Cover: Critique of Forms of Life, from Harvard University PressCover: Critique of Forms of Life in HARDCOVER

Critique of Forms of Life

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HARDCOVER

$49.00 • £42.95 • €44.95

ISBN 9780674737754

Publication Date: 12/28/2018

x Text

416 pages

6-1/8 x 9-1/4 inches

1 table

Belknap Press

World

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  • Preface
  • Note on the Translation
  • Introduction: Against “Ethical Abstinence”
  • I. An Ensemble of Practices: Forms of Life as Social Formations
    • 1. What Is a Form of Life?
      • 1.1. Form of Life: Concept and Phenomenon
      • 1.2. Duration, Depth, Scope
      • 1.3. A Modular Concept of Forms of Life
    • 2. Forms of Life as Inert Ensembles of Practices
      • 2.1. What Are (Social) Practices?
      • 2.2. The Interconnected Character of Practices
      • 2.3. The Moment of Inertia
      • 2.4. Practice, Criticism, Reflection
  • II. Solutions to Problems: Forms of Life as Normatively Constituted Formations
    • 3. The Normativity of Forms of Life
      • 3.1. Norms and Normativity
      • 3.2. Modes of Normativity
      • 3.3. Three Types of Norm Justification
      • 3.4. Lack of Correspondence with Its Concept
    • 4. Forms of Life as Problem-Solving Entities
      • 4.1. What Are Problems?
      • 4.2. Given or Made? The Problem with Problems
      • 4.3. Attempts at Problem-Solving: Hegel’s Theory of the Family
      • 4.4. Crises of Problem-Solving
      • 4.5. Second Order Problems
  • III. Forms of Criticism
    • 5. What Is Internal Criticism?
      • 5.1. External and Internal Criticism
      • 5.2. The Strategy of Internal Criticism
      • 5.3. Advantages and Limits of Internal Criticism
    • 6. “To Find the New World through Criticism of the Old One”: Immanent Criticism
      • 6.1. Criticism of a New Type
      • 6.2. The Strategy of Immanent Criticism
      • 6.3. Potentials and Difficulties
  • IV. The Dynamics of Crisis and the Rationality of Social Change
    • 7. Successful and Failed Learning Processes
      • 7.1. Change, Development, Learning, Progress
      • 7.2. Are Forms of Life Capable of Learning?
      • 7.3. Deficient Learning Processes
      • 7.4. Why Does History Matter?
    • 8. Crisis-Induced Transformations: Dewey, MacIntyre, Hegel
      • 8.1. Social Change as Experimental Problem-Solving
      • 8.2. The Dynamics of Traditions
      • 8.3. History as a Dialectical Learning Process
    • 9. Problem or Contradiction?
      • 9.1. Problems as Indeterminateness
      • 9.2. Crisis as a Break in Continuity
      • 9.3. Crisis as Dialectical Contradiction
      • 9.4. The Problem with Contradiction
    • 10. The Dynamics of Learning Processes
      • 10.1. Problem-Solving as an Experimental Learning Process
      • 10.2. The Dynamics of Traditions
      • 10.3. The Source of Progress and of Degeneration
      • 10.4. A Dialectical-Pragmatist Understanding of Learning Processes
  • Conclusion: A Critical Theory of Criticism of Forms of Life
  • Notes
  • Index

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