Amazon.com
Morality, according to Alasdair MacIntyre, is not what it used to be. In the Aristotelian tradition of ancient Greece and medieval Europe, morality enabled the transformation from untutored human nature as it happened to be to human nature as it could be if it realized its telos (fundamental goal). Eventually, belief in Aristotelian teleology waned, leaving the idea of imperfect human nature in conflict with the perfectionist aims of morality. The conflict dooms to failure any attempt to justify the claims of morality, whether based on emotion, such as Hume's was, or on reason, as in the case of Kant. The result is that moral discourse and practice in the contemporary world is hollow: although the language and appearance of morality remains, the substance is no longer there. Disagreements on moral matters appeal to incommensurable values and so are interminable; the only use of moral language is manipulative.
The claims presented in After Virtue are certainly audacious, but the historical erudition and philosophical acuity behind MacIntyre's powerful critique of modern moral philosophy cannot be disregarded. Moreover, independently of its principal claims, the book, first published in 1981, helped to stimulate philosophical work on the virtues, to reinvigorate traditionalist and communitarian thought, and to provoke valuable discussion in the history of moral philosophy. It was so widely discussed that MacIntyre added another chapter to the second edition in order to reply to his critics. After Virtue continues to deserve attention from philosophers, historians, and anyone interested in moral philosophy and its history. --Glenn Branch
Book Description
"[I]t is something to have a book, devoted to certain quite central technical philosophical questions, which is likely to produce so passionate a response." —New York Review of Books
"A remarkable synthesis . . . ." —Richard Rorty
"A stunning new study of ethics. . . ." —Newsweek
"The best book of philosophy in years." —John Gardner
"To call this a good book is to be patronizing; it is an important book, one that will have to be followed up or answered. It may be a great one, as are all turning points in a tide of drama whose protagonists have thought their courses inexorable." —Choice, February 1982
When After Virtue first appeared in 1981, it was recognized at once as a significant and potentially controversial critique of contemporary moral philosophy. Now, in a new chapter, Alasdair MacIntyre responds to the questions and considerations raised by the many admirers and critics who made After Virtue such a widely read and discussed work of philosophy. Taking into account the dialogue generated by his book over the past three years, he elaborates his position on the relationship of philosophy to history, the virtues and the issue of relativism, and the relationship of moral philosophy to theology. In doing so, MacIntyre sustains the claims of his central conclusions to rational justification and demonstrates further the accountability of philosophy to the world and times it seeks to describe.
Customer Reviews:
Philosophy and History.......2006-07-23
MacIntyre's book is very clear and well written. Without for a moment slipping into the contemporary trap of "relativism" he explores how an understanding of context is necessary to understanding a philosophers work. This necessary link between history and philosophy forces an acceptance that the development of new philosophical ideas may indicate and/or cause the loss of certain societal characteristics. The title gives this away...
A feeble effort to justify feudal aristocracy.......2005-12-18
Continuing in the line of communitarian know-it-all savants like Karl Marx, who is better at describing a problem than solving it, MacIntyre displays a dazzling grasp of the short comings of the Western liberal tradition that brought us such things as the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. However, once he tries to introduce his alternative, his "traditionalism project" quickly degenerates into logical absurdities and ridiculous posturing.
He should be embarrassed to claim the "good watch" example of clerical logic. Not only is his logic purely instrumental and manipulative, but when he tries to extend it to a "good farmer" he begins to incorporate extraneous standards of value. To say that a good farmer wins lots of prizes at agricultural shows is simply to defer to another judicial body - the ag show judges. To say that a good farmer has the best soil renewal program is the beg the question, "who decides what a good soil renewal program is?" (A soil renewal program could have different levels of effectiveness depending on whether the proposed crop was grapes or tobacco.) Even worse, by the "good watch" instrumental logic, a "good woman" would be, take your pick, (1) the one who has the most babies, (2) the one who has intercourse with the most men, etc.
MacIntyre's implied assertion that Athens had a rational basis for moral analysis flies in the face of "The Trial of Socrates" and the dramas of Sophocles ("Antigone," for example). The truth is that pagan "classical" societies were just as turbulent and roiled as current society.
MacIntyre's pretense at philosophical objectivity based on Aristotelian ethics is thin and transparent. It is clear that MacIntyre's real quarrel would be more honestly directed at Luther, Calvin, Milton and the Protestant Reformation. Like Osama Ben Laden, who raves about the tragedy of Andalucia (where Islam was driven out of Western Europe in the 1490s) MacIntyre secretly longs for a return to the days before Galileo, when the Roman church was the final arbiter of all things - mandating an image of earth as the center of concentric crystaline spheres which separate mankind from heaven.
MacIntyre has a pathetic longing for a life governed by well defined instrumental virtues of inherited social position set in a feudal aristocratic social order. It's too bad that this inclination leads one to spend one's life in a fruitless effort to justify the dark ages of Europe. This book will sell best to readers who prefer a rigid social hierarchy based on a a chicken yard pecking order of physical strength. Following that model for society, it wouldn't be long before we returned of world of warlords, whose violent and vicious sycophants would prowl around in large pickup trucks on which would be mounted 50 caliber machine guns. These vehicles were known as "technicals" in Somalia in 1992 - which I guess is the ideal world of Alasdair MacIntyre.
A Must-Read Groundbreaking Treatise of Our Civilization's Thought.......2005-07-20
Alasdair MacIntyre effectively illustrates the greatest moral problems facing our culture today-- problems hundreds of years in the making and with roots beyond mere partisan debate. Written in relatively clear, necessarily precise philosophical language, one can easily understand MacIntyre's arguments and in so doing will understand why the western world has become what it is today and why it must change. Read it.
a moral thriller.......2005-03-22
I read this book conflicted. On the one hand the book contained sentences, frequent sentences, of such numbing bodilessness as "For beside rights and utility, among the central moral fictions of the age we have to place the peculiarly managerial fiction embodied in the claim to possess systematic effectiveness in controlling certain aspects of social reality." On the other hand the book was so fascinating I could scarcely put it down at points. It felt like masochism.
All this to say: MacIntyre writes a moral thriller of great drama and urgency. He writes it with a tactic used by more conventional suspense novelists like Ruth Rendell: give the end at the beginning, then explain how such a bizarre and catastrophic end came to be. Our moral language assumes a universality we do not believe, he argues at the beginning. How have our moral beliefs become so ruptured from (and so much smaller than) the language we use to describe them? That rupture is the history he traces. The setting is the Western world; the characters are philosophers; the plot is the murder of Aristotle. Who killed him? Was it Hume in the Enlightenment with the candlestick? Was it Machiavelli in the Renaissance? Was it Kierkegaard the Dane with a book: Enten-Eller? Was it the Bloomsbury group with their emotivist approach to ethics? Was it, after all has been said and done, Nietzsche?
And, can Aristotle (and his teleological view of morality) be brought back to life?
MacIntyre's style is that of a perfectly trustworthy guide. He fends off more counter-arguments than I could have generated for him in a lifetime. "How is he going to get out of this scrape he's just identified?" I asked myself, and rested in peace that he would. He manages to tie literature, scientific results, case studies and metaphorical examples to his abstractions, rendering his work not only readable but practical.
The narrative structure of the book (its movement through time) is intricate. For perhaps the first time in my (limited) exposure to philosophy, I found myself in suspense. Knowing what happened, I wanted to know, had to know, why--because it is my story, and yours, and the crux of the plot has been reached, but the end has not yet been written.
