Reviews for Schleiermacher: Lectures on Philosophical Ethics

The average rating for Schleiermacher: Lectures on Philosophical Ethics based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-01-19 00:00:00 Harold Benigno This is a fascinating book. Vogel works through the Frankfurt School (Lukacs, Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, Habermas) and evaluates the aporias of their philosophies as they apply to nature and society - more particularly, the social construction of nature. The thesis is that nature is socially constructed: "It sees the relation of human subjects to the nature they inhabit as an active and world-changing one and want therefore to take seriously the idea of nature as a "social category" or more precisely as something socially constructed." The goal is one in which "humans could take responsibility for the world they inhabit instead of believing that world to be determined by external forces they are unable to control". Finally, "The call for self-conscious acknowledgment by humans of their responsibility for the world is a call first of all for a new set of practices, but secondly also for a new form of social organization where such democratic decision-making would be both possible and encouraged, where (that is) something like an ongoing Habermasian discourse would find a means of being institutionalized." It is a brilliant exegesis of Critical Theory and human responsibility to socially create a nature that has a place for future humans.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-12-10 00:00:00 David Brau The jewel of this book for me is an amazing essay starting on p. 289 that engages the work of Feyerabend.