A Philosophical Defense of Culture

A Philosophical Defense of Culture
Author: Shuchen Xiang
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2021-06-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 143848321X

Download A Philosophical Defense of Culture Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

In A Philosophical Defense of Culture, Shuchen Xiang draws on the Confucian philosophy of "culture" and Ernst Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms to argue for the importance of "culture" as a philosophic paradigm. A defining ideal of Confucian-Chinese civilization, culture (wen) spans everything from natural patterns and the individual units that make up Chinese writing to literature and other refining vocations of the human being. Wen is thus the soul of Confucian-Chinese philosophy. Similarly, as a philosopher who bridged the classical age of German humanism and postwar modernity, Cassirer implored his and future generations to think of humankind in terms of their culture and to think of the human being as a "symbolic animal." The philosophies of culture of these two traditions, very much compatible, are of urgent relevance to our contemporary epoch. Xiang describes the similarity of their projects by way of their conception of the human being, her relationship to nature, the relationship of human culture to nature, the importance of cultural pluralism, and the role of the arts in human life, as well as the metaphysical frameworks that gave rise to such conceptions. Combining textual exegesis in classical Chinese texts and an exposition of Cassirer's most important insights against the backdrop of post-Kantian philosophy, this book is philosophy written in a cosmopolitan mode, arguing for the contemporary philosophical relevance of "culture" by drawing on and bringing together two different but strikingly similar streams in our world tradition.

In Defense of the Accidental

In Defense of the Accidental
Author: Odo Marquard
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 145
Release: 1991
Genre: Culture
ISBN: 0195072529

Download In Defense of the Accidental Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

The seven essays collected in this book address the history of modern ideas and contemporary cultural issues. The first is the discourse of Marquard's acceptance of the Sigmund Freud prize; the second addresses the equivalence of modernity and the theodice ; the third confronts the idea of "meaning"; the fourth considers the notion of world history; the fifth addresses world alienation; the sixth deals with the human sciences; and the seventh is a mediation on chance and luck as essential aspects of the human condition.

In Defence of High Culture

In Defence of High Culture
Author: John Gingell
Publisher:
Total Pages: 5
Release: 2000
Genre:
ISBN:

Download In Defence of High Culture Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Self Defense

Self Defense
Author: Elsa Dorlin
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2022-09-27
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1839761059

Download Self Defense Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

A brilliant study of violent self-defense in the struggle for liberation by an award-winning philosopher Is violent self-defense ethical? In the history of colonialism, racism, sexism, capitalism, there has long been a dividing line between bodies "worthy of defending" and those who have been disarmed and rendered defenseless. In 1685, for example, France's infamous "Code Noir" forbade slaves from carrying weapons, under penalty of the whip. In nineteenth-century Algeria, the colonial state outlawed the use of arms by Algerians, but granted French settlers the right to bear arms. Today, some lives are seen to be worth so little that Black teenagers can be shot in the back for appearing "threatening" while their killers are understood, by the state, to be justified. That those subject to the most violence have been forcibly made defenseless raises, for any movement of liberation, the question of using violence in the interest of self-defense. Here, philosopher Elsa Dorlin looks across the global history of the left - from slave revolts to the knitting women of the French Revolution and British suffragists' training in ju-jitsu, from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising to the Black Panther Party, from queer neighborhood patrols to Black Lives Matter, to trace the politics, philosophy, and ethics of self defense. In this history she finds a "martial ethics of the self": a practice in which violent self defense is the only means for the oppressed to ensure survival and to build a liveable future. In this sparkling and provocative book, drawing on theorists from Thomas Hobbes to Fred Hampton, Frantz Fanon to Judith Butler, Michel Foucault to June Jordan, Dorlin has reworked the very idea of modern governance and political subjectivity. Translated from the French by Kieran Aarons.

Against Relativism

Against Relativism
Author: James Franklin Harris
Publisher: Open Court Publishing
Total Pages: 252
Release: 1992
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 9780812692020

Download Against Relativism Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Recent decades have witnessed the extraordinary growth of radical relativism, a doctrine which now dominates the entire culture, from popular music to journalism and from religion to school curricula. According to the radical relativist creed, any proposition can be true or false in relation to a chosen framework, the evaluation of fundamental theories or 'paradigms' is beyond argument, there are no universal standards of rationality, and, methodologically, 'Anything goes!'. As James Harris explains in Against Relativism, the new relativism undoes the work of the Enlightenment and inevitably leads to the conclusion that Galileo was wrong to insist that the Earth indeed moves. Succor for relativism has come from many philosophical schools, both Analytic and 'Continental'. Among the sources of the new relativism are the collapse of Logical Positivism and the shift within anthropology from a linear evolutionary model to numerous models for understanding human culture. In this detailed critique, Professor Harris has selected the strongest and most plausible arguments for relativism within contemporary academic philosophy. He turns the techniques of relativism against relativism itself, showing that it is ultimately self-refuting or otherwise ineffectual. He demonstrates that Quine's rejection of the analytic-synthetic distinction appeals to the very analytic truths Quine tries to dispel; that Kuhn's celebrated account of paradigms must be either self-refuting or unintelligible; that Rorty cannot avoid presuppposing the epistemological principles he attacks; and that (although feminist criticisms of science exert a welcome corrective) attempts to develop a distinctively 'feminist science'are misconceived and unhelpful to feminism. In all these discussions, the author explains the arguments he is criticizing, for the benefit of the non-specialist reader, so that this work can serve as a partisan but fair introduction to some of the most important of present-day philosophy.

