Belief and Resistance: Dynamics of Contemporary Intellectual Controversy Contributor(s): Smith, Barbara Herrnstein (Author), Smith, Barbara H. (Author) |
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ISBN: 0674064917 ISBN-13: 9780674064911 Publisher: Harvard University Press OUR PRICE: $59.40 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: April 1997 Annotation: Truth, reason, and objectivity--can we survive without them? What happens to law, science, and the pursuit of social justice when such ideas and ideals are rejected? These questions are at the heart of the controversies between traditionalists and "postmodernists" that Barbara Herrnstein Smith examines in her wide-ranging book, which also offers an original perspective on the perennial--perhaps eternal--clash of belief and skepticism, on our need for intellectual stability and our experience of its inevitable disruption. Focusing on the mutually frustrating impasses to which these controversies often lead and on the charges--"absurdity," "irrationalism," "complicity," "blindness," "stubbornness"--that typically accompany them, Smith stresses our tendency to give self-flattering reasons for our own beliefs and to discount or demonize the motives of those who disagree with us. Her account of the resulting cognitive and rhetorical dynamics of intellectual conflict draws on recent research and theory in evolutionary biology, neuroscience, developmental psychology, and the history and sociology of science, as well as on contemporary philosophy and language theory. Smith's analyses take her into important ongoing debates over the possibility of an objective grounding of legal and political judgments, the continuing value of Enlightenment rationalism, significant challenges to dominant ideas of scientific truth, and proper responses to denials of the factuality of the Holocaust. As she explores these and other controversies, Smith develops fresh ways to understand their motives and energies, and more positive ways to see the operations ofintellectual conflict more generally. |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Philosophy | Epistemology - Literary Criticism | Semiotics & Theory - Philosophy | History & Surveys - General |
Dewey: 121 |
LCCN: 96-44612 |
Physical Information: 0.81" H x 6.38" W x 9.58" (1.12 lbs) 221 pages |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: The controversies between traditionalists and postmodernists are the topic of this book. It examines questions at the heart of the debate, such as: truth, reason, and objectivity - can we survive without them? What happens to law, science and the persuit of justice when these ideals are abandoned? The clash of belief and skepticism, and our need for intellectual stability are also examined. |