Enacting a Polemical Ethics

Through the Lens of Frederick Douglass

Gregory Fried

Building its argument to fulfil the critique of Heidegger’s claim that the history of Western thought is a decline into nihilism since Plato, Enacting a Polemical Ethics will address concrete figures and issues in the history of Western ethics and political philosophy in order reconstruct a conception of liberty as ‘eleutheric liberalism’.

Eleutheric liberalism posits human freedom as the foundation of philosophical, ethical, and political life, but it also recognizes the pitfalls and challenges to human freedom and fulfilment as represented by traditional liberalism and seeks to address these. It does so through an appropriation and transformation of Heidegger’s technique of deconstructive readings of figures and texts within the tradition. Gregory Fried employs polemical ethics to address examples of the political crises we face now in classical liberalism, such as the conflict between the historical facts of racism and slavery in the United States and the ideal of freedom and equality proposed in the Declaration of Independence. That ideal is most eloquently defended by Frederick Douglass, who embodied a Platonic approach in polemical ethics. Douglass serves as the emblematic figure for what a reconstructive reading of the tradition can involve.

From Douglass on slavery and his reintegrative interpretation of the American project, this book applies the principles of a polemical ethics to other key texts and challenges that define the crisis of liberal democracy in the current era. These include John Locke and the problem of the body politic; the application of skeptical idealism to the American constitution; Alexis de Tocqueville on American individualism; and Immanuel Kant on the role of regulative ideas in understanding our ethical obligations to historical understanding.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 300 •

978-1-5381-4421-3 • Hardback • March 2024 • $120.00 • (£92.00)

978-1-5381-4422-0 • Paperback • February 2023 • $44.95 • (£35.00) - Currently out of stock. Copies will arrive soon.

978-1-5381-4423-7 • eBook • March 2024 • $38.00 • (£29.00) (coming soon)

Subjects: Philosophy / General, Philosophy / Continental Philosophy

Enacting a Polemical Ethics

Through the Lens of Frederick Douglass

Hardback

Paperback

Summary

Building its argument to fulfil the critique of Heidegger’s claim that the history of Western thought is a decline into nihilism since Plato, Enacting a Polemical Ethics will address concrete figures and issues in the history of Western ethics and political philosophy in order reconstruct a conception of liberty as ‘eleutheric liberalism’.

Eleutheric liberalism posits human freedom as the foundation of philosophical, ethical, and political life, but it also recognizes the pitfalls and challenges to human freedom and fulfilment as represented by traditional liberalism and seeks to address these. It does so through an appropriation and transformation of Heidegger’s technique of deconstructive readings of figures and texts within the tradition. Gregory Fried employs polemical ethics to address examples of the political crises we face now in classical liberalism, such as the conflict between the historical facts of racism and slavery in the United States and the ideal of freedom and equality proposed in the Declaration of Independence. That ideal is most eloquently defended by Frederick Douglass, who embodied a Platonic approach in polemical ethics. Douglass serves as the emblematic figure for what a reconstructive reading of the tradition can involve.

From Douglass on slavery and his reintegrative interpretation of the American project, this book applies the principles of a polemical ethics to other key texts and challenges that define the crisis of liberal democracy in the current era. These include John Locke and the problem of the body politic; the application of skeptical idealism to the American constitution; Alexis de Tocqueville on American individualism; and Immanuel Kant on the role of regulative ideas in understanding our ethical obligations to historical understanding.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 300 •

978-1-5381-4421-3 • Hardback • March 2024 • $120.00 • (£92.00)

978-1-5381-4422-0 • Paperback • February 2023 • $44.95 • (£35.00) - Currently out of stock. Copies will arrive soon.

978-1-5381-4423-7 • eBook • March 2024 • $38.00 • (£29.00) (coming soon)

Subjects: Philosophy / General, Philosophy / Continental Philosophy

Author

Gregory Fried is Professor of Philosophy at Suffolk University. With Richard Polt he has translated Heidegger’s Introduction to Metaphysics and Being and Truth, and edited A Companion to Heidegger’s “Introduction to Metaphysics” and Nature, History, State: 1933-1934.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Chapter One, “Picture-Maker: Frederick Douglass as American Platonist”
Chapter Two, “Body Politic: A Reconstructive Reading of Locke”
Chapter Three, “‘Our Sacred Honor’ and ‘We the People’”: Constitutional Idealism
Chapter Four, “Individualism: Tocqueville on the American Character”
Chapter Five, “Asymptotic Idealism: A Reading of Kant on History”
Bibliography
Index

Enacting a Polemical Ethics

Through the Lens of Frederick Douglass

Gregory Fried

Enacting a Polemical Ethics

Through the Lens of Frederick Douglass

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