Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Rowman & Littlefield International
Pages: 180
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Trim: 6½ x 9
978-1-78661-086-7 • Hardback • October 2019 • $147.00 • (£113.00)
978-1-78661-087-4 • eBook • October 2019 • $139.50 • (£108.00)
Naoko Saito is Associate Professor of Education at Kyoto University, Japan. Her publications include The Gleam of Light: Moral Perfectionism and Education in Dewey and Emerson (2005).
Part I: Introduction: The crisis of democracy as a way of life / 1. The crisis of democracy as a way of life revisited / Part II: American philosophy in translation / 2. The new dawning of American philosophy / 3. Pragmatism and the tragic sense of life: Reclaiming the philosophy of affirmation and chance / 4. American philosophy in translation / Part III: Philosophy as translation: Translation from pragmatism to Cavell / 5. Stanley Cavell and philosophy as translation / 6. Skepticism and translation: Living with the anxieties of inclusion / 7. The feminine voice in philosophy / Part IV: Changing politics, challenging inclusion: Political education for human transformation / 8. Changing politics, challenging inclusion / 9. Political education for human transformation / Bibliography / Index
Translation is both a skill and an impossibility. By putting translation at the heart of American philosophy, Saito has found a concept that amazingly leads Dewey's instrumentalism towards Cavell's transcendentalism, what she calls his an-archic perfectionism. Content with no fixed principles, beyond the language of mutual recognition, acknowledging only the blank impossibility of understanding ourselves and others, Saito outlines a Cavellian modulation of what Dewey called "democracy as a way of life." In our divisive time, this extra-vagant work of philosophy is sorely needed.
— Gordon C.F. Bearn, Professor of Philosophy, Lehigh University, USA