For the Love of It

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Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226065715
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (26 download)

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Book Synopsis For the Love of It by : Wayne C. Booth

Download or read book For the Love of It written by Wayne C. Booth and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the Love of It is a story not only of one intimate struggle between a man and his cello, but also of the larger struggle between a society obsessed with success and individuals who choose challenging hobbies that yield no payoff except the love of it. "If, in truth, Booth is an amateur player now in his fifth decade of amateuring, he is certainly not an amateur thinker about music and culture. . . . Would that all of us who think and teach and care about music could be so practical and profound at the same time."—Peter Kountz, New York Times Book Review "[T]his book serves as a running commentary on the nature and depth of this love, and all the connections it has formed in his life. . . . The music, he concludes, has become part of him, and that is worth the price."—Clea Simon, Boston Globe "The book will be read with delight by every well-meaning amateur who has ever struggled. . . . Even general readers will come away with a valuable lesson for living: Never mind the outcome of a possibly vain pursuit; in the passion that is expended lies the glory."—John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune "Hooray for amateurs! And huzzahs to Wayne Booth for honoring them as they deserve. For the Love of It celebrates amateurism with genial philosophizing and pointed cultural criticism, as well as with personal reminiscences and self-effacing wit."—James Sloan Allen, USA Today "Wayne Booth, the prominent American literary critic, has written the only sustained study of the interior experience of musical amateurism in recent years, For the Love of It. [It] succeeds as a meditation on the tension between the centrality of music in Booth's life, both inner and social, and its marginality. . . . It causes the reader to acknowledge the heterogeneity of the pleasures involved in making music; the satisfaction in playing well, the pride one takes in learning a difficult piece or passage or technique, the buzz in one's fingertips and the sense of completeness with the bow when the turn is done just right, the pleasure of playing with others, the comfort of a shared society, the joy of not just hearing, but making, the music, the wonder at the notes lingering in the air."—Times Literary Supplement

American Philosophy

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Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN 13 : 0374713111
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (747 download)

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Book Synopsis American Philosophy by : John Kaag

Download or read book American Philosophy written by John Kaag and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2016-10-11 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The epic wisdom contained in a lost library helps the author turn his life around John Kaag is a dispirited young philosopher at sea in his marriage and his career when he stumbles upon West Wind, a ruin of an estate in the hinterlands of New Hampshire that belonged to the eminent Harvard philosopher William Ernest Hocking. Hocking was one of the last true giants of American philosophy and a direct intellectual descendent of William James, the father of American philosophy and psychology, with whom Kaag feels a deep kinship. It is James’s question “Is life worth living?” that guides this remarkable book. The books Kaag discovers in the Hocking library are crawling with insects and full of mold. But he resolves to restore them, as he immediately recognizes their importance. Not only does the library at West Wind contain handwritten notes from Whitman and inscriptions from Frost, but there are startlingly rare first editions of Hobbes, Descartes, and Kant. As Kaag begins to catalog and read through these priceless volumes, he embarks on a thrilling journey that leads him to the life-affirming tenets of American philosophy—self-reliance, pragmatism, and transcendence—and to a brilliant young Kantian who joins him in the restoration of the Hocking books. Part intellectual history, part memoir, American Philosophy is ultimately about love, freedom, and the role that wisdom can play in turning one’s life around.

Richard Rorty

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Author :
Publisher : ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN 13 : 145960623X
Total Pages : 742 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (596 download)

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Book Synopsis Richard Rorty by : Neil Gross

Download or read book Richard Rorty written by Neil Gross and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-10 with total page 742 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On his death in 2007, Richard Rorty was heralded by the New York Times as one of the world's most influential contemporary thinkers. Controversial on the left and the right for his critiques of objectivity and political radicalism, Rorty experienced a renown denied to all but a handful of living philosophers. In this masterly biography, Neil...

