20th century
A01=Martin Shuster
auschwitz
Author_Martin Shuster
autonomous agency
autonomy
Category=JPA
Category=QDTS
critical theory
dialectic of enlightenment
discussion
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethical
ethics
expression
free
georg wilhelm friedrich hegel
german
germany
habermas
historical
history
human freedom
humanity
idealism
immanuel kant
max horkheimer
modernism
modernity
morality
morals
myth
philosophy
psychology
reason
sociology
spirit
subjectivity
theodor adorno
Product details
- ISBN 9780226155487
- Weight: 425g
- Dimensions: 16 x 24mm
- Publication Date: 12 Sep 2014
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Ever since Kant and Hegel, the notion of autonomy - the idea that we are beholden to no law except one we impose upon ourselves - has been considered the truest philosophical expression of human freedom. But could our commitment to autonomy, as Theodor Adorno asked, be responsible for the extreme evils that we have witnessed in modernity? In Autonomy After Auschwitz, Martin Shuster explores this difficult question with astonishing theoretical acumen, examining the precise ways autonomy can lead us down a path of evil and how it might be prevented from doing so. Shuster uncovers dangers in the notion of autonomy as it was originally conceived by Kant. Putting Adorno into dialogue with a range of European philosophers, notably Kant, Hegel, Horkheimer, and Habermas - as well as with a variety of contemporary Anglo-American thinkers such as Richard Rorty, Stanley Cavell, John McDowell, and Robert Pippin - he illuminates Adorno's important revisions to this fraught concept and how his different understanding of autonomous agency, fully articulated, might open up new and positive social and political possibilities.
Altogether, Autonomy After Auschwitz is a meditation on modern evil and human agency, one that demonstrates the tremendous ethical stakes at the heart of philosophy.
Martin Shuster is chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Avila University in Kansas City, MO, and is cofounder of the Association for Adorno Studies.
