Description
Book SynopsisIn an age of cultural pluralism, and in light of serious counterarguments, this work offers a justification of universal principles. The book focuses on a series of modern challenges and argues in favor of an awareness for varieties and nuances, as well as a discursive universality. Timely Thoughts represents a serious contribution to inter-cultural dialogues and is appropriate for academia and the public sphere.
Trade ReviewGunnar Skirbekk's work is both original and insightful, combining elements from Anglo-American analytic tradition, Continental European tradition, and especially the work of Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and the praxeology school as it developed in Germany and Scandinavia. The essays in this volume are both timely and important, addressing themes that are of both theoretical and practical importance. This is certainly true of his essays on ethical gradualism, modernity and a conception of a universal/plural rationality and technological expertise and global ethics. The views Skirbekk articulates in these essays are not only rigorously argued for, but they also offer new insights into urgent problems facing today's global village. They deserve to be read by all who seek a theoretical understanding of our world and a way of dealing with the many practical issues that have led to the kind of fragmentation confronting the world today. -- Georgios Anagnostopoulos, Professor of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego
Table of ContentsPart 1 Preface Chapter 2 Introduction Chapter 3 The Modernity Debate: Rationality—Universal and Plural? Chapter 4 A Crisis in the Humanities? Chapter 5 Technological Expertise and Global Ethics Chapter 6 Ethical Gradualism Chapter 7 On the Possibility of a Philosophical Justification for Universally Binding Principles Chapter 8 Procedural Universality, 'Bottom Up' Part 9 Bibliography Part 10 Index
