Geuss Politics and the Imagination

Course Book
ISBN: 978-1-4008-3213-2
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 216 Seiten

In politics, utopians do not have a monopoly on imagination. Even the most conservative defenses of the status quo, Raymond Geuss argues, require imaginative acts of some kind. In this collection of recent essays, including his most overtly political writing yet, Geuss explores the role of imagination in politics, particularly how imaginative constructs interact with political reality. He uses decisions about the war in Iraq to explore the peculiar ways in which politicians can be deluded and citizens can misunderstand their leaders. He also examines critically what he sees as one of the most serious delusions of western political thinking--the idea that a human society is always best conceived as a closed system obeying fixed rules. And, in essays on Don Quixote, museums, Celan's poetry, Heidegger's brother Fritz, Richard Rorty, and bourgeois philosophy, Geuss reflects on how cultural artifacts can lead us to embrace or reject conventional assumptions about the world. While paying particular attention to the relative political roles played by rule-following, utilitarian calculations of interest, and aspirations to lead a collective life of a certain kind, Geuss discusses a wide range of related issues, including the distance critics need from their political systems, the extent to which history can enlighten politics, and the possibility of utopian thinking in a world in which action retains its urgency.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Geuss, Raymond

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sozialphilosophie, Politische Philosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface vii

Acknowledgments xv

CHAPTER I: Political Judgment in Its Historical Context 1

CHAPTER II: The Politics of Managing Decline 17

CHAPTER III: Moralism and Realpolitik 31

CHAPTER IV: On the Very Idea of a Metaphysics of Right 43

CHAPTER V: The Actual and Another Modernity Order and Imagination in Don Quixote 61

CHAPTER VI: Culture as Ideal and as Boundary 81

CHAPTER VII: On Museums 96

CHAPTER VIII: Celan's Meridian 117

CHAPTER IX: Heidegger and His Brother 142

CHAPTER X Richard Rorty at Princeton Personal Recollections 151

CHAPTER XI: Melody as Death 164

CHAPTER XII: On Bourgeois Philosophy and the Concept of "Criticism" 167

Bibliography 187

Index 193

Über Autor(innen)

Raymond Geuss teaches philosophy at the University of Cambridge. His most recent books include Philosophy and Real Politics, Outside Ethics, and Public Goods, Private Goods (all Princeton).