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Realizations of the Future: An Inquiry into the Authority of Praxis
Book by Allan, George
318 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
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September 15, 2018
This is a very detailed and thoughtful philosophy book. It makes reference to 'all the big names', cutting a consistent path through many seemingly unrelated thinkers and fields. From Aristotle to Lyotard, this is a study of how the practical realization of the world is treated by ethics, aesthetics, politics, history, metaphysics and so on.
By doing this (as an 'inquiry into .. praxis'), Allan shows striking equivalences and similarities between various schools of thought. This is by its own admission an adventure and an experiment - an attempt to take the next step in a conversation that has been going on for milennia. By the end, there is no single recommendation, no conclusive argument with a cherry on top. This is dissatisfying, as it leaves the reader with a lot of rubble to pick through. At the same time, this is honest scholarship - after discussing (without refuting or fully supporting) postmodern critiques of language games and totalitarian intellectual movements, it would be difficult to sum up the work with a pragmatic ethical statement, or something of the like.
If anything, the final section dealing with the 20th century philosophical movements probably "pulls its punches" a bit too much, in trying to survey but not strongly (dis)agree with the ideas.
I probably got this all wrong because I haven't read half of the referenced authors. At least the appendix will help me pick and choose from them..
Also, the cover art has some really silly looking 1990-era computer graphics.
By doing this (as an 'inquiry into .. praxis'), Allan shows striking equivalences and similarities between various schools of thought. This is by its own admission an adventure and an experiment - an attempt to take the next step in a conversation that has been going on for milennia. By the end, there is no single recommendation, no conclusive argument with a cherry on top. This is dissatisfying, as it leaves the reader with a lot of rubble to pick through. At the same time, this is honest scholarship - after discussing (without refuting or fully supporting) postmodern critiques of language games and totalitarian intellectual movements, it would be difficult to sum up the work with a pragmatic ethical statement, or something of the like.
If anything, the final section dealing with the 20th century philosophical movements probably "pulls its punches" a bit too much, in trying to survey but not strongly (dis)agree with the ideas.
I probably got this all wrong because I haven't read half of the referenced authors. At least the appendix will help me pick and choose from them..
Also, the cover art has some really silly looking 1990-era computer graphics.
Displaying 1 of 1 review