America the Philosophical

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Author :
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0345804708
Total Pages : 690 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (458 download)

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Book Synopsis America the Philosophical by : Carlin Romano

Download or read book America the Philosophical written by Carlin Romano and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-04-23 with total page 690 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This bold, insightful book argues that America today towers as the most philosophical culture in the history of the world, an unprecedented marketplace for truth and debate. With verve and keen intelligence, Carlin Romano—Pulitzer Prize finalist, award-winning book critic, and professor of philosophy—takes on the widely held belief that the United States is an anti-intellectual country. Instead he provides a richly reported overview of American thought, arguing that ordinary Americans see through phony philosophical justifications faster than anyone else, and that the best of our thinkers ditch artificial academic debates for fresh intellectual enterprises. Along the way, Romano seeks to topple philosophy’s most fiercely admired hero, Socrates, asserting that it is Isocrates, the nearly forgotten Greek philosopher who rejected certainty, whom Americans should honor as their intellectual ancestor. America the Philosophical is a rebellious tour de force that both celebrates our country’s unparalleled intellectual energy and promises to bury some of our most hidebound cultural clichés.

America's Public Philosopher

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Author :
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231552882
Total Pages : 263 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

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Book Synopsis America's Public Philosopher by : John Dewey

Download or read book America's Public Philosopher written by John Dewey and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Dewey was America’s greatest public philosopher. His work stands out for its remarkable breadth, and his deep commitment to democracy led him to courageous progressive stances on issues such as war, civil liberties, and racial, class, and gender inequalities. This book collects the clearest and most powerful of his public writings and shows how they continue to speak to the challenges we face today. An introductory essay and short introductions to each of the texts discuss the current relevance and significance of Dewey’s work and legacy. The book includes forty-six essays on topics such as democracy in the United States, political power, education, economic justice, science and society, and philosophy and culture. These essays inspire optimism for the possibility of a more humane public and political culture, in which citizens share in the pursuit of lifelong education through participation in democratic life. The essays in America’s Public Philosopher reveal John Dewey as a powerful example for anyone seeking to address a wider audience and a much-needed voice for all readers in search of intellectual and moral leadership.

Primal Roots of American Philosophy

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Publisher : Penn State Press
ISBN 13 : 9780271041322
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (413 download)

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Book Synopsis Primal Roots of American Philosophy by : Bruce Wilshire

Download or read book Primal Roots of American Philosophy written by Bruce Wilshire and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Continuing his quest to bring American philosophy back to its roots, Bruce Wilshire connects the work of such thinkers as Thoreau, Emerson, Dewey, and James with Native American beliefs and practices. His search is not for exact parallels, but rather for fundamental affinities between the equally &"organismic&" thought systems of indigenous peoples and classic American philosophers. Wilshire gives particular emphasis to the affinities between Black Elk&’s view of the hoop of the world and Emerson&’s notion of horizon, and also between a shaman&’s healing practices and James&’s ideas of pure experience, willingness to believe, and a pluralistic universe. As these connections come into focus, the book shows how European phenomenology was inspired and influenced by the classic American philosophers, whose own work reveals the inspiration and influence of indigenous thought. Wilshire&’s book also reveals how artificial are the walls that separate the sciences and the humanities in academia, and that separate Continental from Anglo-American thought within the single discipline of philosophy.

The American Evasion of Philosophy

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Publisher : Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN 13 : 0299119637
Total Pages : 292 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (991 download)

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Book Synopsis The American Evasion of Philosophy by : Cornel West

Download or read book The American Evasion of Philosophy written by Cornel West and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 1989-05-09 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking Emerson as his starting point, Cornel West’s basic task in this ambitious enterprise is to chart the emergence, development, decline, and recent resurgence of American pragmatism. John Dewey is the central figure in West’s pantheon of pragmatists, but he treats as well such varied mid-century representatives of the tradition as Sidney Hook, C. Wright Mills, W. E. B. Du Bois, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Lionel Trilling. West’s "genealogy" is, ultimately, a very personal work, for it is imbued throughout with the author’s conviction that a thorough reexamination of American pragmatism may help inspire and instruct contemporary efforts to remake and reform American society and culture. "West . . . may well be the pre-eminent African American intellectual of our generation."—The Nation "The American Evasion of Philosophy is a highly intelligent and provocative book. Cornel West gives us illuminating readings of the political thought of Emerson and James; provides a penetrating critical assessment of Dewey, his central figure; and offers a brilliant interpretation—appreciative yet far from uncritical—of the contemporary philosopher and neo-pragmatist Richard Rorty. . . . What shines through, throughout the work, is West's firm commitment to a radical vision of a philosophic discourse as inextricably linked to cultural criticism and political engagement."—Paul S. Boyer, professor emeritus of history, University of Wisconsin–Madison. Wisconsin Project on American Writers Frank Lentricchia, General Editor

Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers

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Publisher : A&C Black
ISBN 13 : 1843710374
Total Pages : 2759 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (437 download)

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Book Synopsis Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers by : John R. Shook

Download or read book Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers written by John R. Shook and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2005-01-01 with total page 2759 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers includes both academic and non-academic philosophers, anda large number of female and minority thinkers whose work has been neglected. It includes those intellectualsinvolved in the development of psychology, pedagogy, sociology, anthropology, education, theology, politicalscience, and several other fields, before these disciplines came to be considered distinct from philosophy in thelate nineteenth century.Each entry contains a short biography of the writer, an exposition and analysis of his or her doctrines and ideas, abibliography of writings, and suggestions for further reading. While all the major post-Civil War philosophers arepresent, the most valuable feature of this dictionary is its coverage of a huge range of less well-known writers,including hundreds of presently obscure thinkers. In many cases, the Dictionary of Modern AmericanPhilosophers offers the first scholarly treatment of the life and work of certain writers. This book will be anindispensable reference work for scholars working on almost any aspect of modern American thought.

How It Is

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Publisher : University of Arizona Press
ISBN 13 : 9780816526482
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (264 download)

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Book Synopsis How It Is by : V. F. Cordova

Download or read book How It Is written by V. F. Cordova and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2007-12-06 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Viola Cordova was the first Native American woman to receive a PhD in philosophy. Even as she became an expert on canonical works of traditional Western philosophy, she devoted herself to defining a Native American philosophy. Although she passed away before she could complete her life’s work, some of her colleagues have organized her pioneering contributions into this provocative book. In three parts, Cordova sets out a complete Native American philosophy. First she explains her own understanding of the nature of reality itself—the origins of the world, the relation of matter and spirit, the nature of time, and the roles of culture and language in understanding all of these. She then turns to our role as residents of the Earth, arguing that we become human as we deepen our relation to our people and to our places, and as we understand the responsibilities that grow from those relationships. In the final section, she calls for a new reverence in a world where there is no distinction between the sacred and the mundane. Cordova clearly contrasts Native American beliefs with the traditions of the Enlightenment and Christianized Europeans (what she calls “Euroman” philosophy). By doing so, she leads her readers into a deeper understanding of both traditions and encourages us to question any view that claims a singular truth. From these essays—which are lucid, insightful, frequently funny, and occasionally angry—we receive a powerful new vision of how we can live with respect, reciprocity, and joy.

The American Philosopher

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Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 1498513166
Total Pages : 311 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (985 download)

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Book Synopsis The American Philosopher by : Phillip McReynolds

Download or read book The American Philosopher written by Phillip McReynolds and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2015-08-20 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the course of nearly a decade, Phillip McReynolds conducted a series of interviews with prominent American philosophers including, among others, Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, Joseph Margolis, Richard Bernstein, Bruce Wilshire, John Lachs, Richard Shusterman, and Crispin Sartwell. The American Philosopher: Dialogues on the Meaning of Life and Truth brings these interviews together, bridginga wide variety of topics both personal and professional, and ultimately addressing what it means to be an American philosopher. With interviews that are both philosophical and biographical in nature, this book will be of interest to those who specialize in pragmatism and the history of American philosophy, academics in fields such as comparative literature, history, political science, sociology, and American studies, and to anyone with an interest in “America” as an idea

The American Pragmatists

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Author :
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191057371
Total Pages : 303 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis The American Pragmatists by : Cheryl Misak

Download or read book The American Pragmatists written by Cheryl Misak and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2013-02-21 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cheryl Misak presents a history of the great American philosophical tradition of pragmatism, from its inception in the Metaphysical Club of the 1870s to the present day. This ambitious new account identifies the connections between traditional American pragmatism and contemporary philosophy and argues that the most defensible version of pragmatism — roughly, that of Peirce, Lewis, and Sellars — must be seen and recovered as an important part of the analytic tradition.

