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List of contents
Contents: Introduction; Truth: Freedom from foundations: the normativity of autonomy in theory and practice; Hegel’s remedy for the impasse of contemporary philosophy; Philosophy without foundations?; Concept, individuality and truth; Space, time and matter: conceiving nature without foundations; Right: Ethical community without communitarianism; The immanent critique of natural ethical community; With what must ethics begin? Reflections on property and contract; Unity in the Common Law?; Friendship, family and ethical community; The unfinished revolution in Family Law; Should the economy be democratized? Relativism and democracy; Post-colonialism and right; Beauty: The individuality of art and the collapse of metaphysical aesthetics; Romanticism and modernity; The challenge of architecture to systematic aesthetics; Conclusion: Modernity and the recovery of truth, right and beauty; Index.
Summary
This title was first published in 2001. Through constructive arguments covering the principal topics and controversies in epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics, Autonomy and Normativity demonstrates how truth, right and beauty can retain universal validity without succumbing to the mistaken Enlightenment strategy of seeking foundations for rational autonomy.
Additional text
A radical and systematic critique of some of the mainstream thinkers by means of a single unifying principle. This book will contribute very constructively to current philosophical debate. Wilfried Ver Eecke, Professor of Philosophy, Georgetown University, USA Winfield has a very clear position, namely that normativity must be foundation-free and so self-determining, and he explores the implications of this position with great energy and clarity. This volume will appeal to students and scholars coming from a broadly Hegelian direction, as well as those working on political questions from the perspectives of Kant, Marx, Rawls or Habermas. '... the book serves as a confident introduction to a Hegelian critique of foundationalism in metaphysics and epistemology...' Review of Metaphysics
