by Rolando Gaete (1993)
The rationalization of power has been an enduring feature of Modernity, assigning to human rights the task of subjecting the excesses of power to the scrutiny of critical reason. Gaete examines this task in the wake of the crisis of modernity, when the belief that man can draw principles out of his own ground has lost its authority and when the very possibility of an enlightened, disinterested Reason is being questioned. The aim of the book is not to offer another critique of rights but to investigate how both rights and critiques are transformed by the rhetoric of power. The author traces the discourse of judicial criticism as a series of rhetorical operations, bringing to light the paradoxes, antinomies and 'truth games' that permeate the field of human rights. He interrogates the discourse of modern humanism and investigates how its claims to being the law of the law and the metaphysics of the modern State shape the bond between State and citizen. Gaete carries his argument across the fields of post-Nietzschean philosophy, anglo-american jurisprudence, political science, cultural and legal studies opening new ground for analyses of the rhetoric of rights.
Don Nori
Romancing the Divine is a tale of every person's journey to find the reality of God. It is a tale of hope, a search for eternal love and for all the possibilities we have always imagined would be the conclusion of such a search.
Shelton A. Gunaratne
"The Dao of the Press attempts to de-Westernize communication theory. It interprets press theory from the perspective of Eastern philosophy - particularly Buddhism, Hinduism, Daoism, and Confucianism - and the emerging theory of living systems, which combines the Santiago School's interpretation of cognition and autopoiesis, and the Brussels School's interpretation of dissipative structures. It also draws from quantum physics, post-Parsonsian systems thinking, and world-systems analysis to derive a more humanocentric theoretical framework that reflects the integration of Eastern ontology with Western epistemology."--Jacket.
H. Tristam Engelhardt, Jr. and Daniel Callahan
This book represents an initial attempt to do that which we at least can no longer avoid: to ask about the origin and validity of our moral assumptions, to see the way in which ethics and science have mutually influenced each other, to move away from practical problems of decision making to some of the larger theoretical issues which ultimately come to shape the way decisions are made. That moral philosophy has been in disarray for some decades is a proposition with which few will argue. Nor will many contend that there is any greater clarity at present on the moral assumptions and goals of sicence and medicine. Perhaps it is too much to hope that progress can be made -- perhaps we are, as a society and a culture, going to be forced to live with, and to live out, the present confusion. But both moral philosophy and the sciences do share a common premise, so far unchallenged: that it is always worth the effort to understand more, to attempt to think more deeply, to remain congenitally uneasy in the face of confusion, uncertainty, and unanswered questions. - Preface.
Harry M. Clor
The issue of public morality, so often at the center of heated debates about pornography, narcotics, public indecency, violent entertainments, "family values," et cetera, is at once a continuing reality and a persistent dilemma in our liberal society. With Public Morality and Liberal Society, Harry M. Clor makes an important contribution to this perennial and intensely debated theme by considering how public morality can be justified in theory and accommodated in practice within a liberal society. Clor's argument departs from the usual discussions of public morality - which spring from the premises of liberal philosophy and are oriented to an overriding concern with personal liberty or rights - and considers instead the moral interests and claims of the community as a whole. He maintains that a reasonable case can still be made for a publicly supported ethnic of self-restraint, and that this enterprise involves the definition of public morality, the articulation of its philosophic justification, and a consideration of its problems and prospects in the face of the community-weakening tendencies of liberal modernity. By systematically analyzing society's need for public morality and by confronting the major libertarian and egalitarian objections to it, Clor clearly shows that what is at stake in the debates about public decency and liberal society is nothing less than our communal self-understanding, our sense of what a liberal community is about, and our understanding of human well-being.