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What was it about Barack Obama's campaign of hope that resonated so
much not just with Americans, but people the world over? Have we
really become so despairing in the face of collapsed economies and
the threat of violence around every corner that a simple rallying
cry to remember hope can have such a powerful effect? In this
moving and thoughtful book, Ronald Aronson explores our
relationship to hope at a time some have called the end of history,
others the end of politics, in order to formulate a more active
stance, one in which hope is far more than a mood or feeling it is
the very basis of social will and political action. Aronson
examines our own heartbreaking story: a century of violence,
upheaval, and the undelivered promises of progress all of which
have contributed to the evaporation of social hope. As he shows, we
are now in an era when hope has been privatized, when despite all
the ways we are connected to each other we are desperately alone,
struggling to weather the maelstrom around us, demoralized by the
cynicism that permeates our culture and politics, and burdened with
finding personal solutions to social problems. Yet social hope,
Aronson argues, still persists. Carefully exploring what we mean
when we say we "hope" and teasing hope apart from its dangerously
misconstrued sibling, progress, he locates real seeds of change. He
argues that always underlying our experience even if we completely
ignore it is a sense of social belonging, and that this can be
reactivated into a powerful collective force, an active we. He
looks to various political movements, from the massive collective
force of environmentalists to the stunning rise of
movement-centered politicians such as Bernie Sanders and Jeremy
Corbyn, as powerful examples of socially energized, politically
determined, and actionably engaged forms of hope. The result is an
illuminating and inspiring call that anyone can clearly hear: we
can still create a better future for ourselves, but only if we do
it together.
Until now it has been impossible to read the full story of the
relationship between Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. Their
dramatic rupture at the height of the Cold War, like that conflict
itself, demanded those caught in its wake to take sides rather than
to appreciate its tragic complexity. Now, using newly available
sources, Ronald Aronson offers the first book-length account of the
twentieth century's most famous friendship and its end.
Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre first met in 1943, during the
German occupation of France. The two became fast friends.
Intellectual as well as political allies, they grew famous
overnight after Paris was liberated. As playwrights, novelists,
philosophers, journalists, and editors, the two seemed to be
everywhere and in command of every medium in post-war France.
East-West tensions would put a strain on their friendship, however,
as they evolved in opposing directions and began to disagree over
philosophy, the responsibilities of intellectuals, and what sorts
of political changes were necessary or possible.
As Camus, then Sartre adopted the mantle of public spokesperson for
his side, a historic showdown seemed inevitable. Sartre embraced
violence as a path to change and Camus sharply opposed it, leading
to a bitter and very public falling out in 1952. They never spoke
again, although they continued to disagree, in code, until Camus's
death in 1960.
In a remarkably nuanced and balanced account, Aronson chronicles
this riveting story while demonstrating how Camus and Sartre
developed first in connection with and then against each other,
each keeping the other in his sights long after their break.
Combining biography and intellectualhistory, philosophical and
political passion, "Camus and Sartre" will fascinate anyone
interested in these great writers or the world-historical issues
that tore them apart.
Ronald Aronson has a mission: to demonstrate that a life without
religion can be coherent, moral, and committed. In the last few
years the "New Atheists"--Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard
Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens--have created a stir by
criticizing religion and the belief in God. Aronson moves beyond
the discussion of what we should not believe, proposing
contemporary answers to Immanuel Kant's three great questions: What
can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope? Grounded in the
sense that we are deeply dependent and interconnected beings who
are rooted in the universe, nature, history, society, and the
global economy, Living Without God explores the experience and
issues of 21st-century secularists, especially in America.
Reflecting on such perplexing questions as why we are grateful for
life's gifts, who or what is responsible for inequalities, and how
to live in the face of aging and dying, Living Without God is also
refreshingly topical, touching on such subjects as contemporary
terrorism, the war in Iraq, affirmative action, and the remarkable
rise of Barack Obama. Optimistic and stirring, Living Without God
is less interested in attacking religion than in developing a
positive philosophy for atheists, agnostics, secular humanists,
skeptics, and freethinkers--as well as for all those of us who,
whatever we call ourselves, manage to live fundamentally secular
lives and are searching for bearings today.
At long last, Truth and Existence allows us to read Jean-Paul
Sartre's analysis of knowing and truth. This brilliant
epistemological sequel to Being and Nothingness was found among
Sartre's unpublished manuscripts by his adoptive daughter and
executor, Arlette Elkaim-Sartre. Posthumously published in France
in 1989, the work dates to 1948, shortly after Sartre's
controversial call for the writer's political commitment and his
celebrated public lecture "Existentialism Is a Humanism". Truth and
Existence, written in response to Martin Heidegger's The Essence of
Truth, is a product of the years when Sartre was reaching full
stature as a philosopher, novelist, playwright, essayist, and
political activist. This brief, coherent, and engaging text
presents Sartre's ontology of truth in terms of his characteristic
key moral questions of freedom, action, and bad faith. While
stressing the intuitive and personal dimensions of truth, Truth and
Existence also explores the argument that ignoring is an
intentional act starting, like all knowledge, from the primary
ontological condition of ignorance. Thus, at the heart of Sartre's
discussion are explanations of ignorance (as resulting from the
choice to ignore), phenomenological descriptions (of behavior
seeking to avoid the truth), and the reasons why one chooses to
avoid the truth. Sartre explores why one Madame T., afflicted with
tuberculosis, should choose to ignore the disease that is killing
her rather than take responsibility for it. Here is Sartre the
existentialist at his most original and most provocative: this work
of epistemology, based on ontology, becomes a work of ethics. At
the same time, Truth and Existence foreshadows and lays thebasis
for some of the most important insights of the Critique of
Dialectical Reason. Truth and Existence is introduced by an
extended biographical, historical, and analytical essay by Ronald
Aronson.
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