Finding Oneself in the Other
G. A. Cohen
Language: English
Pages: 272
ISBN: 0691148813
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
This is the second of three volumes of posthumously collected writings of G. A. Cohen, who was one of the leading, and most progressive, figures in contemporary political philosophy. This volume brings together some of Cohen's most personal philosophical and nonphilosophical essays, many of them previously unpublished. Rich in first-person narration, insight, and humor, these pieces vividly demonstrate why Thomas Nagel described Cohen as a "wonderful raconteur."
The nonphilosophical highlight of the book is Cohen's remarkable account of his first trip to India, which includes unforgettable vignettes of encounters with strangers and reflections on poverty and begging. Other biographical pieces include his valedictory lecture at Oxford, in which he describes his philosophical development and offers his impressions of other philosophers, and "Isaiah's Marx, and Mine," a tribute to his mentor Isaiah Berlin. Other essays address such topics as the truth in "small-c conservatism," who can and can't condemn terrorists, and the essence of bullshit. A recurring theme is finding completion in relation to the world of other human beings. Engaging, perceptive, and empathetic, these writings reveal a more personal side of one of the most influential philosophers of our time.
Fortune Is a Woman: Gender and Politics in the Thought of Nicollo Machiavelli - With a New Afterword
Adorno and the Political (Thinking the Political)
Blanchot's Communism: Art, Philosophy and the Political
Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology (Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies)
personal life, is a sound choice of sacrifices, and there is damage to both thought and practice when people imagine that sacrifice is avoidable. Isaiah construes Marx as an apostle of the myth “of a final harmony in which all riddles are solved, all contradictions reconciled.”28 He thinks Marx believed that communism would deliver everything that is worthwhile in a perfect synthesis, and that such a belief underlay his supposed willingness to countenance any kind of savagery in the service of
plane and have a meal, we’d afterwards be shepherded to a hotel, and we’d take off the next morning. Fair enough, I thought, having shed my usual disposition to anxiety when traveling. I had something to regret, but nothing to worry about. After all, I had my money, my credit card, my lectures in my black bag, and I could ring India from the hotel and tell somebody I might be late. That is, that I might not make Goa on time, might have to take a later Bombay-Goa flight. Then the meal came. For
assault on the senses. I just can’t take this sort of cultural difference.” The last sentence activated Narinder Singh: “It’s not a cultural matter, it’s a social matter. You can’t say there’s anything wrong with Indian culture. Think of the religions, the ancient books, the painting …” Karen: “Of course it’s cultural, it’s a way of life.” Narinder: “No, no, no, that’s not culture, that’s a social thing.” I reflect, arrogantly, that I could give a lecturette, right now, on concepts of the social
(albeit, often, optimistically) liberal democracies now ask themselves this question: how much restriction on civil liberty does the threat of terrorism justify? I did not consider that question in “Casting,” nor did I consider questions in the neighborhood of that question, questions about the meaning and value of security. Instead, I entered the neighborhood of, without frontally addressing, a different question, one that faces many of those who live in what are uncontroversially nonliberal
limited, taking decisions so important to our future” (What Sort of People, p. 47). But one may also object on a ground more fundamental than the latter and at which I gesture in the sentence to which the present note is attached. To be sure, many, and almost certainly Glover, will regard that “ground” as obscure and confused, but let us acknowledge that impasse, and not obliterate the distinctive conservative view of the given, which is expressed eloquently enough by David Wiggins: 150