It comes down to Aristotle or Nietsche.......2004-01-01
Writing polemics in support of virtue became something of a cottage industry in the '90's. This is one of the texts that drove that trend. Fortunately, its tone is not polemical in the slightest. MacIntyre's argument is measured and well-reasoned, and he gives several useful concepts for addressing moral issues, e.g., institutional *practices* that provide internal rather than external goods, and narratives and stories as constitutive of human existence.
It's an involved argument, and at least partly relies upon a reading of intellectual history for its strength. For MacIntyre, upon investigation there are only two consistent moral viewpoints: one associated with Aristotle that views morality as objectively valid and rational because it's based on a natural teleology and sees that morality exercised through the development of virtues and intricately entwined with them, another, based upon Nietsche, which sees morality only as a mask for irrational power.
Lucid and well-written. Highly recommended.
Book Description
Situational Analysis: Grounded Theory After the Postmodern Turn provides an innovative approach to grounded theory useful in a wide array of qualitative research projects. Extending Anselm Strauss’s ecological social worlds/arenas/discourses framework, situational analysis offers researchers three kinds of maps that place emphasis on the range of differences rather than commonalities, as found via the traditional grounded theory approach:
* Situational maps lay out the major human, nonhuman, discursive, and material elements in the research situation of concern and provoke analysis of relations among them
* Social worlds/arenas maps lay out the collective actors and their arenas of commitment, framing mesolevel interpretations of the situation
* Positional maps examine the major positions taken (and not taken) in the discourses
Using extensive examples, author Adele E. Clarke covers why and how to do these maps with traditional qualitative data such as interviews and ethnographic materials. The book then follows in Foucault’s footsteps, offering ambitious chapters on mapping and analyzing discourse materials—narrative, visual, and historical. Situational analysis helps researchers examine variations, differences, silences in data, conditionality, and complexity. It is also very useful for multi-site research projects, which are increasingly common not only in the social sciences but also in the humanities and related professional fields.
Situational Analysis can be used in a wide array of research projects that draw on interview, ethnographic, historical, visual, and other discursive materials including multi-site research. It is a perfect supplement to any graduate-level qualitative research course, and will also support professional researchers and consultants from diverse backgrounds pursuing qualitative projects.
“Through this book, grounded theory has been thoroughly remodeled. Pulling together diverse traditions in social theory and providing a coherent methodological translation for them, this renovation is both scholarly and practical. The text is as an exemplar for updating and reinterpreting research approaches in light of contemporary philosophical and methodological sensibilities.”
—Karen D. Locke,
College of William and Mary
“A timely and erudite critique of grounded theory, clearly favoring the Straussian line, and none the worse for that.”
—Antony Bryant,
Leeds Metropolitan University, U.K.
“With passion and bravura
Situational Analysis
maps the structures, discourses, and silences hidden in qualitative research. Adele Clarke offers the best of both worlds: a theoretically grounded methodology and a methodologically useful theory. This book is a must read for every researcher contemplating a study of people doing things together.”
—Stefan Timmermans,
Brandeis University
Customer Reviews:
Useful for Dissertations.......2006-04-05
For the graphically-oriented person interested in grounded theory (or to some extent, Actor-Network-Theory ANT), this book offers a solid guide to the necessary mechanics for a dissertation. On the other hand, it's not a manual. There are no A-B-C or 1-2-3 steps for doing situational analysis a la Cresswell or other more hand-holding method texts. I view this as an advantage. Method ought to be a guide, not a script for performing research--especially qualitative research, but that is of course up to the researcher.
If one combines this book with Charvaz (2006) and Strauss and Corbin (1998) the necessary pieces are there for passing any level of methodological rigor related to grounded theory.
This is not ANT, but it is quite related. ANT comes from different intellectual antecedents and has a few different emphases that link contextually to Latour's project. Still, Latourians will see obvious similarities.
Overall, Clarke wants to add Foucauldian genealogy to Straussian grounded theory, in order to broaden the data sources considered as discourse, and to make some of the description and theorizing tools graphical. I do not downplay the reworking of grounded theory, but it is a refined branch within grounded theory--not something altogether new, I'd argue. And I think it is not excessively modest for Clarke to describe it this way, too. Strauss was a giant and deserves more acclaim.
I do not mean to detract from this important work. Situational analysis represents the state of the art of a symbolic interactionist methodology broadened out from where Strauss ended his work. Yet method isn't quite the right term--as Clarke discusses at some length in the book. Situational analysis is a way of thinking about research problems along with some tools for investigating the sort of approach that has built up from interactionists since Mead.
If advisors or reviewers aren't sypathetic to ethnographic or interpretive approaches, there is nothing here that will overcome that hurdle in all probability. On the other hand, if you can do a rigorous qualitative project, this is an interesting way to go for someone interested in developing theory while investigating facts. I think it is particularly relevant to areas where little has been written or developed.
There is a lot to be done with refining and extending the method, but the book nevertheless constitutes an exciting advance. Highly recommended.
Book Description
âDon’t start an art collective until you read this book.â âGuerrilla Girls
âEver since Web 2.0 with its wikis, blogs and social networks the art of collaboration is back on the agenda. Collectivism after Modernism convincingly proves that art collectives did not stop after the proclaimed death of the historical avant-gardes. Like never before technology reinvents the social and artists claim the steering wheel!â âGeert Lovink, Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam
âThis examination of the succession of post-war avant-gardes and collectives is new, important, and engaged.â â Stephen F. Eisenman, author of The Abu Ghraib Effect
âCollectivism after Modernism crucially helps us understand what artists and others can do in mushy, stinky times like ours. What can the seemingly powerless do in the face of mighty forces that seem to have their act really together? Here, Stimson and Sholette put forth many good answers.â âYes Men
Spanning the globe from Europe, Japan, and the United States to Africa, Cuba, and Mexico, Collectivism after Modernism explores the ways in which collectives function within cultural norms, social conventions, and corporate or state-sanctioned art. Together, these essays demonstrate that collectivism survives as an influential artistic practice despite the art world’s star system of individuality. Collectivism after Modernism provides the historical understanding necessary for thinking through postmodern collective practice, now and into the future.
Contributors: Irina Aristarkhova, Jesse Drew, Okwui Enwezor, Rubén Gallo, Chris Gilbert, Brian Holmes, Alan Moore, Jelena Stojanovi´c, Reiko Tomii, Rachel Weiss.
Blake Stimson is associate professor of art history at the University of California Davis, the author of The Pivot of the World: Photography and Its Nation, and coeditor of Visual Worlds and Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology. Gregory Sholette is an artist, writer, and cofounder of collectives Political Art Documentation/Distribution and REPOhistory. He is coeditor of The Interventionists: Users’ Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life.
âTo understand the various forms of postwar collectivism as historically determined phenomena and to articulate the possibilities for contemporary collectivist art production is the aim of Collectivism after Modernism. The essays assembled in this anthology argue that to make truly collective art means to reconsider the relation between art and public; examples from the Situationist International and Group Material to Paper Tiger Television and the Congolese collective Le Groupe Amos make the point. To construct an art of shared experience means to go beyond projecting what Blake Stimson and Gregory Sholette call the âimagined communityâ: a collective has to be more than an ideal, and more than communal craft; it has to be a truly social enterprise. Not only does it use unconventional forms and media to communicate the issues and experiences usually excluded from artistic representation, but it gives voice to a multiplicity of perspectives. At its best it relies on the participation of the audience to actively contribute to the work, carrying forth the dialogue it inspires.â âBOMB
Book Description
Today in Eastern Europe the architectural work of revolution is complete: the old order has been replaced by various forms of free market economy and de jure democracy. But as Slavenka Drakulic observes, "in everyday life, the revolution consists much more of the small things-- of sounds, looks and images." In this brilliant work of political reportage, filtered through her own experience, we see that Europe remains a divided continent. In the place of the fallen Berlin Wall there is a chasm between East and West, consisting of the different way people continue to live and understand the world. Little bits--or intimations--of the West are gradually making their way east: boutiques carrying Levis and tiny food shops called "Supermarket" are multiplying on main boulevards. Despite the fact that Drakulic can find a Cafe Europa, complete with Viennese-style coffee and Western decor, in just about every Eastern European city, the acceptance of the East by the rest of Europe continues to prove much more elusive.
