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Author: John Arthur Passmore Publisher: ISBN: Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 560
Book Description
Beginning with an analytic discussion of the various ways in which perfectibility has been interpreted, Professor Passmore traces its long history from the Greeks to the present day, by way of Christianity, orthodox and heterodox, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, anarchism, utopias, communism, psychoanalysis, and evolutionary theories of man and society. Both in its broad sweep and in countless supporting reflections, it is a journey through spiritual scenery of the most majestic and exhilarating kind. Thoroughly and elegantly, Passmore explores the history of the idea of perfectibility -- manifest in the ideology of perfectibilism -- and its consequences, which have invariably been catastrophic for individual liberty and responsibility in private, social, economic, and political life.
Author: John Arthur Passmore Publisher: ISBN: Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 560
Book Description
Beginning with an analytic discussion of the various ways in which perfectibility has been interpreted, Professor Passmore traces its long history from the Greeks to the present day, by way of Christianity, orthodox and heterodox, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, anarchism, utopias, communism, psychoanalysis, and evolutionary theories of man and society. Both in its broad sweep and in countless supporting reflections, it is a journey through spiritual scenery of the most majestic and exhilarating kind. Thoroughly and elegantly, Passmore explores the history of the idea of perfectibility -- manifest in the ideology of perfectibilism -- and its consequences, which have invariably been catastrophic for individual liberty and responsibility in private, social, economic, and political life.
Author: D. H. Lawrence Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 9780140183771 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 200
Book Description
“Nobody ever read [the great old books] like Lawrence did—as madly, as wildly or as insightfully. . . . You will be jolted awake.” —A. O. Scott, The New York Times A Penguin Classic Lawrence asserted that 'the proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it'. In these highly individual, penetrating essays he has exposed 'the American whole soul' within some of that continent's major works of literature. In seeking to establish the status of writings by such authors as Poe, Melville, Fenimore Cooper and Whitman, Lawrence himself has created a classic work. Studies in Classic American Literature is valuable not only for the light it sheds on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American consciousness, telling 'the truth of the day', but also as a prime example of Lawrence's learning, passion and integrity of judgement. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Author: Yinghong Cheng Publisher: University of Hawaii Press ISBN: 0824830741 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 282
Book Description
The idea of eliminating undesirable traits from human temperament to create a "new man" has been part of moral and political thinking worldwide for millennia. During the Enlightenment, European philosophers sought to construct an ideological framework for reshaping human nature. But it was only among the communist regimes of the twentieth century that such ideas were actually put into practice on a nationwide scale. In this book Yinghong Cheng examines three culturally diverse sociopolitical experiments—the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin, China under Mao, and Cuba under Castro—in an attempt to better understand the origins and development of the "new man." The book’s fundamental concerns are how these communist revolutions strove to create a new, morally and psychologically superior, human being and how this task paralleled efforts to create a superior society. To these ends, it addresses a number of questions: What are the intellectual roots of the new man concept? How was this idealistic and utopian goal linked to specific political and economic programs? How do the policies of these particular regimes, based as they are on universal communist ideology, reflect national and cultural traditions? Cheng begins by exploring the origins of the idea of human perfectibility during the Enlightenment. His discussion moves to other European intellectual movements, and then to the creation of the Soviet Man, the first communist new man in world history. Subsequent chapters examine China’s experiment with human nature, starting with the nationalistic debate about a new national character at the turn of the twentieth century; and Cuban perceptions of the new man and his role in propelling the revolution from a nationalist, to a socialist, and finally a communist movement. The last chapter considers the global influence of the Soviet, Chinese, and Cuban experiments. Creating the "New Man" contributes greatly to our understanding of how three very different countries and their leaders carried out problematic and controversial visions and programs. It will be of special interest to students and scholars of world history and intellectual, social, and revolutionary history, and also development studies and philosophy.
