Transcendence: On Self-Determination and Cosmopolitanism - Softcover

Aboulafia, Mitchell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0804770204 ISBN 13: 9780804770200

Verlag: STANFORD UNIV PR, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

Notions of self-determination are central to modern politics, yet the relationship between the self-determination of individuals and peoples has not been adequately addressed, nor adequately allied to cosmopolitanism. Transcendence seeks to rectify this by offering an original theory of self and society. It highlights overlooked affinities between existentialism and pragmatism and compares figures central to these traditions. The book's guiding thread is a unique model of the social development of the self that is indebted to the pragmatist George Herbert Mead. Drawing on the work of thinkers from both sides of the Atlantic-Hegel, William James, Dewey, Du Bois, Sartre, Marcuse, Bourdieu, Rorty, Neil Gross, and Jean-Baker Miller-and according supporting roles to Adam Smith, Habermas, Herder, Charles Taylor, and Simone de Beauvoir, Aboulafia combines European and American traditions of self-determination and cosmopolitanism in a new and persuasive way.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Mitchell Aboulafia is Director of Interdivisional Liberal Arts and Professor of Liberal Arts and Philosophy at The Juilliard School. His most recent book is The Cosmopolitan Self: George Herbert Mead and Continental Philosophy (2001).

Mitchell Aboulafia is Director of Interdivisional Liberal Arts and Professor of Liberal Arts and Philosophy at The Juilliard School. He is the author of The Cosmopolitan Self: George Herbert Mead and Continental Philosophy (2001); The Mediating Self: Mead, Sartre, and Self-Determination (1986); and The Self: Winding Circle: A Study of Hegels System (1982).

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Transcendence

On Self-Determination and CosmopolitanismBy Mitchell Aboulafia

Stanford University Press

Copyright © 2010 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8047-7020-0

Contents

Acknowledgments....................................................................................................................................ixIntroduction.......................................................................................................................................11 Don't Fence Me In: Rorty and Sartre..............................................................................................................132 On Freedom and Action: Dewey and Sartre..........................................................................................................273 A (neo) American in Paris: Bourdieu and Mead.....................................................................................................494 Mead on Cosmopolitanism, Sympathy, and War.......................................................................................................715 W. E. B. Du Bois: Double-Consciousness, Jamesian Sympathy, and the Cosmopolitan..................................................................896 Self-Concept in the New Sociology of Ideas: Reflections on Neil Gross's Richard Rorty: The Making of an American Philosopher.....................1057 Eros and Self-Determination......................................................................................................................1248 What If Hegel's Master and Slave Were Women?.....................................................................................................136Notes..............................................................................................................................................157Bibliography.......................................................................................................................................187Index..............................................................................................................................................193

Chapter One

1 Don't Fence Me In Rorty and Sartre

The notion of an unclouded Mirror of Nature is the notion of a mirror which would be indistinguishable from what was mirrored, and thus would not be a mirror at all. The notion of a human being whose mind is such an unclouded mirror, and who knows this, is the image, as Sartre says, of God. Such a being does not confront something alien which makes it necessary for him to choose an attitude toward, or a description of, it. He would have no need and no ability to choose actions or descriptions. -Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature

If we accept Jrgen Habermas's contrast between philosophies of consciousness and those that arose after the linguistic turn, then Sartre's work must be viewed as mired in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As a philosopher committed to the centrality of language, Rorty would appear to have little in common with Sartre, the quintessential philosopher of consciousness. However, if we follow an insight attributed to Hannah Arendt, that what a philosopher fears most reveals something fundamental about the philosopher's thought, then Sartre and Rorty have more in common than one might expect. Both fear that our capacity for transcendence-for going beyond the given, the accepted, the posited, or the familiar (without appealing to a deity)-can be thwarted by misplaced beliefs and convictions. This shared fear would be of little consequence if it remained at this level of generality, but as we will see, both Sartre and Rorty are committed to versions of existential choice that address their shared concern. Through highlighting similarities between these thinkers, this chapter sketches an "existentialist" account of transcendence that, as noted in the Introduction, sets the stage for a more developed account of self-determination in the chapters ahead. This is, of course, not to say that there aren't substantial differences between Sartre and Rorty, and an important one will be addressed near the end of this chapter.

Rorty illuminates his affinities to the early Sartre near the close of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (hereafter cited as PMN). In the book's introduction Rorty notes that he will be using "some ideas drawn from Gadamer and Sartre to develop a contrast between 'systematic' and 'edifying' philosophy, and to show how 'abnormal' philosophy which does not conform to the traditional Cartesian-Kantian matrix is related to 'normal' philosophy" (PMN, 11). For Rorty, Sartre is an "edifying" philosopher, and he defends philosophers of this stripe against those who view philosophy systemically or through the narrow lens of analytic epistemology. In the third part of Mirror of Nature, which is the focus of this chapter, Rorty discusses ideas and themes that he develops in his later writings, especially the notion of philosophy as a conversation. And he addresses these ideas in a manner that binds them to his interpretation of existentialism. Rorty cites Heidegger and Sartre multiple times in the closing pages of Mirror of Nature, and he invokes Sartre's distinction between the pour-soi and the en-soi at key junctures.

Given the wide number of claims associated with the early Sartre, for the purpose of comparing him to Rorty, I will simply assert that Sartre's existentialism entails the following ten claims: (1) existence precedes essence; (2) human beings do not have a fixed essence or nature; (3) the en-soi and the pour-soi are fundamental dimensions of our being-in-the-world; (4) there is no transcendental ego; (5) consciousness is spontaneous and free; (6) the self/consciousness can be objectified and reified; (7) we can deceive ourselves about freedom, so bad faith remains a permanent possibility; (8) philosophical and scientific determinisms mislead us about the human condition; (9) others can and do seek to define and limit us; and (10) the individual has projects, and these projects help "define" the self.

The list could go on, but these points will serve the ends of this chapter, which seeks to sketch similarities between these thinkers, ones that have often been overlooked, from the vantage point of Rorty's claims in Mirror of Nature. From this perspective, it is clear that Rorty would only completely reject number 5. He would accept the others as they stand or with modifications that reframe them in a manner congenial with his linguistic turn. If we bear in mind that each philosopher endorses transcendence in ways related to these points, their (limited) kinship will become apparent.

A caveat is in order. I appeal to Rorty's interpretation of Sartre even though his gloss on Sartre's ideas is bound to make scholars of the latter's work wince. There are few specialists who have not disputed Rorty's "strong" readings of figures in the tradition. He appears to pick and choose what he finds appealing in philosophers and, even while distorting their views, insists that his interpretations are legitimate. It's important to bear in mind that Rorty is well aware of what he is up to. Crispin Sartwell tells the following story about this facet of Rorty's self-understanding.

Richard Rorty was my teacher and dissertation supervisor at the University of Virginia in the 1980s. One semester he taught a course that was...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: STANFORD UNIV PR
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0804770204
• ISBN 13: 9780804770200
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 202
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Mare Nostrum Group B.V.; gpsr@mare-nostrum.co.uk; ; Doelen 72; Breda; 4831 GR; Niederlande