Rethinking the Western understanding of the self / / Ulrich Steinvorth

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910812091303321
• Autore: Steinvorth Ulrich
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Cambridge ; ; New York, : Cambridge University Press, 2009
• ISBN: 1-107-19388-5; 1-139-17525-4; 0-511-65106-6; 0-511-59302-3; 0-511-59209-4; 0-511-59495-X
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (vii, 222 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)
• Disciplina: 126.09
• Soggetti: Self (Philosophy) - Europe
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 01 Feb 2016).
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: The West and the self -- Basics of philosophical psychology. Heideggerian and Cartesian self -- Free will -- Cartesian, Lockean, and Kantian self -- Extraordinariness and the two stages of rationality -- The Cartesian self in history. The cause and content of modernity -- The second-stage rationality in history -- Economic rationality -- The Cartesian self in the twentieth century -- Value spheres. A diagnosis and therapy for modernity -- Value spheres defined and the state -- The serving spheres -- Technology -- Utilitarian or Cartesian approach -- The media and the professions -- Science -- Art and religion -- Sport -- Latin and absolute love -- A self-understanding not only for the West. Is the core idea of modernity realizable at all? -- Harnessing extraordinariness -- Cartesian modernity -- The undivided, universally developed individual -- The end of history?
• Sommario/riassunto: Ulrich Steinvorth offers a fresh analysis and critique of rationality as a defining element in Western thinking. Steinvorth argues that Descartes' understanding of the self offers a more plausible and realistic alternative to the prevailing understanding of the self formed by the Lockean conception and utilitarianism. When freed from Cartesian dualism, such a conceptualization enables us to distinguish between ; self and subject. Moreover, it enables us to understand why individualism - one of the hallmarks of modernity in the West - became a universal ideal to be granted to every member of society; how acceptance of this notion could peak in the seventeenth century; and why it is now in decline, though not irreversibly so. Most importantly, the Cartesian concept of the self presents a way of saving modernity from the dangers that it now encounters.