Overview

Human subjects are both formed by historical inheritances and capable of active criticism. Insisting on this fact, Kant and Benjamin each develop powerful, systematic, but sharply opposed accounts of human powers and interests in freedom.

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9780190605322

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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. The focus of the book on Kant and Benjamin brings out the rigor of Benjamins reflections by construing them as a response to the Kantian moment in philosophy. At the same time, by establishing this affinity between Kant and Benjamin, Eldridge allows us to conceive of the extension and pertinence of Kants thinking to our image of modernity. Eldridges 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 Benjamins 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 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. J. Gough,Athabasca University,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. The focus of the book on Kant and Benjamin brings out the rigor of Benjamins reflections by construing them as a response to the Kantian moment in philosophy. At the same time, by establishing this affinity between Kant and Benjamin, Eldridge allows us to conceive of the extension and pertinence of Kants thinking to our image of modernity. Eldridges 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 Benjamins 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

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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