianism conceived as individualistic,
reflective, apodictic, presuppositionless self-recovery. Instead,
contends Professor Marsh, the isolated, individualistic, brougeois
ego gives way to the social, communal, post-bourgeois self: wordly,
linguistic, historical, practical, and critical. The book attempts
to overcome Cartesianism both in content and in form. In content,
Marsh argues, the social self replaces the isolated ego; this he
attempts to establish through a series of chapters progressively
expanding their scope and social context. Beginning with an
emphasis on individual perception, thought, and freedom, and moving
through reflections on knowledge of the other, practical engagments
with the other, and hermeneutics, he concludes with critiques of
the psychological and social unconscious. The result is not a
rejection of individual perception, reflection, and freedom, but
their sublation within community, tradition, and history. For Marsh
the authentic individual is the social individual, the
individual-in-community. This book not only inscribes a
progressively expanding circle, but also moves in a circle. It
begins with a reflection on the contemporary experience of
alientation and history of philosophy, ascends in the next several
chapters to considering the perceptual, cognitive, free, social
self, and then descends in the last chapter to further discussion
of this historical starting points in this practical and
philosophical aspects. Dialectical phenomenology as method bends
back on itself to reflect in a manner both critical and redemptive
on its own starting point and genesis. Post-Cartesian Meditations
obviously situates itself withing the modernism/post-modernism
debate being carried on by Ricoeur and Derrida, Habermas and
Foucault, Searle and Rorty, Bernstein and Caputo. Like
post-modernism, the book is critical of naive Cartesian presence,
the excesses of technological rationality, the pathology of
modernity, the irrationality of bourgeois society. Unlike
post-modernism, however, the book argues for a socially mediated
self, the legitimacy of technology in contrast to technocracy, the
critical redemption of modernity, a dialectical rather than a
rejectionistic overcoming of capitalism. Rich in insight,
suggestion, and argumentation, this book has much to offer students
and instructors of philosophy generally, but will be particularly
useful to those interested in phenomenological developments, or a
Marxist critique of capitalism as a way of life influencing modern
philosophical thought.
The introduction by Merold Westphal sets the scene: "Two books, two
visions of philosophy, two friends and sometimes colleagues...."
Modernity and Its Discontents is a debate between Caputo and Marsh
in which each upheld their opposing philosphical positions by
critical modernism and post-modernism. The book opens with a
critique of each debater of the other's previous work. With its
passionate point-counterpoint form, the book recalls the
philosphical dialogues of classical times, but the writing style
remains lucid and uncluttered. Taking the failure of Englightenment
ideals as their common ground, the debaters challenge each other's
ideas on the nature of post-foundationalist critique. At the core
of the argument lies the timely question of the role that each
person can play in creating a truly humane society.
On May 17, 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, nine men and
women entered a Selective Service office outside Baltimore. They
removed military draft records, took them outside, and set them
afire with napalm.The Catholic activists involved in this protest
against the War included Daniel and Philip Berrigan; all were found
guilt of destroying government property and sentenced to three
years in jail. Dan Berrigan fled, and later turned himself in.The
Berrigans and their colleagues went on to lives spent struggling
against war, poverty, and injustice. And The Trial of the
Catonsville Nine became a powerful expression of the conflicts
between conscience and conduct, power and justice, law and
morality. Drawing on court transcripts, Berrigan wrote a dramatic
account of the trial and the issues it so vividly embodied. The
result is a landmark work of art that been performed frequently
over the past thirty five years, both as a piece of theater and a
motion picture.This new edition includes Berrigan's original
introduction, and additional materials by Robin Anderson and James
Marsh that bring its ideas and themes up to date against the
context of the war in Iraq."A wonderfully moving testament to nine
consciences." - Clive Barnes, The New York Times"One who wants to
know what an authentically Christian response to the questions of
our time is like would be wise to listen to Father Berrigan." -The
New York Review of Books
Process, Praxis, and Transcendence is a North American philosophy
of liberation that defends both metaphysics and philosophy of
religion. The book moves from an existential phenomenology of the
knowing and choosing subject through affirmation of a processive
and liberating Christ to a critique and overcoming of
neo-imperialism. Its ultimate theme explores what the appropriate
theory and praxis of liberation is for those of us living "in the
center of the empire" in North America and Western Europe.
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