Author: Pierre Macherey Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 9780521476782 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 258
Book Description
This 1995 book by Pierre Macherey was his first dealing with literature and theory since his seminal A Theory of Literary Production. Continuing the project of Althusserian theory, Macherey engages in a series of close exegeses of classical texts in French literature and philosophy, from the late eighteenth century down to the 1970s, that explore the historically variable but thematically similar ways in which literary texts represent philosophical ideas. Rejecting the simple notion that literature deploys philosophical topoi in an unmediated manner, Macherey shows the conceptual sophistication - and broad intellectual influence - that literary art has displayed in the modern period. At once a theoretical meditation of great originality and a historical work of scrupulous scholarship, The Object of Literature will entrench Pierre Macherey's already considerable reputation as one of the most significant contemporary theoreticians of literature.
Author: Clarence J. Glacken Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 9780520023673 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 798
Book Description
In the history of Western thought, men have persistently asked three questions concerning the habitable earth and their relationships toit. From the time of the Greeks to our own, answers to these questions have been and are being given so frequently and so continually that we may restate them in the form of general ideas.
Author: Saliha Belmessous Publisher: OUP Oxford ISBN: 0191651028 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 248
Book Description
Assimilation was an ideology central to European expansion and colonisation, an ideology which legitimised colonisation for centuries. Assimilation and Empire shows that the aspiration for assimilation was not only driven by materialistic reasons, but was also motivated by ideas. The engine of assimilation was found in the combination of two powerful ideas: the European philosophical conception of human perfectibility and the idea of the modern state. Europeans wanted to create, in their empires, political and cultural forms they valued and wanted to realise in their own societies, but which did not yet exist. Saliha Belmessous examines three imperial experiments - seventeenth- and eighteenth-century New France, nineteenth-century British Australia, and nineteenth and twentieth-century French Algeria - and reveals the complex inter-relationship between policies of assimilation, which were driven by a desire for perfection and universality, and the greatest challenge to those policies, discourses of race, which were based upon perceptions of difference. Neither colonised nor European peoples themselves were able to conform to the ideals given as the object of assimilation. Yet, the deep links between assimilation and empire remained because at no point since the sixteenth century has the utopian project of perfection - articulated through the progressive theory of history - been placed seriously in question. The failure of assimilation pursued through empire, for both colonised and coloniser, reveals the futility of the historical pursuit of perfection.
Author: Brian W. Fairbanks Publisher: Lulu.com ISBN: 1411624327 Category : Literary Collections Languages : en Pages : 702
Book Description
In the words of one reader, Brian W. Fairbanks has a real talent for extracting the essence of a given subject and articulating it in a meaningful way. In WRITINGS, the author collects some of his finest essays and criticism spanning the years 1991-2005 and covering four subjects: FILM LITERATURE MUSIC SOCIETY Whether offering an insightful analysis of film noir, examining Benjamin Franklin's impact on American society, taking a clear-eyed, non-partisan look at democrats, republicans, the 2004 presidential campaign, George W. Bush, and the war on terror, or lambasting the corruption of television news, Brian W. Fairbanks is ingenious with a sophisticated yet effortlessly readable style. Also available in two hardcover editions.
Author: Thomas Robert Malthus Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: 0393623513 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 242
Book Description
The world’s population is now 7.4 billion people, placing ever greater demands on our natural resources. As we stand witness to a possible reversal of modernity’s positive trends, Malthus’s pessimism is worth full reconsideration. This Norton Critical Edition includes: · An introduction and explanatory annotations by Joyce E. Chaplin. · Malthus’s Essay in its first published version (1798) along with selections from the expanded version (1803), which he considered definitive, as well as his Appendix (1806). · An unusually rich selection of supporting materials thematically arranged to promote classroom discussion. Topics include “Influences on Malthus,” “Economics, Population, and Ethics after Malthus,” “Malthus and Global Challenges,” and “Malthusianism in Fiction.” · A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography.
Author: John Arthur Passmore
Author: John Arthur Passmore
Author: John Arthur Passmore
Author: D. H. Lawrence
Author: Yinghong Cheng
Author: Pierre Macherey
Author: Clarence J. Glacken
Author: Saliha Belmessous
Author: Brian W. Fairbanks
Author: James Kirke Paulding
Author: Thomas Robert Malthus