Customer Reviews:
East and West...The Differences.......2007-08-23
Slavenka Drakulic is both a skilled writer and a capable interpreter of the human condition. Cafe Europa is not a standard history text; rather it is a collection of related articles that reveal the attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors of individuals who have lived in both the communist world as well as the post-communist period. Drakulic is a great travel companion with a keen feel for the people that she writes about. I approached the book expecting a useful social commentary and found it to be both enlightening and difficult to put down. Anyone who wants to truly understand this part of the world needs to read this one!
Scintillating review of the post-Communist world..........2006-05-12
...which still applicable today, several years since the original publishing of Drakulic's amazing book.
For someone such as myself who's spent a great deal of time in the post-Communist former Bloc, I indentified very strongly with the views put forth by this author. I hasten to add that such identification was instantaneous.
I also learned a heck of a lot; a great deal more, in fact than I thought I knew at the outset, and especially about Croatia and its storied past (the author is Croatian -- Istrian, in fact -- and quite impressively knows the history of her nation and of the former Yugoslavia more generally, like the back of her hand). I wish I had that kind of accessible knowledge. I'm humbled...
Were I able to speak to the author today, I'd probe her for her latest reflections on several of the ideas she put forth almost a decade ago. I'd even attempt to cajole her to pen a sequel...so much has changed, and the instability (sometimes constructive, though more often explosive) has continued to pummel and plague and thereby radically alter the identities of many of these newly democratic states. I'm sure what was the case in 1995 is no longer extant in many of these nations...
Drakulic is deliciously bold in this compact non-fictional winner. She refuses to accept Croatia's latter day nationalistic dogmas and the 'superiority slogans' bandied about by her patriotic peers. Within Cafe Europa's pages, she refuses to accept anything glibly declared by her compatriots 'for granted,' and there remain no sacred cows, and no stones unturned: everything is up for discussion, every so-called truth is up for grabs. For that reason alone, I'd personally have to say her credibility is unassailable.
You might wonder whether what awards someone such 'instant credibility' is in their willingness to lambaste the conventional wisdom of their relevant societies -- to wit, if Drakulic wasn't as willing to chisel away at what Croatians think makes them tick, would she be any less credible? I don't know. That wasn't the tack she took, therefore hard to judge her work on that basis...I suppose what I'm really trying to say in a roundabout way is that I don't have anything against Croatians, and just because she was willing to bash her compatriots doesn't make her any more credible in my eyes. It's not a prerequisite for credibility...having that said that, her candour is yet quite impressive.
Fascinating how so many inspiring factoids were contained in this short and spirited read.
It ended way too soon, Cafe Europa did...now that another decade's passed, I think the time's come for perhaps a revisiting of this theme?
Five-stars all the way.
Balkan mentality.......2005-09-15
Excellent book, Slavenka Drakulic is very perceptive and understands Balkan mentality better than anybody. I really enjoyed reading this book, and other books from Drakulic as well. Sometimes, it seems like Drakulic is balancing between two worlds-one of reality and the other of fantasy. Very good reading and it will give you an insight into the minds of people living in parts of Southeast Europe.
Not bad, but could have been better.......2005-08-19
The first few essays in Drakulic's book are a disappointment. You must wade through pages of materialistic babble (for example, paragraphs on all of the consumer goods she buys in western Europe for the material-hungry people back home) and shallow feelings of insecurity that she shares with her readers (as in, she feels as though her husband will question their marriage simply because her passport is not as powerful as his). But once you reach the essays further on in the book, you may find something of interest to you that falls in to the politics/essays category into which this book has been placed. Drakulic often writes with a sassy, angry tone which is unbecoming. All in all, the book is good reading but I feel as though I could have read another book and learned more about life after communism.
worthwhile read.......2005-06-24
This is a good book, and one worth reading. It's not a history book nor a work of political philosophy. The analysis isn't rigrously done. I don't say these things as criticisms, but rather to point out what sort of book it is. It's a book of essays that provide a particular picture of what life was like in the early 90's in post-communist Eastern and Central Europe. Many times these pictures are insightful and can help throw light on a situaiton. They can help provide that "ah-ha!" moment that is sometimes lacking from a more historical or analytic account. So, it fills a good roll that way, but you should not expect it to be something it's not. My only other criticism is that sometimes it got a bit too close to the "why are we eastern europeans so dumb?" mode for my taste. But, it's an enjoyable book that would be useful for anyone with an interest in post-communist eastern europe. For those who want a deeper view of how Eastern Europe got to be how it was when the Soviet Union fell, I'd recommend reading this book together with parts of Alec Nove's terrific _The Economics of Feasible Socialism_.
Book Description
As heralded everywhere from NPR to the pages of the New York Times Magazine, a new era is underway in our colleges and universities: after a lengthy tenure, the dominance of postmodern theory has come to an end. In this timely and topical book, the legendary Terry Eagleton ("one of [our] best-known public intellectuals."- Boston Globe) traces the rise and fall of these ideas from the 1960s through the 1990s, candidly assessing the resultant gains and losses. What's needed now, After Theory argues, is a return to the big questions and grand narratives. Today's global politics demand we pay attention to a range of topics that have gone ignored by the academy and public alike, from fundamentalism to objectivity, religion to ethics. Fresh, provocative, and consistently engaging, Eagleton's latest salvo will challenge everyone looking to better grasp the state of the world.
Customer Reviews:
Waking Up From Theory.......2006-06-04
Terry Eagleton, who introduced a generation of students to deconstructionism and postmodern theory (also called "theory"), now laments the state of the movement he once heralded. While still respecting some of the insights of Derrida, Barthes, Kristeva, and others, Eagleton believes their disciples are in need of correction. The movement is largely spent, focusing on trivialities instead of on deeper questions of truth and justice. So he charts a course "after theory." (He voiced similar criticisms in his 1996 book, The Illusions of Postmodernism.) Unlike postmodernists, who often revel in obscurity, Eagleton writes with lucidity, passion, and pluck. The book should interest philosophers as well as literary critics, since Eagleton addresses classic philosophical topics such as the objectivity and absoluteness of truth, the meaning and moral purpose of human life, and political philosophy.
By "postmodernism," Eagleton means, "roughly speaking, the contemporary movement of thought which rejects totalities, universal values, grand historical narratives, solid foundations to human existence and the possibility of objective knowledge. Postmodernism is skeptical of truth, unity and progress, opposes what it sees as elitism in culture, tends toward cultural relativism, and celebrates pluralism, discontinuity and heterogeneity." This perspective provides scant resources for the perennial issues of philosophy and politics, since it denies the possibility of finding a philosophically satisfying worldview (or metanarrative.) But Eagleton believes that the crisis of international terrorism against the West means that it must reflect on its own foundations, a notion postmodernists abhor as "modernistic." Eagleton sometimes strongly indicts the deficits of postmodern theory. "It has been shamefaced about morality and metaphysics, embarrassed about love, biology, religion and revolution, largely silent about evil, reticent about death and suffering, dogmatic about essences, universals, and foundations, and superficial about truth objectivity and disinterestedness. This, on any estimate, is a rather large slice of human existence to fall down on." Indeed.