Culture vs. Copyright

Culture vs. Copyright
Author: Anatoly Volynets
Publisher: Total Knowledge
Total Pages: 117
Release: 2014-02-28
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0988955717

Download Culture vs. Copyright Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

A teacher discusses exclusive rights, culture and their inter-relations with five first graders. Inspired by the students, teacher writes down his own ideas, brings them back to kids and discussions start anew. But this book is not for children. It is work of philosophy for mature readers. It covers a wide range of topics: nature of art, creativity, human psyche, economy of culture, licensing, etc. The book builds an argument against exclusive rights and offers solutions.

Taking Back Philosophy

Taking Back Philosophy
Author: Bryan W. Van Norden
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 165
Release: 2017-12-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0231545452

Download Taking Back Philosophy Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Are American colleges and universities failing their students by refusing to teach the philosophical traditions of China, India, Africa, and other non-Western cultures? This biting and provocative critique of American higher education says yes. Even though we live in an increasingly multicultural world, most philosophy departments stubbornly insist that only Western philosophy is real philosophy and denigrate everything outside the European canon. In Taking Back Philosophy, Bryan W. Van Norden lambastes academic philosophy for its Eurocentrism, insularity, and complicity with nationalism and issues a ringing call to make our educational institutions live up to their cosmopolitan ideals. In a cheeky, agenda-setting, and controversial style, Van Norden, an expert in Chinese philosophy, proposes an inclusive, multicultural approach to philosophical inquiry. He showcases several accessible examples of how Western and Asian thinkers can be brought into productive dialogue, demonstrating that philosophy only becomes deeper as it becomes increasingly diverse and pluralistic. Taking Back Philosophy is at once a manifesto for multicultural education, an accessible introduction to Confucian and Buddhist philosophy, a critique of the ethnocentrism and anti-intellectualism characteristic of much contemporary American politics, a defense of the value of philosophy and a liberal arts education, and a call to return to the search for the good life that defined philosophy for Confucius, Socrates, and the Buddha. Building on a popular New York Times opinion piece that suggested any philosophy department that fails to teach non-Western philosophy should be renamed a “Department of European and American Philosophy,” this book will challenge any student or scholar of philosophy to reconsider what constitutes the love of wisdom.

Culture Counts

Culture Counts
Author: Roger Scruton
Publisher: Encounter Books
Total Pages: 138
Release: 2007-05-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1594032785

Download Culture Counts Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

What is culture? Why should we preserve it, and how? In this book renowned philosopher Roger Scruton defends Western culture against its internal critics and external enemies, and argues that rumours of its death are seriously exaggerated. He shows our culture to be a continuing source of moral knowledge, and rebuts the fashionable sarcasm which sees it as nothing more than the useless legacy of 'dead white European males'. He is robust in defence of traditional architecture and figurative painting, critical of the fashionable relativists and urgent in his plea for our civilization, which more than ever stands in need of the self-knowledge and self-confidence that are the gift of serious culture.

Chinese Cosmopolitanism

Chinese Cosmopolitanism
Author: Shuchen Xiang
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2023-09-26
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0691242712

Download Chinese Cosmopolitanism Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

A provocative defense of a forgotten Chinese approach to identity and difference Historically, the Western encounter with difference has been catastrophic: the extermination and displacement of aboriginal populations, the transatlantic slave trade, and colonialism. China, however, took a different historical path. In Chinese Cosmopolitanism, Shuchen Xiang argues that the Chinese cultural tradition was, from its formative beginnings and throughout its imperial history, a cosmopolitan melting pot that synthesized the different cultures that came into its orbit. Unlike the West, which cast its collisions with different cultures in Manichean terms of the ontologically irreconcilable difference between civilization and barbarism, China was a dynamic identity created out of difference. The reasons for this, Xiang argues, are philosophical: Chinese philosophy has the conceptual resources for providing alternative ways to understand pluralism. Xiang explains that “Chinese” identity is not what the West understands as a racial identity; it is not a group of people related by common descent or heredity but rather a hybrid of coalescing cultures. To use the Western discourse of race to frame the Chinese view of non-Chinese, she argues, is a category error. Xiang shows that China was both internally cosmopolitan, embracing distinct peoples into a common identity, and externally cosmopolitan, having knowledge of faraway lands without an ideological need to subjugate them. Contrasting the Chinese understanding of efficacy—described as “harmony”—with the Western understanding of order, she argues that the Chinese sought to gain influence over others by having them spontaneously accept the virtue of one’s position. These ideas from Chinese philosophy, she contends, offer a new way to understand today’s multipolar world and can make a valuable contribution to contemporary discussions in the critical philosophy of race.

Towards a Philosophical Anthropology of Culture

Towards a Philosophical Anthropology of Culture
Author: Kevin M. Cahill
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2021-01-25
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1000348768

Download Towards a Philosophical Anthropology of Culture Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

This book explores the question of what it means to be a human being through sustained and original analyses of three important philosophical topics: relativism, skepticism, and naturalism in the social sciences. Kevin Cahill’s approach involves an original employment of historical and ethnographic material that is both conceptual and empirical in order to address relevant philosophical issues. Specifically, while Cahill avoids interpretative debates, he develops an approach to philosophical critique based on Cora Diamond’s and James Conant’s work on the early Wittgenstein. This makes possible the use of a concept of culture that avoids the dogmatism that not only typifies traditional metaphysics but also frequently mars arguments from ordinary language or phenomenology. This is especially crucial for the third part of the book, which involves a cultural-historical critique of the ontology of the self in Stanley Cavell’s work on skepticism. In pursuing this strategy, the book also mounts a novel and timely defense of the interpretivist tradition in the philosophy of the social sciences. Towards a Philosophical Anthropology of Culture will be of interest to researchers working on the philosophy of the social sciences, Wittgenstein, and philosophical anthropology.