Reason in Philosophy

by Brandom, Robert B.

• ISBN13: 9780674034495
• ISBN10: 067403449X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-10-01
• Publisher: Belknap Pr

Summary

Transcendentalism never came to an end in America. It just went underground for a stretch, but is back in full force in Robert Brandomrs"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. Brandomrs"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.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
Animating Ideas of Idealism: A Semantic Sonata in Kant and Hegel
Norms, Selves, and Concepts	p. 27
Autonomy, Community, and Freedom	p. 52
History, Reason, and Reality	p. 78
Reason and Philosophy Today
Reason, Expression, and the Philosophic Enterprise	p. 111
Philosophy and the Expressive Freedom of Thought	p. 130
Why Truth Is Not Important in Philosophy	p. 156
Three Problems with the Empiricist Conception of Concepts	p. 177
How Analytic Philosophy Has Failed Cognitive Science	p. 197
Name Index	p. 227
Subject Index	p. 229
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