Cutting against the postmodern grain, Eagleton argues persuasively for objective and absolute truth. He rightly notes that the fallibility of some truth claims does nothing to undermine the category of truth itself. Although he does not put it this way, postmodernists often confuse the metaphysics and the epistemology of truth. Truth, on the correspondence view--which Eagleton advocates-- is (or means) "agreement with reality." This is the definition--or metaphysics--of truth. Truth-claims may be defended through a variety of intellectual means; this concerns epistemology. Simply because truth is sometimes elusive does not imply that it is constructed (and deconstructed) by linguistic communities, as postmodernists posit. This matters to Eagleton because "it belongs to our dignity as moderately rational creatures to know the truth." Moreover, political critique and action demand access to reality. If truth "loses it force, then political radicals can stop talking as though it is unequivocally true that women are oppressed..."
This ethical concern lies at the root of Eagleton's desire to reform society according to a particular vision--a mixture of Marxism and Thomism (sans God). Eagleton's Catholic roots are evident when he describes an ideal order in which humans flourish within communities as they realize their own natures and contribute to the realization of others' natures as well. His vision is socialistic--with plenty of acerbic criticisms of capitalism and American conservatism--and post-religious. Nevertheless, he argues that a secular worldview will have difficulty wedding fact and value meaningfully. In one eloquent paragraph, he speaks of Christianity's profound power to give meaning, value, morality, and vision to existence. In spite of that, "It was thus a particular shame that it involved a set of beliefs which seemed to many decent, rational people remarkably benighted and implausible."
There are, of course, "many decent, rational people" (including many contemporary analytic philosophers) who do not find this religious worldview "benighted and implausible" but rational. Truth isn't settled by counting (educated) noses, but one wishes that Eagleton had provided some arguments for denying a worldview he seems ambivalent about abandoning. He sometimes sounds like a God-haunted atheist, given the attention he pays to explicitly biblical themes. Moreover, his notion of a rational human nature and telos with access to objective moral truths may cohere better with a theistic worldview than an atheistic one. Eagleton asks, "What are human beings for? The answer is surely: nothing..." because we are simply ends in ourselves. He takes this to be a brute fact, requiring no explanation. But how can humans have intrinsic moral value as ends in themselves in a materialistic world without design? How do these objective moral values emerge from a purely material matrix of cause and effect? Moral relativism may be more fitting for such a metaphysic. Eagleton advances no real arguments regarding these significant philosophical concerns.
Despite this large lacuna, After Theory deserves a wide readership because of its insistence that truth has yet to succumb to the machinations of postmodernist assassins.
Reminder of the compassion of true socialism.......2006-01-28
I agree with those who find this book preaches to the converted. In this case, the radical (as opposed to the liberal) left. I remain skeptical of all such world-changing agendas, but if you're needing a sharp rejoinder to the capitalist hegemony that permeates even this electronic screen you're reading, then this book's a sensible collection of somewhat scattered thoughts on the need for kindness, humility, and idealism. Getting back to the roots of Marx rather than Marxism, and the socialist imperative to assist what Eagleton updates to be "reciprocal self-realization", he argues that cultural theory must revive itself through an embrace of Aristotle's ethics of flourishing, and that freedom and autonomy can be achieved by attending to others' needs rather than our own, as capitalism demands.
Of course, as with many works in both philosophy and critical theory, how this is to be practically accomplished cannot be found in these lively if self-congratulatory pages that take on the current Bush administration, the selfish and hypocritical psuedo-Christian contigent, and those pursuing profit so that, as Eagleton notes in an aside that seems to be more true each day, capitalism can appropriate our very senses. Even if this is more inspiration than information, Eagleton, by his use of examplars as disparate as George Best, Lady Macbeth, Mick Jagger, the anawim of the book of Isaiah, and especially Lear on the heath makes his points engagingly and wittily. I noticed a strong anti-Americanism permeating nearly every page, especially as the book went on, but his postscript assures readers that he only means those in charge right now, not the rest of us presumably much better educated and more sensitively altruistic!
The brisk first hundred pages, taking on the high and low points of what has come to be the currently pre-eminent power of critical theory were, for me, the most insightful. After this, his journey into philosophy, while nearly understandable and almost cogently clear (by comparison with most theorists), wandered into more rarified territory. I recommend his short book--nearly an elegy--on Marx as a companion to this; it's a bit of a shock to read 227 pages that preach the end of theory after his primer on Literary Theory: an Introduction aided many of us two decades ago in plodding our way through the muddled theorists with whom so many of my tenure-grasping professors and ambitious classmates were smitten. I disagree with his inclusion of some of these theorists as clear explicators of academic prose. On the other hand, his put-downs of scholarly obfuscation prove welcome. If only all scholars wrote with such verve.
After decades commenting on as well as leading the lefty and tenured vanguard, Eagleton keeps up with impressive stamina with the current zeitgeist, and he's not winded yet. While this book, again, will not likely convince anyone who is not already sympathetic to the socialist-humanist approach, it is worthwhile, if a little too reliant on a flow of snappy and snarky rejoinders. But then, how many theorists, right, left, or center, can entertain as they educate?
Although I left this book wondering all the more how Eagleton's mission to retrain the world so as to "take a breather from capitalism" and opt for a socialist rest-cure is in any real sense going to happen, I did learn from his eagerness and his enthusiasm to keep more aware of how we are being led further and further away from the compassion and the moral decency that have characterized true socialists, humanists, and educators.
Swear that it is a new copy...........2005-08-12
The book looks brand new, crisp pages and all!
Not terribly impressive.......2005-03-08
I have recently read this book, and I have to say that I'm less than impressed with it. When I started it, I was pleased and relieved that it was so easy to read and entertaining, but after a couple of chapters of Eagleton's witticisms and biting humor, I found myself waiting for the "theory" to kick in...and it took him until the last three chapters. The book seems to be primarily a rant directed against capitalism (i.e.-the United States, though he does make a tiny disclaimer about this in the postscript), and while it's not surprising coming from an alleged Marxist, it does eventually begin to wear on the reader--at least on this reader. He has good points, but After Theory really feels more like a soapbox for a fist-shaking rant than a discussion of the decades that have comes after literary theory's "golden age" of 1965-1980. I was really hoping for more out of this book.
Reawakening after Post-Modernity.......2005-02-15
While Eagleton seems to dismiss theory just because the revolution it might have envisaged actually did not happen (as if a few philosophical works could have been enough to cause it) he nevertheless has the merit of warning against that unfortunate consequence of the misuse of deconstruction that we may call "the bog of indeterminacy." Why has Derrida's crucial notion of "différance" de facto turned into a diffused practice of indifference? Probably because many post-modern intellectuals have grown suspicious of all material and rational distinctions whatsoever. Among the various intellectual habits, there is the one typical of "those who know and distinguish," warned Roger Fowler: let's still try to be among them, repeats Terry Eagleton. Personally, I could not agree more.
Book Description
Actor Network Theory and After is a powerful approach which combines the insights of post-structuralism with an analysis of the materials of social life. This controversial and path-breaking volume extends ANT beyond studies of technology, power and organization to the body, subjectivity, politics, and cultural difference, and puts it into cutting-edge dialog with feminism, anthropology, psychology and economics.The purpose of that dialog is not to rehearse old differences. Rather it is to find new points of growth and overlap, and to identify new and important theoretical and empirical topics. The book thus collects together studies which explore topical questions of general interest: corporeality and subjectivity; passion and desire; organizational and political struggle; economics; and cross-cultural contacts.
