Description
Book SynopsisThis text aims to recover the ancient philosophical ideal of self-knowledge, in the context of our historical situation. It considers and rejects claims that we can attain self-knowledge through theory, anti-theory, or narrative and defends philosophy as a humanist rather than scientific, endeavor.
Trade ReviewThis book is an impressive and important contribution . . .The book contains some fine analyses and helpful examples . . . especially helpful in the present quarrel about the limits of theory, and her critique deserves to be studied by anyone who has interest in these important matters. -- Michael Gelven, Northern Illinois University
This volume is both helpful for those who have never met the writings of Feuerbach and worthy of those who have long appreciated his thought. * Review of Metaphysics, March 1998 *
Here is a book well worth coming to grips with. ...it is a virtue, the virtue of corageous helpfulness, in a thinking writer to get right to the subject on her own and in her own terms, as Ann Hartle does. In divorcing herself to some degree from what might be called the traditional strain in the interpretation of modernity, Ann Hartle gains a footing in the time which she confronts; this is not a book written by a would-be temporal outsider but by one who shares the reason-caused quandaries with which this 'demented' age i beset. It is this, I think, which gives the book its engaging character. readers will find themselves grappling with her terms because behind their explanatory interest is her own passionate philosophizing... -- Eva T.H. Brann, St. John's College * New Vico Studies, (1998) *
Thoroughly engaging. -- John C. McCarthy * Reason Papers *
SELF-KNOWLEDGE IN THE AGE OF THEORY is both provocative and profound . . . provocative in its argument that philosophical self-knowledge is acquired neither through a theory about the self nor through an anti-theory that dissolves the self. It is profound in its exploration of the way self is displayed in narrative and in its search for an even deeper, interior sel-knowledge in philosophical conversation. -- Gilbert Meilaender, Valparaiso University
Here is a book well worth coming to grips with. ...it is a virtue, the virtue of corageous helpfulness, in a thinking writer to get right to the subject on her own and in her own terms, as Ann Hartle does. In divorcing herself to some degree from what might be called the traditional strain in the interpretation of modernity, Ann Hartle gains a footing in the time which she confronts; this is not a book written by a would-be temporal outsider but by one who shares the reason-caused quandaries with which this 'demented' age i beset. It is this, I think, which gives the book its engaging character. readers will find themselves grappling with her terms because behind their explanatory interest is her own passionate philosophizing. -- Eva T.H. Brann, St. John's College * New Vico Studies, (1998) *
