Description
Book SynopsisThis collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, provides a wide context in which to consider the rise of humanity as one of the chief modern virtues. A relative ofand also a replacement forformerly more prominent other-regarding virtues like justice and generosity, humanity and later compassion become the true north of the modern moral compass. Contributors to this volume consider various aspects of this virtue, by comparison with what came before and with attention to its development from early to late modernity, and up to the present.
Trade ReviewIt is uncommon to encounter a Festschrift honoring a scholar who has authored only one book—albeit an outstanding one—even when his work also includes numerous important scholarly articles on various topics. The diverse and generally excellent contributions to the present substantial volume make clear why Clifford Orwin is an exception to that rule. . . . The contributions to this volume attest to a life, and career, well lived. * Interpretation *
The 32 essays collected in this festschrift bear witness, as well as any single volume could, to the accomplishments of the extraordinary man they honor. Here friends, colleagues, and students make plain the astonishing breadth and depth of Clifford Orwin's philosophic concerns as a scholar and writer. What may be more, they begin to do justice to his lasting influence as a teacher, a teacher at once brilliant, demanding, and generous. -- Robert C. Bartlett, Behrakis Professor of Hellenic Political Thought, Boston College
This collection in honor of Clifford Orwin offers us a rich group of very intelligent essays by his students and colleagues on important issues of classical and modern thought. The essays center on and illuminate the works of Thucydides and the theme of humanity that have guided Professor Orwin’s outstanding scholarship. -- Mark Blitz, Fletcher Jones Professor of Political Philosophy, Claremont McKenna College
These 32 chapters, contributed by some of leading students of political philosophy of our time, constitute an unmatched comprehensive and penetrating introduction to the whole of human experience in the West from Thucydides to Mother Teresa. They are abundant testimony to the pedagogical excellence of Clifford Orwin, quite the formidable scholar and astute Canadian public intellectual whose influence for the good has ranged far and wide. -- Peter Augustine Lawler, Berry College
Table of ContentsI. Ancient Inquiries into Humanity 1. Civilization and the Gods in the Eumenides By Mark J. Lutz 2. Philosophy and “Humanity”: Reflections on Thucydidean Piety, Justice, and Necessity By Ryan Balot 3. Preliminary Observations on the Treaties in Thucydides’ Work By Robert Howse and Noah Laurence 4. Reflections on the Humanity (and Inhumanity) of Thucydides By S. N. Jaffe 5. The Spartan Alcibiades: Brasidas and the Prospect of Regime Change in Sparta in Thucydides’ War By Michael Palmer 6. The Tragedy of Demosthenes in Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War By Andrea Radasanu 7. Moral Indignation, Magnanimity, and Philosophy in the Trial of the Armenian King By Lorraine Smith Pangle 8. Humanity and Divinity in Xenophon’s Defense of Socrates By Thomas L. Pangle 9. Education after Freedom By Michael S. Kochin II. The Taming of Mother Teresa: From Charity to Modern Visions of Humanity 10. Martin Luther King, Augustine, and Civil Disobedience By Timothy W. Burns 11. “La Carità Propria” and the Uncertain Foundations of Unarmed Principalities By William B. Parsons Jr. 12. Machiavelli’s Humanity By Nathan Tarcov 13. “Choice of Loss”: The Revaluation of Roman Values in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra By Paul A. Cantor 14. “When Vice Makes Mercy”: Classical, Christian, and Modern Humanism in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure” By L. Joseph Hebert, Jr. 15. “Tis charity to show”: Shakespeare’s Kindly Art in The Taming of the Shrew By Diana J. Schaub 16. New Virtues for Masters of Nature By Henry Higuera 17. The Model of Human Nature and the Revision of Premises in Spinoza’s Ethics By Richard Velkley 18. Interpreting Honor Politically By Ran Halévi III. Compassion and the Angst of Late Modernity 19. Locke’s Compassion—and Rousseau’s By Steven Forde 20. Rousseau’s Rome: How the Model of All Free Peoples Governed Themselves By Bryan-Paul Frost 21. Rousseau and the Case for and against Cosmopolitan Humanitarianism By Christopher Kelly 22. Hegel as Educator: Reading the Phenomenology of Spirit as a Pedagogical Classic By Waller R. Newell 23. Reason, Will, and the Image of Humanity: The Criticism of Rationalism by Dostoevsky’s Underground Man and Nietzsche’s Zarathustra By Jeffrey Metzger 24. Is It Possible to Reconcile Reason and Revelation? Their Mutual Relations in the Thought of Leo Strauss By Kenneth Hart Green 25. History, Technology, and Justice: George Grant’s Discovery of Rousseau By Hugh Donald Forbes 26. “Gods of Vengeance and Compassion”: The Withering Criticism of Compassion in Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian By Brent Edwin Cusher IV. Liberalism, Humanitarianism and Contemporary Affairs 27. Character vs. Free Will: Aristotle and Kant on Moral Responsibility By Arthur M. Melzer 28. A Kantian Critique of “Public Reason” By Susan Meld Shell 29. On the Uses and Abuses of the Notion of Sovereignty By Miguel Morgado 30. Europe’s Democratic Odyssey By Marc F. Plattner 31. Humane Warfare: An Ancient Perspective on a Modern Dilemma By Linda R. Rabieh 32. A Polemic for Pedagogy? Or Socratic Pedagogy and Postmodern Partisanship in Liberal Education By Michael Rosano