Book Description
From reviews of the first edition--
"Academic literary crticism continues to be dominated by 'theory' and the struggle between deconstructionist and humanist approaches to the business of reading. Jonathan Culler's On Deconstruction is a typically patient, thoughtful, illuminating exposition of the ideas of Jacques Derrida and their application to literary studies."--David Lodge, Commonweal
"Culler is lucid and thorough, can move into and out of other people's arguments without losing the sense of his own voice and argument, and can manage to seem equally at home with Freudianism, feminism, and traditional literary criticism."--Times Literary Supplement
"As a practicing critic Culler has always been a deconstructor, and he approaches this topic with special immediacy and force. In On Deconstruction he offers generous summaries of numerous representative articles and a fine annotated bibliography. . . . His magisterial way of tracing particular topics and techniques through our diaspora of critical texts, and his provocative analyses, cannot fail to focus any critic's thinking about deconstruction."--Modern Language Quarterly
"Gifted with grace and clarity, Culler provides us with a stimulating survey of contemporary literary criticism."--Antioch Review
With an emphasis on readers and reading, Jonathan Culler considered deconstruction in terms of the questions raised by psychoanalytic, feminist, and reader-response criticism. On Deconstruction is both an authoritative synthesis of Derrida's thought and an analysis of the often-problematic relation between his philosophical writings and the work of literary critics. Culler's book is an indispensable guide for anyone interested in understanding modern critical thought. This edition marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first publication of this landmark work and includes a new preface by the author that surveys deconstruction's history since the 1980s and assesses its place within cultural theory today.
Customer Reviews:
Culler Fails to Defend Against Legitimate Objections.......2007-09-23
When Jacques Derrida introduced his theory of the deconstruction of literary texts in 1966, there was a general rush by academics to welcome his contribution and make instant use of it. They were entranced by its ability to uncover what they saw as a "hidden" meaning that lay tantalizingly close just under the surface of that text. Further, they could not resist using Derrida's new and "mysterious" use of convoluted and arcane terminology. In ON DECONSTRUCTION, Jonathan Culler takes a different tack in presenting less of a defense of deconstruction but more on a linked series of analyses and anecdotes that in his mind justifies deconstruction as a legitimate tool of literary theory. Culler's efforts, however, fall short of his aims.
Culler might have had more success had he addressed the legitimate concerns of deconstruction's detractors. Typical of such criticisms is John Ellis, who, in his AGAINST DECONSTRUCTION, notes three objections. First, whenever a deconstructionist applies Derrida's theory, that approach never varies regardless of the type, nature, or complexity of the text, thus calling into question whether the resulting paired opposites do little more than reduce the complexity of the text to a lower level of simplicity. Second, deconstructionists in general and Culler in particular are fond of grounding their vocabulary in a manner that overly uses such evocative words as ""unmasking" "disruptive" "subverting" and "challenging" in an effort to invest their respective analyses with a patina of powerfully exhilarating prose that suggests that they are heirs to a tool that only they know. And third, related to the psychologically loaded use of words is the tendency of deconstructionists to express themselves in an oblique language that is very nearly indecipherable to all readers but themselves. When they are called to explain why their language must be couched in such dense prose, their typical response is to complain that reducing the complexity of the language is to reduce the legitimacy of the theory itself. And that, counter the opponents is exactly the point. After reading Culler, one is left with judging the usefulness of deconstruction based only on his chosen points with the previously mentioned criticisms going unanswered.
Culler starts his book with an overview of Reader-Response and feminist critical theories. In the former case, he notes the need for an interaction between reader and text. In the latter he stresses the need to consider the gender of the reader in that there is a "male" way to read and a "female" way. The common link between the two is that Culler sees that both schools displace or undo the system of concepts or procedures that mark them, which coincidentally enough is the basis for most deconstructive thought.
Oddly enough, Culler, despite his vigorous defense of deconstruction is not the favored poster boy of other deconstructionists. They object to his too frequent bouts of blunt honesty when he points out both sides of the critical issue of deconstruction's legitimacy. A typical example of Culler undercutting himself is "Deconstruction has no better theory of truth. It does not develop a new philosophical framework or solution but moves back and forth with a nimbleness it hopes will prove strategic." (155) Such honesty is indeed refreshing and should Culler wish to address certain other critiques of deconstruction in a future edition, then that edition would prove more useful than this one.
Don't listen to the Derrida snobs!!!.......2004-05-18
This book is fantastic; if you want to learn about post-structuralist thought - and how to apply it - then this is worth your time and money.
To refute the other reviewer below
#1) The fact that this represents Culler's opinions of twenty years ago is a neutral fact. Most theory that's considered part of the canon is pretty old, in fact. And if you think that deconstruction has changed that much since '67, well, then you're just wrong. Even if it had, then I would still argue over the pedagogical value of these essays. Fish, in the forward to his "Is There a Text in This Class?", openly says that he no longer holds many of the beliefs that are contained in the book - but does that mean it isn't still a classic? No. When did you think that Grammatology was published? Is it now somehow irrelevant? No.
#2) Derrida doesn't own deconstruction. A book about deconstruction isn't always about Derrida. Sorry, kiddo.
#3) As it stands, post-strucuralist theory is difficult; in any difficult subject it pays to be familiar with its main tenets before heading into deeper waters. Having said that, Derrida isn't necessarily deeper, but his translations tend to be crap. Hence, a good overview can be a good thing. But, as I said before, Derrida doesn't equate with Deconstruction. Anyone who says otherwise is either a charlatan trying to give you a hard time or is just plain misinformed.
I have had to read upwards upwards of twenty full texts on this stuff (not to mention various journals, course packs, etc) and this is by far the best - in my mind's eye. And that's all that I can really say. You already know if you need it or not - but don't let that dimwit below (or his auto mechaninc) influence you to do the otherwise.
Odd response.......2004-01-31
I believe that Culler seems to have missed the point here. Clearly, the first Seattle reviewer was referring to Culler's most recent book, from 2003, titled "Deconstruction: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies," which he edited.
Correction, for a Reader in Seattle.......2004-01-30
This is a reprint of the of On Deconstruction, first published in 1982, which is why it says the same thing it said 20 years ago!
will the real deconstruction please stand up.......2004-01-29
Has anyone else noticed that Culler's recent book (2003) on deconstruction simply recycles what he says in this book from 1983? Culler hasn't learned a whit more about deconstruction in the past 20 years. Yes, he's better than Christopher Norris on deconstruction, but then again so is my auto mechanic (I'm not kidding). Read Culler if you want to know what Culler thought deconstruction was 20 years ago. Or read his new book to get a sense of what Culler thought deconstruction was 20 years ago, and still thinks it is today. Either way you slice it, Culler is hopelessly outdated and draws a mere caricature of Derrida's thought. For those really interested in Derrida, Culler's fluff version carries no weight at all, and better books abound. If you want to understand Derrida completely ineptly then read Norris and Culler together.
The list of solid works on Derrida is much larger than a previous reviewer suggests. As for reading Heidegger for ten years constituting a perfect world, as another reviewer suggests, I think we can all agree that that really wouldn't be a perfect world at all. What's more, this argument seems to say that it's fine - really, it's OK - not to read philosophy because Heidegger (and Derrida) are really too complex to get anyway. Well, if that's the case, how does Culler *really* make understanding Derrida any easier when he strikes the same pose and omits philosophy? It's a hopeless argument. If you really think ten years of Heidegger is necessary to understand Derrida, then the situation really is futile and impossible (and you've probably misunderstood something about Derrida's work). But it's still OK to read Culler all the same, because Culler avoids all that philosophy stuff. In the meantime, however, he's also avoided explaining Derrida.
So what's all the fuss about? The reality is that if Derrida's work helps you in your own thinking, then great. If not, then why are you reading him? Move on to something else that works for you. Derrida is not the be-all and end-all of anything. If Derrida interests you, and you want to understand his arguments better, then it really just comes down to one thing: Culler doesn't present Derrida's work or thought in any capable way. And other books do.
