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List of contents
Preface
Introduction: Comparisons—A Marginalised Classic
Part I: Comparison as Structure and Comparing as Practice
1. Comparisons. A General Account
2. Comparisons: A Typology
3. On Comparative Injustice
Part II: Three Studies in Comparativism
4. Orientation, Indexicality, and Comparisons: A Theme from Kant
5. Comparative / Descriptive: Wittgenstein and the Search for “Objects of Comparison”
6. Comparative Ironism: Richard Rorty on Plural Vocabularies and the Comparisons Between Them
Part III: On Relocating Incomparability
7. Against Structural Incomparability
8. On Indexical Incomparability
9. The Curious Case of Normative Incomparability: Comparisons, Animals and the Quest for Adequacy
Epilogue: Living in an “Age of Comparison”?: An Interpretation with Diagnostic Intent
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Hartmut von Sass is Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy of Religion and Heisenberg Scholar at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany.
Summary
Comparing is one of the most essential practices, in our everyday life as well as in science and humanities. In this in-depth philosophical analysis of the structure, practice and ethics of comparative procedures, Hartmut von Sass expands on the significance of comparison.
Elucidating the ramified structure of comparing, von Sass suggests a typology of comparisons before introducing the notion of comparative injustice and the limits of comparisons. He elaborates on comparing as practice by relating comparing to three relative practices – orienting, describing, and expressing oneself – to unfold some of the most important chapters of what might be called comparativism.
This approach allows von Sass to clarify the idea of the incomparable, distinguish between different versions of incomparability and shed light on important ethical aspects of comparisons today. Confronting the claim that we are living in an age of comparisons, his book is an important contribution to ideas surrounding all-encompassing measurements and scalability and their critique.
Foreword
The first thorough philosophical analysis of the structure, practice and ethics of comparative procedures.
Additional text
This carefully argued and clearly written book is the most thorough study of the meaning and practice of comparing that I am aware of. It draws impressively in a wide range of philosophical literature and traditions as it explains the many roles of making comparisons in our thought and in our culture.’
