Fleeing the Universal: The Critique of Post-Rational CriticismSUNY Press, 1998 M01 1 - 297 pages Fleeing the Universal takes issue with the popular view that contemporary literary and cultural theory has brilliantly effected, or at least brilliantly reported, the demise of philosophy and the emergence of a new post-philosophical culture. It offers a critique of the various options presented by "post-rational" critics and theorists and, at the same time, argues for the superiority of speculative philosophy to all these options. Further, it demonstrates that the chief problems with post-rationalism were already seen, before our time, by two speculative philosophers, Hegel and Santayana, both of whose systems of philosophy are primarily intended to avoid the problems that beset the critique of reason. Fleeing the Universal criticizes the arguments and methods of deconstruction, the new pragmatism, and New Historicism, and suggests that the alternatives to post-philosophy developed by Hegel in the early nineteenth century and by Santayana in the early twentieth century have not been superseded by any theory associated with the culture of postmodernism or the analytical techniques of poststructuralism. |
Contents
WHAT IS POSTRATIONAL CRITICISM? | 1 |
THE TRANSCENDENTALIST IMPULSE IN THE PROJECTS OF CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM | 25 |
HEGELS CONCEPT OF THE DISSOLUTION OF ART | 67 |
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS AND THE ART OF INFINITE SPIRITUALITY | 93 |
THE METAPHYSICS OF DECONSTRUCTION | 101 |
IDEOLOGY AND THE NEW PRAGMATISM | 117 |
THE SELFCONTRADICTIONS OF PRAGMATISM | 137 |
POSTMODERN FANTASIES OF PLURALISM | 155 |
THE CRISIS OF REASON IN CONTEMPORARY THOUGHT | 177 |
CONCRETE HISTORY OR MERE HOLOGRAM? Hegel versus the New Historicism | 211 |
SANTAYANAS CRITIQUE OF TRANSCENDENTALISM | 231 |
HEGEL AND SANTAYANA ON THE NATURE OF PHILOSOPHY | 245 |
THESES FOR THE CRITIQUE OF THE POSTRATIONAL CRITIQUE OF REASON | 271 |
Notes | 275 |
295 | |
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Common terms and phrases
absolute according activity aesthetic already analysis appear argument artist aware become claims cognition concepts concerning consciousness constituted critique culture deconstruction Derrida determinations discourse essay existence experience explained fact Fish Foucault G. W. F. Hegel George Santayana German idealism Hegel Historicism holograms human hypostasized Ibid ideas ideology imagined intellectual interpretive communities irony kind knowledge language games linguistic literary literature Lyotard means metaphysical mind modern narrative nature notions object particular perception philosophy Plato pluralism poem poetry poets point of view political position possible post-rational criticism postmodern pragmatism pragmatist produced projects rational reality reason regarded relation religion Richard Rorty Romantic Rorty Rorty's Santayana seems semiotic sense simply situation social sort speculative spirit Stanley Fish structure supposed textual theory things thinking thought tion tradition trans transcendental transcendentalists Trobriand Islander truth whole William Carlos Williams Williams Williams's words writing