Book Description
This fully revised new edition re-establishes Paul Griffiths's survey as the definitive study of music since the Second World War. The disruptions of the war, and the struggles of the ensuing peace, were reflected in the music of the time: in Pierre Boulez's radical re-forming of compositional technique and in John Cage's move into zen music, in Milton Babbitt's settling of the serial system, and in Dmitry Shostakovich's unsettling symphonies, in Karlheinz Stockhausen's development of electronic music and in Luigi Nono's pursuit of the universally human, in Iannis Xenakis's view of music as sounding mathematics and in Luciano Berio's consideration of it as language. The initiatives of these composers and their contemporaries opened prospects that have continued to unfold. This constant expansion of musical thinking since 1945 has left us with no single history of music. `We live' as Griffiths says, `among many simultaneous histories'. His study accordingly follows several different paths, showing how they converge and diverge. In addition to the composers mentioned above, others whose music is discussed include Steve Reich, Jean Barraque, Elliott Carter, Olivier Messiaen, Gyorgy Kurtag, Bill Hopkins, Harrison Birtwhistle and Gyorgy Ligeti. Publication and recording details are given for the works of all these composers and many others. For its breadth and for its wealth of detail, Modern Music and After will appeal to both student and the general reader in search of a lively and comprehensive introduction to the music of our time.
Customer Reviews:
veers towards dryness.......2006-04-07
Good perspective on modern music but the writing can veer towards dryness.For example,there's a huge chunk devoted to Milton Babbitt which seems appropriate enough but you get only the most threadbare sense of why one should actually bother to listen to it!
A fine book but worth supplementing with more colourful commentators.
A great history of the composers' struggle post WW2.......2005-10-01
I am very glad that existance. I thank Mr. Griffiths that he wrote up on this subject.
I don't see what Boulez, Stockhausen, and Cage, who were in the center stage of serious music post WW2, aimed would value of music. I suppose that was great failure of music invension starting with the 12-note serial method.
However there've been many other composers who try to create new sound and their music has attracted people, may be not so many anyway.
Probably the music history should get over the methods and invensions and focus on music itself.
Important historical document but not so useful for simple fans.......2005-09-01
MODERN MUSIC AND AFTER is Paul Griffiths' survey of the art music scene from 1945 to 1995, a time when music had first gone from limitless optimism for "progress" after World War II, to the disappointment of the late 1960s, and finally to the thousand forking paths of the 70s and later. I found the work interesting as a quick read, though certainly not a useful reference work.
The initial hero of Griffiths' work is Pierre Boulez, who in post-war Paris was certain that the twelve-tone method of Schoenberg and (even more so) Webern was the future of music, and by relentlessly publishing and composing Boulez was trying himself to make it turn out that way. After speaking something about the French composer's post-war worldview, the author presents the 1950s development of the Darmstadt school, when Boulez was joined at the forefront by Stockhausen and Nono, with important contributions by Cage and Barraque. At the same time, the "classic modernism" of Babbitt and Carter was flourishing. The 1960s and 1970s is shown as six waves, these being the use of quotation, music theatre, politics, virtuosity and improvisation, computer music, and minimalism. Ligeti, Xenakis, Cardew, Reich, Messiaen get the most attention here. The chapter on the 1980s and 1990s gets the title "Many Rivers" and discusses Schnittke, Rihm, Part, Kurtag, Gubaidulina, Ferneyhough, Feldman, Birtwistle, and Berio among others.
As is probably inevitable in such a work, some important people are left out. Per Norgard, whose infinity series is one of the most innovative concepts of contemporary music, is missing, as is Magnus Lindberg, who established himself as Finland's foremost young composer with "Kraft" in 1986. Lutoslawski is simply inexplicably absent. Sofia Gubaidulina scandously gets only about a page. However, Griffiths was prescient in including Tan Dun, who was little known then but is increasingly popular now. Another failing of the book is that for reasons of space, most composers only get a few paragraphs, and really, if you already own recordings of a given composer's work, the musicological essays in the CD notes are probably more substantial than anything you'll find here.
MODERN MUSIC AND AFTER is worth flipping through for any fan of contemporary music, but I think that it works better as a historical document than as a useful resource for said fans to learn more about the music they love.
Defragmenting the Spheres.......2002-04-15
This certainly is the book to get the low-down on contemporary music. However, here a few points of interest:
Firstly, I think the most glaring omission is Louis Andriessen, who not only co-wrote The Apollonian Clockwork, but has also composed some of the most important and exciting non-Webernian music around. What is especially important about Andriessen is that his own 'minimal' style is fully aware of the Modernist heritage at the same time as it critiques or refutes it, as oppoesed to others who just dismiss it outright and have no real understanding of post-Webernian serialism. Also, Andriessen's continuing political ideals make him an interesting study in current musico-poltical relations (now that most are dead: Nono, Cardew; or just write rubbish: Henze).
In fact, while I am no authority on comtemporary Dutch music, I certainly know no more about it through reading this book. Which brings me to my second point: the Anglo-West Europe-American-centricity.
Not only does he leave out the Netherlands, Finland, Scandinavia, South America, as well as the bizarre history of post-war Polish music, but also Australia and (South East) Asia. Now while I am no doubt partisan, his only mention of Australia is one line about the Elision Ensemble in relation to Richard Barrett, Chris Dench, and Finnissy. I think Australia has some of the best composers anywhere (Liza Lim, for instance), writing from a variety of perspectives and a fuller account of these
place-specific musics would have interesting, for instance examination of Australia's liminal position between Europe and Asia and how that affects attitudes to composition.
While his bit on Part is a witty piece of pomo gaming, he sometimes trips himself up in his pomo considerations (as other reviewers have pointed out): for instance, he says that the postmodern condition entails the loss (both through desire and circumstance) of the dominant-central figures crucial to the Modernist project (eg. Boulez) because there are now 'many streams' instead of a river, but he then later complains that no new 'Generals' have stood up to replace the these old ones in terms of central importance to the musical world. In this way, he doesn't really trace many new paths in his last section, but simply rings up his old mates (Boulez, Birtwistle, Berio, Stockhausen, Ligeti, etc) and asks them what they've been up to recently. But, then again, that is really what the book is for and it does it admirably.
And not only is his championing of Barraque timely, but Bill Hopkins too, whose music I was unaware of until reading his bit.
One hopes there will be a 3rd edition after most of the 'peace-time Generals' are gone and a final summation of the lasting effects of the immediate post-war project can take place. Until then this is the book to read if you want to know about the good-old music with no tunes that we all love.
Also the Strings and Knots is organised in reverse alphabetical (very postmodern!)
excellent on both the music and the social dynamics.......2001-05-25
MODERN MUSIC AND AFTER should really be kept in print, though the market may be small, as it is the best book on the subject. It serves, among other things, as the best record guide to the post-war avant-garde that I've found, although since '95 it has become somewhat outdated.
Griffiths imbues the story of the serialist avant-garde with high drama. The hero of his story is Pierre Boulez. Messiaen is the mentor, and Stockhausen the brother, a source of friendly but intense rivalry. Schoenberg is the father figure who Boulez "kills" even as he carries on his tradition, but of course crediting Webern. The history gives a palpable sense of the excitement of this avant-garde circle, which came together at Darmstadt. Cage and his zen anarchism presents a radical challenge to the integral serialist Project, and begins to explode it.