The American Philosopher

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Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 9780226066479
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (664 download)

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Book Synopsis The American Philosopher by : Giovanna Borradori

Download or read book The American Philosopher written by Giovanna Borradori and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1994-03-03 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this lively look at current debates in American philosophy, leading philosophers talk candidly about the changing character of their discipline. In the spirit of Emerson's The American Scholar, this book explores the identity of the American philosopher. Through informal conversations, the participants discuss the rise of post-analytic philosophy in America and its relations to European thought and to the American pragmatist tradition. They comment on their own intellectual development as well as each others' work, charting the course of American philosophy over the past few decades. Giovanna Borradori, in her substantial introduction, explains the history of the analytic movement in America and the home-grown reaction against it. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, American philosophy was a socially engaged interdisciplinary enterprise. In transcendentalism and pragmatism, then the dominant currents in American thought, philosophy was connected to history, psychology, and public issues. But in the 1930s, the imported European movement of logical positivism redefined philosophical discourse in terms of mathematical logic and theory of language. Under the influence of this analytic view, American philosophy became a professionalized discipline, divorced from public debate and intellectual history and antagonistic to the other, more humanistic tradition of continental thought. The American Philosopher explores the opposition between analytic and continental thought and shows how recent American work has begun to bridge the gap between the two traditions. Through a reexamination of pragmatism, and through an attempt to understand philosophy in a more hermeneutical way, the participants narrow the distance between America's distinctly scientific philosophy and Europe's more literary approach. Moving beyond classical analytic philosophy, the participants confront each other on a number of topics. The logico-linguistic orientations of Quine and Davidson come up against the more discursive, interdisciplinary agendas of Rorty, Putnam, and Cavell. Nozick's theory of pluralist anarchism goes face-to-face with the aesthetic neo-foundationalism of Danto. And Kuhn's hypothesis of paradigm shifts is measured against MacIntyre's ethics of "virtues." Borradori's conversations offer an unconventional portrait of the way philosophers think about their work; scholars and students will not be its only beneficiaries, so will everyone who wonders about the current state of American philosophy.

Thomas Jefferson

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Author :
Publisher : Transaction Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1412839955
Total Pages : 157 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (128 download)

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Book Synopsis Thomas Jefferson by : Max Lerner

Download or read book Thomas Jefferson written by Max Lerner and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 2011-12-31 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the course of more than six decades as an author, journalist, and professor, Max Lerner studied and assessed many presidents, yet Thomas Jefferson received his most sustained attention. To Lerner, Jefferson came closest in the American context to Plato’s "philosopher-king," the ideal thinker and leader. Because of his keen sense of Jefferson’s virtues and his unique place in United States history, Lerner began work on a book about Jefferson in 1957, rewriting it several times throughout his life, always with the intention of introducing general readers to "a thinker and public figure of enduring pertinence." In this volume, Lerner uses the facts of Jefferson’s life and work as the springboard to insightful analysis and informed assessment. In considering Jefferson, Lerner combines biographical information, historical background, and analytical commentary. The result is a biographical-interpretive volume, a primer about Jefferson that not only describes his accomplishments, but discusses his problems and failures. As political figures have declined in esteem in recent decades, the media has probed deeper into previously private lives. Historians, biographers, and others have revealed personal details about deceased prominent figures. Two centuries after he helped create America, Jefferson remains a figure of enduring fascination within academic circles and beyond. Max Lerner helps explain and clarify not only this unending fascination, but the timeless relevance of the nation’s devoutly democratic yet singularly authentic "philosopher-king."

