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History and Illusion in Politics
The distinguished political philosopher Raymond Geuss examines critically the central topics in Western political thought. In a series of analytic chapters he discusses the state, authority, violence and coercion, the concept of legitmacy, liberalism, toleration, freedom, democracy, and human rights. He argues that the liberal democratic state committed to the defense of human rights is in fact a confused conjunction of disparate elements. This is a profound and concise essay on the basic structure of contemporary politics, written throughout in voice that is skeptical, engaged, and clear.
Philosophy and Real Politics
A trenchant critique of established ideas in political philosophy and a provocative call for change Many contemporary political thinkers are gripped by the belief that their task is to develop an ideal theory of rights or justice for guiding and judging political actions. But in Philosophy and Real Politics, Raymond Geuss argues that philosophers should first try to understand why real political actors behave as they actually do. Far from being applied ethics, politics is a skill that allows people to survive and pursue their goals. To understand politics is to understand the powers, motives, and concepts that people have and that shape how they deal with the problems they face in their particular historical situations. Philosophy and Real Politics both outlines a historically oriented, realistic political philosophy and criticizes liberal political philosophies based on abstract conceptions of rights and justice.
A Philosopher Looks at Work
A survey on the nature of work, integrating conceptual analysis, historical reflection, autobiography and social commentary.
Changing the Subject
“A history of philosophy in twelve thinkers...The whole performance combines polyglot philological rigor with supple intellectual sympathy, and it is all presented...in a spirit of fun...This bracing and approachable book [shows] that there is life in philosophy yet.” —Times Literary Supplement “Exceptionally engaging...Geuss has a remarkable knack for putting even familiar thinkers in a new light.” —Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews “Geuss is something like the consummate teacher, his analyses navigable and crystal, his guidance on point.” —Doug Phillips, Key Reporter Raymond Geuss explores the ideas of twelve philosophers who broke dramatically with prevailing wisdom, from...
Who Needs a World View?
One of the world’s most provocative philosophers attacks the obsession with comprehensive intellectual systems—the perceived need for a world view. We live in a unitary cosmos created and cared for in all its details by a benevolent god. That, for centuries, was the starting point for much philosophical and religious thinking in the West. The task was to accommodate ourselves to that view and restrict ourselves to working out how the pieces fit together within a rigidly determined framework. In this collection of essays, one of our most creative contemporary philosophers explores the problems and pathologies of the habit of overly systematic thinking that we have inherited from this past...
Not Thinking Like a Liberal
In a compelling meditation on the ideas that shape our lives, one of the world's most provocative and creative philosophers explains how his eccentric early years influenced his lifelong critique of liberalism. Liberalism is so amorphous and pervasive that for most people in the West it is background noise, the natural state of affairs. But there are nooks and crannies in every society where the prevailing winds don't blow. Raymond Geuss grew up some distance from the cultural mainstream and recounts here the unusual perspective he absorbed: one in which liberal capitalism was synonymous with moral emptiness and political complacency. Not Thinking like a Liberal is a concise tour of diverse ...
Reality and Its Dreams
One of political philosophy’s most trenchant and inventive critics challenges the field’s normative turn, arguing that the study of politics should focus on real politics, where normative judgments arise from concrete configurations of power. Raymond Geuss shows how this can be done without succumbing to a toxic relativism or abandoning utopianism.
Seeing Double
The world is never going to make complete sense to us, yet we find that conclusion almost impossible to accept. Can we live, and feel at home, in a world composed at best of incompatible fragments of meaning? This is the theme that runs through this collection of essays by Raymond Geuss. Drawing on a characteristically wide range of insights from moral and political philosophy, history, and aesthetics, he addresses topics such as knowledge (of self, the world, and others), language, the visual and the auditory, authority, hope, and the success and failure of life projects. He argues that, to get by in our bewildering world, we must embrace the virtue of ‘double vision’: that is, immersing ourselves in and learning the ways of the culture surrounding us, even as we feel alienated from it. Together the essays explore some of the consequences of abandoning the idea of a unitary view of the world, while at the same time trying to avoid quietism. Seeing Double is a compelling collection of work by one of the world’s most versatile and creative philosophers.
Public Goods, Private Goods
Much political thinking today, particularly that influenced by liberalism, assumes a clear distinction between the public and the private, and holds that the correct understanding of this should weigh heavily in our attitude to human goods. It is, for instance, widely held that the state may address human action in the ''public'' realm but not in the ''private.'' In Public Goods, Private Goods Raymond Geuss exposes the profound flaws of such thinking and calls for a more nuanced approach. Drawing on a series of colorful examples from the ancient world, he illustrates some of the many ways in which actions can in fact be understood as public or private. The first chapter discusses Diogenes th...
Morality, Culture, and History
Raymond Geuss has been a distinctive contributor to the analysis and evaluation of German philosophy and to recent debates in ethics. In this new collection he treats a variety of topics in ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophy of history with special reference to the work of Hegel, Nietzsche, and Adorno. Two of the essays in the volume deal with central aspects of the philosophy of Nietzsche. The collection also contains an essay on the history of conceptions of 'culture' and one on the ethics of Ernst Tugendhat. The remaining three essays focus on questions in aesthetics. The volume will be of interest to students of modern philosophy, German intellectual and cultural history, and literary theory.
