Philosophical Historicism and the Betrayal of First Philosophy

by Carl Page

Book Overview

The recent emergence, among philosophers, of the view that the activity of human reason in all its possible modes must also be historicized, including the activity of philosophizing itself, may be found in writers as diverse as Hans-Georg Gadamer, Richard Rorty, Michel Foucault, and Alasdair MacIntyre. This contemporary view of human reason contrasts with the traditional commitments of "First Philosophy," Aristotle's name for the knowledge of things through their ultimate causes and principles. This book challenges the prevailing historicist orthodoxies about the nature of reason and philosophy and offers the first comprehensive analysis and critique of historicism in its current philosophical form. Can philosophical historicism reasonably justify the interpretation of human reason on which its own objections to First Philosophy are based? While Carl Page ultimately concludes that it cannot, he also seeks to rehabilitate historicism's motivating insights by showing how they derive from questions Hegel and Heidegger raised about reason's relation to history.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0271013303
• ISBN13: 9780271013305
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: Penn State University Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Mr. Page is AWESOME.,

...his writing, on the other hand, is sloppy and inattentive, like his parenting. But the book has an elegant cover and I recommend it for your Coffee Table.

Why? Because He Could...

We should all look to Mr. Page if we desire a lucid explication of historicism, and the threat it presents not only to philosophy, but to our lives in general.