04722nam 2200853Ia 450 991096423920332120200520144314.0978661208752397812820875211282087525978140082490814008249079781400814756140081475810.1515/9781400824908(CKB)111056486499280(EBL)445557(OCoLC)609842112(SSID)ssj0000177066(PQKBManifestationID)11165327(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000177066(PQKBWorkID)10210254(PQKB)10264206(OCoLC)52137253(MdBmJHUP)muse36118(DE-B1597)446276(OCoLC)979631549(DE-B1597)9781400824908(Au-PeEL)EBL445557(CaPaEBR)ebr10284255(CaONFJC)MIL208752(MiAaPQ)EBC445557(PPN)265134501(MiAaPQ)EBC31773269(Au-PeEL)EBL31773269(Perlego)734150(FR-PaCSA)88935151(FRCYB88935151)88935151(EXLCZ)9911105648649928020010726d2002 uy 0engurnn#---|u||utxtccrImperfect garden the legacy of humanism /by Tzvetan Todorov ; translated by Carol CosmanCourse BookPrinceton, NJ Princeton University Pressc20021 online resource (264 p.)Description based upon print version of record.9780691165936 0691165939 9780691010472 0691010471 Includes bibliographical references (p. 239-246) and index.Front matter --Contents --Prologue. The Hidden Pact --Chapter 1. The Interplay of Four Families --Chapter 2. The Declaration of Autonomy --Chapter 3. Interdependence --Chapter 4. Living Alone --Chapter 5. The Ways of Love --Chapter 6. The Individual: PLURALITY AND UNIVERSALITY --Chapter 7. The Choice of Values --Chapter 8. A Morality Made for Humanity --Chapter 9. The Need for Enthusiasm --Epilogue. The Humanist Wager --Bibliography --IndexAvailable in English for the first time, Imperfect Garden is both an approachable intellectual history and a bracing treatise on how we should understand and experience our lives. In it, one of France's most prominent intellectuals explores the foundations, limits, and possibilities of humanist thinking. Through his critical but sympathetic excavation of humanism, Tzvetan Todorov seeks an answer to modernity's fundamental challenge: how to maintain our hard-won liberty without paying too dearly in social ties, common values, and a coherent and responsible sense of self. Todorov reads afresh the works of major humanists--primarily Montaigne, Rousseau, and Constant, but also Descartes, Montesquieu, and Toqueville. Each chapter considers humanism's approach to one major theme of human existence: liberty, social life, love, self, morality, and expression. Discussing humanism in dialogue with other systems, Todorov finds a response to the predicament of modernity that is far more instructive than any offered by conservatism, scientific determinism, existential individualism, or humanism's other contemporary competitors. Humanism suggests that we are members of an intelligent and sociable species who can act according to our will while connecting the well-being of other members with our own. It is through this understanding of free will, Todorov argues, that we can use humanism to rescue universality and reconcile human liberty with solidarity and personal integrity. Placing the history of ideas at the service of a quest for moral and political wisdom, Todorov's compelling and no doubt controversial rethinking of humanist ideas testifies to the enduring capacity of those ideas to meditate on--and, if we are fortunate, cultivate--the imperfect garden in which we live.HumanismFranceHistoryIndividualismFranceHistorySocial valuesFranceHistoryPhilosophy, FrenchHumanismHistory.IndividualismHistory.Social valuesHistory.Philosophy, French.144/.0944Todorov Tzvetan1939-142300MiAaPQMiAaPQMiAaPQBOOK9910964239203321Imperfect garden4341054UNINA