Experience Versus Understanding - Couverture souple

Bredemeier, Harry C.

 
9781138509948: Experience Versus Understanding

Synopsis

Bringing into play a lifetime of sociological analysis, Harry Bredemeier here explores fundamental issues in epistemology and ethics and how social research has altered traditional views on such major subjects as the play of physical force in social life, the distinction between the physical and moral universe, risk taking and life making, rights and obligations in short the most basic questions posed for our times by the sociological tradition.

Bredemeier takes sharp issue with postmodern indictments of the Enlightenment movement of the early eighteenth century: that the Enlightenment was a cover for Western cultural imperialistic destruction of other cultures; that its glorification of reason undermined morality and paved the way for fascism and irrationality; or that it perpetuated a willful indifference to ecological concerns and to women's rights. The author clarifies all those issues and shows how reason, properly understood, transcends polemics that currently obfuscate appeals to experience.

Experience vs. Understanding covers a wide range of topics. Among them are the need for interpretation of experiences; responsibility for consequences of one's choices; the danger in not thinking beyond immediate perceptions; all human activities are governed by cultural rules; individual virtues such as intelligence or courage are not sufficient to evaluate actions; and the issues of national foreign policy parallel those of each person's policy towards other people's. Experience vs. Understanding is a unique study that will be enjoyed by and beneficial to philosophers, sociologists, and political theorists, who are searching for the philosophical foundations of social science.

Les informations fournies dans la section « Synopsis » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

À propos de l'auteur

Harry Bredemeir

Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Autres éditions populaires du même titre

9780765804464: Experience Versus Understanding

Edition présentée

ISBN 10 :  0765804468 ISBN 13 :  9780765804464
Editeur : Routledge, 1998
Couverture rigide