Overview

Developing work in the theories of action and explanation, Eldridge argues that moral and political philosophers require accounts of what is historically possible, while historians require rough philosophical understandings of ideals that merit reasonable endorsement. Both Immanuel Kant and Walter Benjamin recognize this fact. Each sees a special place for religious consciousness and critical practice in the articulation and revision of ideals that are to have cultural effect, but they differ sharply in the forms of religious-philosophical understanding, cultural criticism, and political practice that they favor. Kant defends a liberal, reformist, Protestant stance, emphasizing the importance of liberty, individual rights, and democratic institutions. His fullest picture of movement toward a moral culture appears in Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason, where he describes conjecturally the emergence of an ethical commonwealth.Benjamin defends a politics of improvisatory alertness and consciousness-raising that is suspicious of progress and liberal reform. He practices a form of modernist, materialist criticism that is strongly rooted in his encounters with Kant, Hölderlin, and Goethe. His fullest, finished picture of this critical practice appears in One-Way Street, where he traces the continuing force of unsatisfied desires.By drawing on both Kant and Benjamin, Eldridge hopes to avoid both moralism (standing on sharply specified normative commitments at all costs) and waywardness (rejecting all settled commitments). And in doing so, he seeks to make better sense of the commitment-forming, commitment-revising, anxious, reflective and sometimes grownup acculturated human subjects we are.

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I found this book to be highly original and provocative in the way it creates a force field of interpretations around Kant and Benjamin's seemingly diverse pursuits. Drawing on each separately and together, Eldridge provides a compelling and convincing picture of what it means to be human and how to actualize freedom in history. * The Review of Metaphysics * Eldridge's is both a brilliant scholarly study in its own right and a beacon of hope for those seeking to find their way anew in the mired field of the contemporary humanities...anyone seeking a lucid and revealing introduction to the work of Benjamin, or a compact precis of the difficulties posed by Kant's incipient philosophy of history, could not do better than to read Eldridge's incisive and enlightening book. * Los Angeles Review of Books * Eldridge's book not only enriches our grasp of its two principal authors and our appreciation of the problems of historical understanding. It is a refreshing departure from a strong tendency in contemporary philosophy to convey the nostrum that suitable mutually recognizing discourses and rational norm-giving are adequate to satisfy our intelligent sense of life with its complexity and its intractable problems. Eldridge writes of 'the temptation, wish, or fantasy to find an absolute ground both of assurance in linguistic performance and of the achievement of practical self-unity and reasonable self-presentation under an intelligible role' (188). His lively and penetrating study of Kant and Benjamin should help to firm up resistance to this temptation. * Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews * Deftly bridging the rationalist/Continental divide, Eldridge accommodates the fact or fiction, modernist/postmodernist potential antagonisms and focuses on confounding given/constructed historical storied landscapes of Western culture. He demonstrates how the philosophical confrontations of rationalist Immanuel Kant and postmodernist Walter Benjamin contrast but are not necessarily in opposition...Despite the potentially existential malaise brought on by history, Eldridge remains optimistic as new possibilities of disclosure reveal themselves to individuals in lived historical experiences, enlivening a sense of freely chosen self-identity. * CHOICE * Richard Eldridge has written a sustained reflection on the question of the historical actualization of human freedom and on the character of a genuinely historical human agency...Eldridge's book is a significant contribution to the renewed interest in problems of the philosophy of history and their relevance for contemporary moral and political philosophy in the Anglo-American tradition. The approach that Eldridge presents and in particular the continuity that he finds with the Kantian project offers a distinct and important alternative reading to recent appropriations of Benjamin's work in continental philosophy. * Eli Friedlander, Tel Aviv University * What is the relation between the contingency of our historical situation and the universal ambitions of our moral and political norms? Just that there must always be a relation, each forever putting the other to the test. Richard Eldridge's penetrating examination of the philosophies of history of Kant and Benjamin illuminates this simple but profound insight. * Paul Guyer, Brown University *

What is the relation between the contingency of our historical situation and the universal ambitions of our moral and political norms? Just that there must always be a relation, each forever putting the other to the test. Richard Eldridge's penetrating examination of the philosophies of history of Kant and Benjamin illuminates this simple but profound insight. -- Paul Guyer, Brown University Richard Eldridge has written a sustained reflection on the question of the historical actualization of human freedom and on the character of a genuinely historical human agency...Eldridge's book is a significant contribution to the renewed interest in problems of the philosophy of history and their relevance for contemporary moral and political philosophy in the Anglo-American tradition. The approach that Eldridge presents and in particular the continuity that he finds with the Kantian project offers a distinct and important alternative reading to recent appropriations of Benjamin's work in continental philosophy. -- Eli Friedlander, Tel Aviv University Deftly bridging the rationalist/Continental divide, Eldridge accommodates the fact or fiction, modernist/postmodernist potential antagonisms and focuses on confounding given/constructed historical storied landscapes of Western culture. He demonstrates how the philosophical confrontations of rationalist Immanuel Kant and postmodernist Walter Benjamin contrast but are not necessarily in opposition...Despite the potentially existential malaise brought on by history, Eldridge remains optimistic as new possibilities of disclosure reveal themselves to individuals in lived historical experiences, enlivening a sense of freely chosen self-identity. -- CHOICE Eldridge's book not only enriches our grasp of its two principal authors and our appreciation of the problems of historical understanding. It is a refreshing departure from a strong tendency in contemporary philosophy to convey the nostrum that suitable mutually recognizing discourses and rational norm-giving are adequate to satisfy our intelligent sense of life with its complexity and its intractable problems. Eldridge writes of 'the temptation, wish, or fantasy to find an absolute ground both of assurance in linguistic performance and of the achievement of practical self-unity and reasonable self-presentation under an intelligible role' (188). His lively and penetrating study of Kant and Benjamin should help to firm up resistance to this temptation. -- Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews Eldridge's is both a brilliant scholarly study in its own right and a beacon of hope for those seeking to find their way anew in the mired field of the contemporary humanities...anyone seeking a lucid and revealing introduction to the work of Benjamin, or a compact precis of the difficulties posed by Kant's incipient philosophy of history, could not do better than to read Eldridge's incisive and enlightening book. -- Los Angeles Review of Books I found this book to be highly original and provocative in the way it creates a force field of interpretations around Kant and Benjamin's seemingly diverse pursuits. Drawing on each separately and together, Eldridge provides a compelling and convincing picture of what it means to be human and how to actualize freedom in history. --The Review of Metaphysics

Author Information

Richard Eldridge is Charles and Harriett Cox McDowell Professor of Philosophy at Swarthmore College. He has held visiting appointments at Essex, Stanford, Bremen, Erfurt, Freiburg, Brooklyn, and Sydney. He is the author of 5 books and over 100 articles in aesthetics, philosophy of language, philosophy of literature, and Romanticism and Idealism. He has edited 4 volumes, including The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Literature, and he is the Series Editor of Oxford Studies in Philosophy and Literature.

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