Description
Book SynopsisThis work argues that texts by important thinkers teach us how to read and judge claims of authority made by others upon us; how to decide to which institutions and practices we should grant authority; and how to create authorities of our own through our thoughts and arguments.
Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments I: The Claims of the World on the Self, the Self on the World 1: Plato's CRITO: The Authority of Law and Philosophy II: Creating a Public World 2: Shakespeare's RICHARD II: Imagining the Modern World 3: Hooker's Preface to the LAWES OF ECCLESIASTICALL POLITIE: Constituting Authority in Argument 4: Hale's "Considerations Touching the Amendment or Alteration of Lawes": Determining the Authority of the Past 5: PLANNED PARENTHOOD v. CASEY: Legal Judgment as an Ethical and Cultural Art III: The Authority of the Self 6: Austen's MANSFIELD PARK: Making the Self Out of--and Against--the Culture 7: Dickinson's Poetry: Transforming the Authority of Language IV: Reconstituting Self and World: The Creation of Authority as an Act of Hope 8: Mandela's Speech from the Dock and Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address: Giving Meaning to Life in an Unjust World Afterword Additional Notes Index
