From enlightenment to receptivity : rethinking our values

Bibliographic Information

From enlightenment to receptivity : rethinking our values

Michael Slote

Oxford University Press, c2013

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Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This new book by Michael Slote argues that Western philosophy on the whole has overemphasized rational control and autonomy at the expense of the important countervailing value and virtue of receptivity. Recently the ideas of caring and empathy have received a great deal of philosophical and public attention, but both these notions rest on the deeper and broader value of receptivity, and in From Enlightenment to Receptivity, Slote seeks to show that we need to focus more on receptivity if we are to attain a more balanced sense and understanding of what is important to us. Beginning with a critique of Enlightenment thinking that calls into question its denial of any central role to considerations of emotion and empathy, he goes on to show how a greater emphasis on these factors and on the receptivity that underlies them can give us a more realistic, balanced, and sensitive understanding of our core ethical and epistemological values. This means rejecting post-modernism's blanket rejection of reason and of compelling real values and recognizing, rather, that receptivity should play a major role in how we lead our lives as individuals, in how we relate to nature, in how we acquire knowledge about the world, and in how we relate morally and politically with others.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • PART I -- BEYOND ENLIGHTENMENT
  • Foreword to Part I
  • Chapter 1 -- Empathy and Objectivity
  • Chapter 2 -- Epistemology and Emotion
  • Chapter 3 -- Caring and Enlightenment
  • Chapter 4 -- How Important Is Morality?
  • Chapter 5 -- The Impossibility of Perfection
  • Chapter 6 -- A New Picture
  • PART II -- RECEPTIVITY
  • Foreword to Part II
  • Chapter 7 -- Receptivity to Life
  • Chapter 8 -- Green Thinking
  • Chapter 9 -- From Enlightenment to Receptivity
  • Chapter 10 -- The Virtue of Receptivity
  • Conclusion

by "Nielsen BookData"

Details
  • NCID
    BB11548523
  • ISBN
    • 9780199970704
  • LCCN
    2012029228
  • Country Code
    uk
  • Title Language Code
    eng
  • Text Language Code
    eng
  • Place of Publication
    Oxford
  • Pages/Volumes
    xiii, 245 p.
  • Size
    22 cm
  • Classification
  • Subject Headings
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