The American Philosopher

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Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 9780226066486
Total Pages : 190 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (664 download)

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Book Synopsis The American Philosopher by : Giovanna Borradori

Download or read book The American Philosopher written by Giovanna Borradori and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1994-03-03 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this lively look at current debates in American philosophy, leading philosophers talk candidly about the changing character of their discipline. In the spirit of Emerson's The American Scholar, this book explores the identity of the American philosopher. Through informal conversations, the participants discuss the rise of post-analytic philosophy in America and its relations to European thought and to the American pragmatist tradition. They comment on their own intellectual development as well as each others' work, charting the course of American philosophy over the past few decades. Giovanna Borradori, in her substantial introduction, explains the history of the analytic movement in America and the home-grown reaction against it. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, American philosophy was a socially engaged interdisciplinary enterprise. In transcendentalism and pragmatism, then the dominant currents in American thought, philosophy was connected to history, psychology, and public issues. But in the 1930s, the imported European movement of logical positivism redefined philosophical discourse in terms of mathematical logic and theory of language. Under the influence of this analytic view, American philosophy became a professionalized discipline, divorced from public debate and intellectual history and antagonistic to the other, more humanistic tradition of continental thought. The American Philosopher explores the opposition between analytic and continental thought and shows how recent American work has begun to bridge the gap between the two traditions. Through a reexamination of pragmatism, and through an attempt to understand philosophy in a more hermeneutical way, the participants narrow the distance between America's distinctly scientific philosophy and Europe's more literary approach. Moving beyond classical analytic philosophy, the participants confront each other on a number of topics. The logico-linguistic orientations of Quine and Davidson come up against the more discursive, interdisciplinary agendas of Rorty, Putnam, and Cavell. Nozick's theory of pluralist anarchism goes face-to-face with the aesthetic neo-foundationalism of Danto. And Kuhn's hypothesis of paradigm shifts is measured against MacIntyre's ethics of "virtues." Borradori's conversations offer an unconventional portrait of the way philosophers think about their work; scholars and students will not be its only beneficiaries, so will everyone who wonders about the current state of American philosophy.

American Philosophy

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Author :
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 0374154481
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (741 download)

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Book Synopsis American Philosophy by : John Kaag

Download or read book American Philosophy written by John Kaag and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2016-10-11 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The epic wisdom contained in a lost library helps the author turn his life aroundIn American Philosophy, John Kaag--a disillusioned philosopher at sea in his marriage and career--stumbles upon a treasure trove of rare books on an old estate in the hinterlands of New Hampshire that once belonged to the Harvard philosopher William Ernest Hocking. The library includes notes from Whitman, inscriptions from Frost, and first editions of Hobbes, Descartes, and Kant. As he begins to catalog and preserve these priceless books, Kaag rediscovers the very tenets of American philosophy--self-reliance, pragmatism, the transcendent--and sees them in a twenty-first-century context. Hocking was one of the last true giants of American philosophy. After studying under Harvard's Philosophical Four--William James, George Santayana, Josiah Royce, and George Herbert Palmer--he held the most prestigious chair at the university for the first three decades of the twentieth century. And when his teachers eventually died, he collected the great books from their libraries (filled with marginalia) and combined them with his own rare volumes at his family's estate. And there they remained for nearly eighty years, a time capsule of American thought. Part intellectual history, part memoir, American Philosophy is an invigorating investigation of American pragmatism and the wisdom that underlies a meaningful life.

John Dewey's Ethics

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Author :
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253351405
Total Pages : 738 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (533 download)

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Book Synopsis John Dewey's Ethics by : Gregory Fernando Pappas

Download or read book John Dewey's Ethics written by Gregory Fernando Pappas and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 738 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thorough, definitive account of Dewey's ethics

Pragmatist and American Philosophical Perspectives on Resilience

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Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1498581064
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (985 download)

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Book Synopsis Pragmatist and American Philosophical Perspectives on Resilience by : Kelly A. Parker

Download or read book Pragmatist and American Philosophical Perspectives on Resilience written by Kelly A. Parker and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-12-03 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in Pragmatist and American Philosophical Perspectives on Resilience offer a survey of the ways that “resilience” is becoming a key concept for understanding our world, as well as providing deeper insight about its specific actual and proposed applications. As a concept with multiple theoretical and practical meanings, “resilience” promises considerable explanatory power. At the same time, current uses of the concept can be diverse and at times inconsistent. The American philosophical tradition provides tools uniquely suited for clarifying, extending, and applying emerging concepts in more effective and suggestive ways. This collection explores the usefulness of theoretical work in American philosophy and pragmatism to practices in ecology, community, rurality, and psychology.