This takes us through the 1950s. The second part of the book is equally good, as the linear sense of progress unravels in the 1960s and '70s and fragmentation sets in. A fascinating development which Griffiths documents, but does not comment on, is the resurgence of sacred music as the secular avant-garde disintegrates. The Estonian composer Arvo Part is but one example of this trend, what might be called the reassertion of the pre-modern in the context of the post-modern. The third section is not as good, and resembles other similar books in being more an encyclopedia of entries on various composers and trends. There doesn't seem to be much alternative to this for now, but it's interesting to imagine how the present period may be reconstructed in light of future developments...
In his introduction Griffiths laments the loss of a sense of shared criteria for evaluating the diverse music of the moment. But of course books like this contribute to the construction of those criteria! Peter J. Martin's SOUNDS AND SOCIETY (see my review) is an excellent analysis of how music evaluation is socially constructed -- there are no objective, inherent qualities, and so something like writing a book or even posting reviews to a website serves to shape the reception of the art. An interesting topic to pursue would be the divergent paths of Boulez and Stockhausen, with the former becoming an esteemed conductor and not only championing the avant-garde, but also turning back to the once scorned romantic tradition, while Stockhausen followed an increasingly idiosyncratic path and became a revered figure for the 90s electronica movement, a "Father of Electronic Music"!
MODERN MUSIC AND AFTER is indispensable for anyone trying to understand the rich complexities of contemporary composition. I recommend Morgan's TWENTIETH-CENTURY MUSIC (see my review) for the pre-WWII period, and Gann's AMERICAN MUSIC IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (see my review) for greater detail on the postwar U.S.
Book Description
"After Virtue is a striking work. It is clearly written and readable. The nonprofessional will find MacIntyre perspicuous and lively. He stands within the best modern traditions of writing on such matters." --New York Review of Books
"MacIntyre's arguments deserve to be taken seriously by anybody who thinks that the mere acceptance of pluralism is not the same thing as democracy, who worries about politicians wishing to give opinions about everything under the sun, and who stops to think of how important Aristotelian ethics have been for centuries." --The Economist
When After Virtue first appeared in 1981, it was recognized as a significant and potentially controversial critique of contemporary moral philosophy. Newsweek called it "a stunning new study of ethics by one of the foremost moral philosophers in the English-speaking world." Now, twenty-five years later, the University of Notre Dame Press is pleased to release the third edition of After Virtue, which includes a new prologue "After Virtue after a Quarter of a Century."
In this classic work, Alasdair MacIntyre examines the historical and conceptual roots of the idea of virtue, diagnoses the reasons for its absence in personal and public life, and offers a tentative proposal for its recovery. While the individual chapters are wide-ranging, once pieced together they comprise a penetrating and focused argument about the price of modernity. In the Third Edition prologue, MacIntyre revisits the central theses of the book and concludes that although he has learned a great deal and has supplemented and refined his theses and arguments in other works, he has "as yet found no reason for abandoning the major contentions" of this book. He remains "committed to the thesis that it is only from the standpoint of a very different tradition, one whose beliefs and presuppositions were articulated in their classical form by Aristotle, that we can understand both the genesis and the predicament of moral modernity."
Customer Reviews:
Nietzsche or Aristotle? the question is the same 20 years later........2007-07-26
I am rather flabbergasted that the only review on this page thus far is one comparing Alisdair MacIntyre to radical islamists. That is rather disconcerting as the author's roots, as others have already noted, come from the 1960-70's British Labour movement and from a very deep, very thought-out Marxism in the context Marxism demands to be judged on, namely, not only as a socio-economic theory, but as a robust and encompassing worldview. When MacIntyre finally decided to officially leave the Communist party, he noticed that his moral critique of Marxism seemed to lack any force, as the only two seemingly possible moral outlooks were that of a rather brass individualism ( an odd modern mixture of Kantian and Sartrean thought where each person chooses the moral law for himself ) and the tradition he was leaving, i.e. Marxism, which seemed incapable of serious self-critique. (SeeThe Macintyre Reader). The shrillness of his own protest sent him on a philosophical journey which he continues to go on to this day but we are lucky enough to have collection of his thoughts along the way. After Virtue was a tour de force when it hit the shelves roughly 20 years ago. It laid bare the utter incoherence of the use of moral language in societies of "advanced modernity", i.e., modern Europe, the former USSR, and the US. His critique of the various descendents of the Enlightenment, from utilitarians and Nietzscheans, blasted moral philosophy out of its slumber into a field that continues to grow to this day. Even today, most moral philosophers have spent most of their time attacking Macintyre's positive theses rather than critiquing his critique (a definite sign of the respect at his assessment of the use of modern moral language). To summarize it here would definitely deprive the would-be reader of the insightful journey that MacIntyre brings the reader on as he tries to look at the state of modern society. However, I will summarize the major motivations on why this book was written and why someone would read it:
1) Why are there so many types of moral disagreements in modern societies?
2) Why do these disagreements never seem to end but go on indefinitely?
3) Can any moral theory be related to actual facts or is all moral language sui generis?
Not surprisingly, MacIntyre traces most of these problems to those thinkers of the Enlightenment yet it would be a MISTAKE (as the first reviewer makes) in thinking that MacIntyre is somehow laying the blame solely on the Enlightenment for the current situation. Rather, his whole thesis is that they did the best they could in defending in what they thought was the CONTENT of morality (the culture of post-Enlightenment Europe being as it were a mix of
Christian values with an intense admiration of newly re-discovered Greco-Roman pagan texts on a range of subjects) with their own philosophical methods (See Hume's reasoning on why women should remain chaste until marriage). MacIntyre's insight is that they HAD to fail. No philosophical brilliance they could muster could save the CONTENT they wished to save (for example,"always tell your mother the truth") with their prescribed METHODS of doing philosophy (for example a la Kant, "all moral laws have the character of being assented to by all rational persons at all times in all cultures"). The Enlightenment thinkers chose an impossible task and thus failed (and moreover had to fail in such a way that their failure was relatively hidden from the thinkers themselves and their respective cultures at large). It is only with Nietzche do we have a thinker brave enough to raze the CONTENT they wished to save with the METHODS and start totally anew.
Thus, half-way through the book, MacIntyre offers the reader a stark choice: either we must choose that all moral talk (talk of right & wrong) is really an attempt to impose one's will on another person a la Nietzsche or that there is form of moral language that is not undercut by Nietzsche's own rather devastating attack on (post-)Enlightenment moral theories.
Hence begins MacIntyre's foray from critique to laying out a positive philosophical programme that leads to several books (See Whose Justice? Which Rationality? & Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues (Paul Carus Lectures) especially) and a refining of his ideas.
Does Nietzsche win?
That is for the reader to decide. MacIntyre has been steadily producing a body of work that tries to show that Nietzsche does not win (it starts as a whisper in this book and finally gets turned into a shout in later works). However, like all philosophy, his attempt is an argument, and it is up to the reader to decide if it is a good one.
5 stars, hands down. I really hope you decide to buy(or check-out) this important work which deserves to taken seriously for years to come. ( 20 and counting!)
The Enlightenment as perceived by a typical reactionary.......2007-05-03
In this Third Edition, MacIntyre remains "committed to the thesis that it is only from the standpoint of a very different tradition, one whose beliefs and presuppositions were articulated in their classical form by Aristotle, that we can understand both the genesis and the predicament of moral modernity."
This book is a sophistical attack on the alleged fruits of the historical epoc known as the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment: A Brief History with Documents (The Bedford Series in History and Culture) MacIntyre claims that the Enlightenment deprived European Civilization of "a rational basis for moral analysis." He pretends to find such a basis in what he calls "Classical Civilization."
