Lexington Books
Pages: 308
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9½
978-1-4985-3010-1 • Hardback • December 2016 • $123.00 • (£95.00)
978-1-4985-3012-5 • Paperback • April 2019 • $53.99 • (£42.00)
978-1-4985-3011-8 • eBook • December 2016 • $51.00 • (£39.00)
Megan Craig is associate professor of philosophy and art at Stony Brook University.
Marcia Morgan is associate professor of philosophy at Muhlenberg College.
Foreword by George Yancy
Editors’ Introduction
Prologue by Edward S. Casey: “Richard Bernstein and the Legacy of Pluralism”
Section I: Judgment and Critique
Chapter 1: Michael Weinman
“Phronēsis in a Post-Metaphysical Age: Aristotle and Practical Philosophy Today”
Chapter 2: Karen Ng
“Human Plurality and Precarious Life: Problems in Arendt’s Theory of Judgment”
Chapter 3: Christopher P. Long
“Pragmatism and the Cultivation of Digital Democracies”
Chapter 4: Brendan Hogan and Lawrence Marcelle
“Any Democracy Worth Its Name: Bernstein’s Democratic Ēthos and a Role for Representation”
Chapter 5: Marcia Morgan
“Critique, Dissidence, and Aesthetic Emancipation at the Margins”
Chapter 6: Megan Craig
“Incommensurability and Solidarity: Building Coalitions with Bernstein and Butler”
Section II: Hermeneutics and History
Chapter 7: Rocío Zambrana
“Bernstein’s Hegel”
Chapter 8: Espen Hammer
“Reading Husserl without Cartesian Anxiety”
Chapter 9: Lauren Barthold
“Acts of Betrayal: Gadamer and Hermeneutics”
Chapter 10: Katie Terezakis
“The Philosophy of Action in John William Miller and Richard J. Bernstein”
Chapter 11: Megan Craig
“Interpreting Violence with Richard J. Bernstein”
Epilogue: Richard J. Bernstein
“Engaged Fallibilistic Pluralism”
There is perhaps no greater legacy for a teacher like Richard Bernstein than to see his students take upon themselves the responsibility for moving forward conversations which he initiated. Bernstein’s students extend, build upon and sometimes challenge his arguments. His epilogue alone is worth the price, but the real lesson comes as he responds to each argument with precision, insight, and humility.
— Warren G. Frisina, Hofstra University
Honoring Dick Bernstein (b. 1932), long-time professor of philosophy at New School for Social Research, this collection is an excellent reminder to those who have benefited over many years from Bernstein’s scholarship and publications, e.g., Beyond Objectivism and Relativism (CH, May'84), Praxis and Action (CH, Jul'72), and critical appraisals of such figures as C. S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, Hannah Arendt, Hans Gadamer, and Jürgen Habermas. In its own way each of the 11 essays explores what Bernstein called "engaged fallibilistic pragmatism." The essays are presented under two headings: "Judgment and Critique" and "Hermeneutics and History." The breadth of Bernstein’s philosophical grasp is well demonstrated. But more significantly described is his character as a teacher promoting courage to hold firm to particular commitments and encounter the truth through new questions and texts. As Lauren Barthold puts it in her essay (“Acts of Betrayal: Gadamer and Hermeneutics”), “To perpetuate a tradition and keep it alive requires one to be open to applying it anew and living it out in different ways.” This volume properly celebrates Bernstein and his expansion of American philosophy. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.
— Choice Reviews
Of those philosophers whose tap-root was the revival of Classical American philosophy, now sixty years of age, the most philosophically cosmopolitan, by far, was the work of Richard Bernstein. This book of trenchant essays in his honor, illustrates once again Bernstein's rich grasp of the history of philosophy, its contemporary European versions, and the utter necessity of having a rich, thick, enlightening, and necessary philosophical pluralism. With the philosophy of John Dewey as a "permanent deposit," Richard Bernstein has led the way for many decades in how to think, act, and create on behalf of a philosophical pluralism, one that straddles and softens conflict, opens paths of agreement, and bequeaths a philosophical tapestry of intellectual healing rather than ideological rancor. Gratitude here for the scholars who have sharpened and elucidated Bernstein's stellar contributions to philosophical wisdom over the past fifty years.
— John J. McDermott, Texas A&M University