Reason in Philosophy: Animating Ideas
Transcendentalism never came to an end in America. It just went underground for a stretch, but is back in full force in Robert Brandom’s new book. Brandom takes up Kant and Hegel and explores their contemporary significance as if little time had expired since intellectuals gathered around Emerson in Concord to discuss reason and idealism, selves, freedom, and community. Brandom’s discussion belongs to a venerable tradition that distinguishes us as rational animals, and philosophy by its concern to understand, articulate, and explain the notion of reason that is thereby cast in that crucial demarcating role.

An emphasis on our capacity to reason, rather than merely to represent, has been growing in philosophy over the last thirty years, and Robert Brandom has been at the center of this development. Reason in Philosophy is the first book that gives a succinct overview of his understanding of the role of reason as the structure at once of our minds and our meanings—what constitutes us as free, responsible agents. The job of philosophy is to introduce concepts and develop expressive tools for expanding our self-consciousness as sapients: explicit awareness of our discursive activity of thinking and acting, in the sciences, politics, and the arts. This is a paradigmatic work of contemporary philosophy.

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Reason in Philosophy: Animating Ideas
Transcendentalism never came to an end in America. It just went underground for a stretch, but is back in full force in Robert Brandom’s new book. Brandom takes up Kant and Hegel and explores their contemporary significance as if little time had expired since intellectuals gathered around Emerson in Concord to discuss reason and idealism, selves, freedom, and community. Brandom’s discussion belongs to a venerable tradition that distinguishes us as rational animals, and philosophy by its concern to understand, articulate, and explain the notion of reason that is thereby cast in that crucial demarcating role.

An emphasis on our capacity to reason, rather than merely to represent, has been growing in philosophy over the last thirty years, and Robert Brandom has been at the center of this development. Reason in Philosophy is the first book that gives a succinct overview of his understanding of the role of reason as the structure at once of our minds and our meanings—what constitutes us as free, responsible agents. The job of philosophy is to introduce concepts and develop expressive tools for expanding our self-consciousness as sapients: explicit awareness of our discursive activity of thinking and acting, in the sciences, politics, and the arts. This is a paradigmatic work of contemporary philosophy.

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Reason in Philosophy: Animating Ideas

Reason in Philosophy: Animating Ideas

by Robert B. Brandom
Reason in Philosophy: Animating Ideas

Reason in Philosophy: Animating Ideas

by Robert B. Brandom

Paperback(Reprint)

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Overview

Transcendentalism never came to an end in America. It just went underground for a stretch, but is back in full force in Robert Brandom’s new book. Brandom takes up Kant and Hegel and explores their contemporary significance as if little time had expired since intellectuals gathered around Emerson in Concord to discuss reason and idealism, selves, freedom, and community. Brandom’s discussion belongs to a venerable tradition that distinguishes us as rational animals, and philosophy by its concern to understand, articulate, and explain the notion of reason that is thereby cast in that crucial demarcating role.

An emphasis on our capacity to reason, rather than merely to represent, has been growing in philosophy over the last thirty years, and Robert Brandom has been at the center of this development. Reason in Philosophy is the first book that gives a succinct overview of his understanding of the role of reason as the structure at once of our minds and our meanings—what constitutes us as free, responsible agents. The job of philosophy is to introduce concepts and develop expressive tools for expanding our self-consciousness as sapients: explicit awareness of our discursive activity of thinking and acting, in the sciences, politics, and the arts. This is a paradigmatic work of contemporary philosophy.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780674725836
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication date: 09/02/2013
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 248
Product dimensions: 6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Robert B. Brandom is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh and a Fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the British Academy. He delivered the John Locke Lectures at the University of Oxford and the Woodbridge Lectures at Columbia University. Brandom is the author of many books, including Making It Explicit, Reason in Philosophy, and From Empiricism to Expressivism (all from Harvard).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

Part 1 Animating Ideas of Idealism: A Semantic Sonata in Kant and Hegel

1 Norms, Selves, and Concepts 27

2 Autonomy, Community, and Freedom 52

3 History, Reason, and Reality 78

Part 2 Reason and Philosophy Today

4 Reason, Expression, and the Philosophic Enterprise 111

5 Philosophy and the Expressive Freedom of Thought 130

6 Why Truth Is Not Important in Philosophy 156

7 Three Problems with the Empiricist Conception of Concepts 177

8 How Analytic Philosophy Has Failed Cognitive Science 197

Name Index 227

Subject Index 229

What People are Saying About This

Sebastian Rödl

This work is a formidable achievement that demonstrates deep historical knowledge and awesome hermeneutic and systematic philosophical powers that, in this degree, are conjoined at best in a handful of people alive. This is in every way a superior work of philosophy, and shows why Robert Brandom holds a singular position in the discipline worldwide.
Sebastian Rödl, Universität Basel.

Mark Lance

This book represents a new collection of papers by one of the most important systematic philosophical thinkers of our time. As such it will be welcomed by those already familiar with Brandom's thought. At the same time, by connecting his views to familiar historical themes, Brandom has provided what is, to my mind, the most accessible route into his often dauntingly complex ideas, a route strongly recommended to those new to his work.
Mark Lance, Georgetown University

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