Most people would agree that the qualtities of the Enlightenment provide the essential characteristics of Western Civilization, as that civilization is defined by Samuel P. Huntington The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. MacIntyre's view of the Enlightenment is not so different from the view of the founder of the Muslem Brotherhood, Sayyid Qutb. Qutb hates Western Civilization. But, Qutb has no problem with Aristotle. Basic Principles of Islamic Worldview Remember, Aristotle was reintroduced to Europe by the Moslem scholar Ibn Rushd (Averroes: His Life, Work). His works had been treasured by Moslem scholars for centuries after having been discarded by Europe.
Europe, as can easily be seen by reference to Ceasar's "Gallic Wars" and his description of Vercingetorix and early Europeans, was different from Classical Civilization. The Gallic War (Loeb Classical Library) Europe took a different route.
Classic Civilization fled to Constantinople and was overwhelmed by the Ottomans in the course of becoming modern day Istanbul. The Emperor Romanus Lecapenus and his Reign: A Study of Tenth-Century Byzantium (Cambridge Paperback Library) When Europe rediscovered Classical Civilization, it provided an inspiration for thinking outside the box of the Dark Ages.
The works of the Classic Civilization were stimulating to a people locked within narrow Scholasticism of the Roman Church. The stimulation of a different point of view provoked Europeans to rethink the communitarian spirit of the Dark Ages and define for themselves a new reality based upon individualism and science. In doing so, they transcended both the Dark Ages and Classic Civilization. It was a synthesis that has been enormously productive up to the modern age.
Aristotle was not writing about individual freedom. He was writing about civic virtues. The primary civic virtue was participation in the affairs of state. Aristotle had no concept of individualism. In Aristotle's day, everyone existed to serve the city-state. By the same token, for Qutb (and sadly, MacIntyre), the individual only exists to serve the theocracy.
This book certainly represents a showcase of skills in the arts of rhetoric, philosophy, and ethical analysis. But, it is hardly of any use to modern man in trying to sort through the competing demands and opportunities of individual freedom. If we are willing to give up individualism in exchange for civic virtue as defined by the ancients, not only would we be living in a society much like an Islamic State ruled by Sharia Law, but we would be barring our children from a future in which mankind is able to survive by using the tools of science.
Our challenges are enormous. While "Civic Virtue" sounds like a concept on which no one could disagree, it is only found in its original form in a communitarian (or even totalitarian) environment. Plato's Republic, for example, was a totalitarian society. The Republic (Penguin Classics) If such a society were capable of solving basic problems like polution, then surely the U.S.S.R. might have avoided the wholesale destruction of it's own environment.
Our United States Constitution is the pre-eminent fruit of the Enlightenment. Only the scientific method, powered by the energy of the individual freedoms propounded in our wonderful Constitution can marshal the creativity necessary to work our way out of nature's trap. Otherwise, like a colony of bacteria in a petri dish, the human race will simply consume all its resources and die out.
The communitarians have nothing to offer us, other than the hope of being transported to a heaven located some where above the concentric crystaline spheres surrounding a world as it was thought to exist prior to Galileo. To this very day, Galileo has had no impact on their understanding of mankind's relationship to God. For Qtub and MacIntyre, it is still as if the "firmament" of concentric crystalline spheres holding the "lesser light to rule the night" were really up there, and as if a normal human body carried up into the clouds wouldn't need oxygen tanks to survive the lack of air.
Galileo was the prototype for the modern individual. He was persecuted by the communitarians. He lacked MacIntyre's civic virtue. He thought for himself. He started the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment. NOVA - Galileo's Battle for the Heavens
The communitarians, for thousands of years, had watched the moon go through its phases and never once realized that it was a sphere orbiting the earth, both of which were illuminated by a distant light. Brainwashing from birth, the power of prejudice and the shamanism of the religious leaders was so difficult to surmount that even Galileo had to observe moons orbiting Jupiter before he realized God's truth about our solar system. It was a truth that was not revealed in any of the communitarian "Holy Scriptures."
Until the rise of the individual as exemplified in the Enlightenment, it never occurred to anyone to wonder why writing supposedly authored by God did not include a simple explanation of [...] the relationship between the Moon, Earth and Sun - a truth that could easily have been understood by any keen and unbiased observer by mere observation of the phases of the Moon.
If God were actually the author of these "inerrant" scriptures, He would surely have wanted us to share His pride in the simple grandeur of His solar system. Perhaps there were those who understood God's message in the phases of the Moon, but in every age they were surpressed and persecuted for their individualism. Imagine living in a world where the truth of God must be suppressed for the sake of the prejudices of the community.
The Dark Ages of Europe were terrible. Death by plagues and warlords were the norm. Life was nasty, brutish, and short. Think of the difference the Enlightenment made. Without the ability to think "outside the box" for example, would society have adopted a means to end recurring small pox epidemics? What a terrible world it would be today but for the Enlightenment.
So, MacIntyre has written a superb example of rhetoric, but it is only the highest example of the rhetoric of reaction described by Albert O. Hirschman in his groundbreaking work: "The Rhetoric of Reaction: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy." The Rhetoric of Reaction: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy Anyone who is required to read MacIntyre for school would do himself a favor by reading Hirschman in advance. By doing so, one would avoid being seduced by the siren song of communitarian conformity. By reading Hirschman in advance, one would recognize that, for all his erudition and scholastic ability, MacIntyre is only following well established patterns in reactionary thought.
Just like Sayyid Qutb, [...] Bin Laden, the followers of Wahhabism, or even Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, MacIntyre despises our Western Civilization because of the disorder caused by our freedom to think outside the communitarian box. We can't return to the age of Saladin, the Knights Templar, or the Greek Hoplite Warrior. We wouldn't want to even if we could. For 99% of mankind in those days, life was nasty, brutish, and short.
Most American reactionaries are working day and night to return America to the world of the 1890's. It is astonishing to find one who is obsessed with returning the world to the 14th century. But, it seems to be the fashion among Holy Warriors these days.
Because this book is such an extraordinary example of the art of rhetoric, I give it four stars. For it's ability to contribute anything meaningful to the solutions of the problems of our age, it would be worthy of only one star.
Book Description
Betts, Richard, Conflict After the Cold War, 2nd Edition*\ Assembled by one of the most renowned scholars in the field, this collection aims to help readers sort out the main debates concerning the possibility and place of war in the post-Cold War world. The essay in this collection outline contrasting arguments about the future of the post-Cold War world and puts them in philosophical and historical context. Professor Betts has framed the readings in a topically organized and ideologically balanced survey of the most relevant schools of thought, examining the arguments about what political, economic, social and military factors tend to cause war and whether such causes can be made obsolete.
For those interested in the Cold War.
Books:
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (Signet Classics)
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (Signet Classics)
- America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It
- Belly Laughs: The Naked Truth about Pregnancy and Childbirth
- Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (Bilingual Edition)
- Bigmama's
- Castaway: The Narrative of Alvar Núñez Cageza de Vaca
- Curtain and the Veil: Strategies in Black Drams (American Cultural Heritage Series, No 1)
- Dancing on the Stones : Selected Essays
- Digital Communications
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance
- Charles Faudree's Country French Living
- There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere: The AOL Time Warner Debacle and the Quest for the Digital Fu
- Walden: 150th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of the American Classic
- A Game as Old as Empire: The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption
- Ancestry and Narrative in Nineteenth-Century British Literature: Blood Relations from Edgeworth to H
- America's Last Wild Horses: The Classic Study of the Mustangs--Their Pivotal Role in the History of
- Homemade: Delicious Foods to Make and Give
- Western Rider: Simulation With Narrative
- Trade Shows Worldwide 2000
Ethics & Morality
| Philosophy
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Whose Justice? Which Rationality?
Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity
Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues (Paul Carus Lectures)
Anarchy, State and Utopia
A Theory of Justice: Original Edition
