ABSTRACT

Richard J. Bernstein is a leading exponent of American pragmatism and one of the foremost philosophers of the twentieth century. In this collection he takes a pragmatic approach to specific problems and issues to demonstrate the ongoing importance of this philosophical tradition. Topics under discussion include multiculturalism, political public life, evil and religion. Individual philosophers studied are Kant, Arendt, Rorty, Habermas, Dewey and Trotsky. Each of the sixteen essays, many of which are published here for the first time, offers a way of bridging contemporary philosophical differences. This book will be of interest to scholars of philosophy and those researching social and political theory.

chapter |10 pages

Introduction

part |50 pages

Pragmatism and Its History

chapter |15 pages

The Romance of Philosophy

chapter |12 pages

The Pragmatic Turn1

chapter |10 pages

Richard Rorty

‘So Much the Worse for Your Old Intuitions, Start Working Up Some New Ones'

chapter |11 pages

John Dewey's Encounter with Leon Trotsky

part |64 pages

Democracy and Pluralism

chapter |13 pages

The Spectre Haunting Multiculturalism

chapter |11 pages

Cultural Pluralism

chapter |13 pages

Charles Taylor's Engaged Pluralism

chapter |13 pages

Democratic Hope

chapter |12 pages

The Normative Core of the Public Sphere

part |42 pages

Critique in Dark Times

chapter |13 pages

Herbert Marcuse's Critical Legacy

chapter |18 pages

Hannah Arendt

Thought-Defying Evil

chapter |9 pages

The Justification of Violence?

part |56 pages

Morality, Politics and Religion

chapter |14 pages

Can We Justify Universal Moral Norms?

chapter |10 pages

The Secular–Religious Divide

Kant's Legacy

chapter |13 pages

Paul Ricoeur's Freud