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; H?lderlin; 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.
#3339694 in eBooks 2016-05-23 2016-05-23File Name: B01G2N0RI8
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