1st Edition

Reflective Authenticity Rethinking the Project of Modernity

By Alessandro Ferrara Copyright 1998
    200 Pages
    by Routledge

    208 Pages
    by Routledge

    Reflective Authenticity: Rethinking the Project of Modernity is a challenging consideration of what remains of ambitious Enlightenment ideas such as democracy, freedom and universality in the wake of relativist, postmodern thought.
    Do clashes over gender, race and culture mean that universal notions such as justice or rights no longer apply outside our own communities? Do our actions lose their authenticity if we act on principles that transcend the confines of our particular communities ? Alessandro Ferrara proposes a path out of this impasse via the notion of reflective authenticity. Drawing on Aristotle, Kants concept of reflective judgement and Heideggers theory of reflexive self-grounding, Reflective Authenticity: Rethinking the Project of Modernity takes a fresh look at the state of Critical Theory today and the sustainability of postmodern politics.

    Authenticity and Validity; Part 1 Postmetaphysical Phronesis; Part 2 From Kant to Kant; Part 3 Reflective Authenticity and Exemplary Universalism; Part 4 Post-modern Eudaimonia; Part 5 The Fulfillment of Collective Identities; Part 6 Authenticity, the Text and the Work of Art; Part 7 Rethinking the Project of Modernity;

    Biography

    Alessandro Ferrara is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Sociology of the University of Rome “La Sapienza.” He is the author of Modernity and Authenticity: A Study of the Social and Ethical Thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1993) and of Justice and Judgment. The Rise and the Prospect of the Judgment Model in Contemporary Political Philosophy (1998).

    'An original, uncompromising vision of modernity.' - Radical Philosophy, 97, Sept/Oct 1999