The Limits of Idealism

The Limits of Idealism PDF

Author: Melvyn L. Fein

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2007-08-28

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0585296014

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If the truth be known, I am only a partially reformed idealist. In the secret depths of my soul, I still wish to make the world a better place and sometimes fantasize about heroically eradicating its faults. When I encounter its limitations, it is consequently with deep regret and continued surprise. How, I ask myself, is it possible that that which seems so fight can be a chimera? And why, I wonder, aren't people as courageous, smart, or nice as I would like? The pain of realizing these things is sometimes so intense that I want to close my eyes and lose myself in the kinds of daydreams that comforted me as a youngster. One thing is clear, my need to come to grips with my idealism had its origin in a lifetime of naivet6. From the beginning, I wanted to be a "good" person. Often when life was most treacherous, I retreated into a comer from whence I escaped into reveries of moral glory. When I was very young, my faith was in religion. In Hebrew school, I took my lessons seriously and tried to apply them at home. By my teen years, this had been replaced by an allegiance to socialism. In the Brooklyn where I grew up, my teachers and relatives made this seem the natural course. When I reached my twenties, however, and was obliged to confront a series of personal deficiencies, psychotherapy shouldered its way to the fore.

The Limits of International Law

The Limits of International Law PDF

Author: Jack L. Goldsmith

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2005-02-03

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0199883378

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International law is much debated and discussed, but poorly understood. Does international law matter, or do states regularly violate it with impunity? If international law is of no importance, then why do states devote so much energy to negotiating treaties and providing legal defenses for their actions? In turn, if international law does matter, why does it reflect the interests of powerful states, why does it change so often, and why are violations of international law usually not punished? In this book, Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner argue that international law matters but that it is less powerful and less significant than public officials, legal experts, and the media believe. International law, they contend, is simply a product of states pursuing their interests on the international stage. It does not pull states towards compliance contrary to their interests, and the possibilities for what it can achieve are limited. It follows that many global problems are simply unsolvable. The book has important implications for debates about the role of international law in the foreign policy of the United States and other nations. The authors see international law as an instrument for advancing national policy, but one that is precarious and delicate, constantly changing in unpredictable ways based on non-legal changes in international politics. They believe that efforts to replace international politics with international law rest on unjustified optimism about international law's past accomplishments and present capacities.

The Limits of Realism

The Limits of Realism PDF

Author: Tim Button

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-06-27

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 0199672172

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Tim Button explores the relationship between minds, words, and world. He argues that the two main strands of scepticism are deeply related and can be overcome, but that there is a limit to how much we can show. We must position ourselves somewhere between internal realism and external realism, and we cannot hope to say exactly where.

Stay the Hand of Vengeance

Stay the Hand of Vengeance PDF

Author: Gary Jonathan Bass

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2014-04-28

Total Pages: 435

ISBN-13: 1400851718

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International justice has become a crucial part of the ongoing political debates about the future of shattered societies like Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Cambodia, and Chile. Why do our governments sometimes display such striking idealism in the face of war crimes and atrocities abroad, and at other times cynically abandon the pursuit of international justice altogether? Why today does justice seem so slow to come for war crimes victims in the Balkans? In this book, Gary Bass offers an unprecedented look at the politics behind international war crimes tribunals, combining analysis with investigative reporting and a broad historical perspective. The Nuremberg trials powerfully demonstrated how effective war crimes tribunals can be. But there have been many other important tribunals that have not been as successful, and which have been largely left out of today's debates about international justice. This timely book brings them in, using primary documents to examine the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, World War I, the Armenian genocide, World War II, and the recent wars in the former Yugoslavia. Bass explains that bringing war criminals to justice can be a military ordeal, a source of endless legal frustration, as well as a diplomatic nightmare. The book takes readers behind the scenes to see vividly how leaders like David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton have wrestled with these agonizing moral dilemmas. The book asks how law and international politics interact, and how power can be made to serve the cause of justice. Bass brings new archival research to bear on such events as the prosecution of the Armenian genocide, presenting surprising episodes that add to the historical record. His sections on the former Yugoslavia tell--with important new discoveries--the secret story of the politicking behind the prosecution of war crimes in Bosnia, drawing on interviews with senior White House officials, key diplomats, and chief prosecutors at the war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Bass concludes that despite the obstacles, legalistic justice for war criminals is nonetheless worth pursuing. His arguments will interest anyone concerned about human rights and the pursuit of idealism in international politics.

Idealism

Idealism PDF

Author: Jeremy Dunham

Publisher:

Published: 1840

Total Pages: 564

ISBN-13:

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"The rediscovery of idealism is an unmistakable feature of contemporary philosophy. Heavily criticized by the dominant philosophies of the twentieth century, it is being reconsiderd in the twenty-first as a rich and untapped resource for contemporary philosophical arguments and concepts. This volume provides a comprehensive portrait of the major arguments and philosophers in the idealist tradition. Idealism is philosophy on a grand scale, combining microscopic and macroscopic problems into systematic accounts of everything from the nature of the universe to the particulars of human feeling. In consequence, it offers perspectives on everything from the natural to the social sciences, from ecology to cultural criticism. Since idealism is sometimes considered anti-science, however, this books places particular emphasis on its naturalism. Written for a broad readership, the book provides the fullest possible introduction to this most philosophical of philosophical movements"--Publisher's description, p. [4] of cover.

Defending the National Interest

Defending the National Interest PDF

Author: Stephen D. Krasner

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2020-10-06

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 0691219516

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Stephen Krasner's assumption of a distinction between state and society is the root of his argument for the superiority of a statist interpretation of American foreign policy. Here he challenges the two dominant and rival interpretations of the relationship between state and society: interest group liberalism and Marxism. He contends that the state is an autonomous entity acting on behalf of the national interest, and that state behavior cannot be explained by group or class interest. On the basis of fifteen case studies drawn from extensive public records and published literature on American raw materials policy in the twentieth-century, Professor Krasner provides empirical substance to the debate about the meaning of the "national interest," the importance of bureaucratic politics, and the influence of business on American foreign policy.

The Cambridge Companion to German Idealism

The Cambridge Companion to German Idealism PDF

Author: Karl Ameriks

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017-08-24

Total Pages: 433

ISBN-13: 1107147840

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Comprehensive and incisive, with three new chapters, this updated edition sees world-renowned scholars explore a rich and complex philosophical movement.

All Or Nothing

All Or Nothing PDF

Author: Paul W. Franks

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2005-10-30

Total Pages: 462

ISBN-13: 9780674018884

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Interest in German Idealism--not just Kant, but Fichte and Hegel as well--has recently developed within analytic philosophy, which traditionally defined itself in opposition to the Idealist tradition. Yet one obstacle remains especially intractable: the Idealists' longstanding claim that philosophy must be systematic. In this work, the first overview of the German Idealism that is both conceptual and methodological, Paul W. Franks offers a philosophical reconstruction that is true to the movement's own times and resources and, at the same time, deeply relevant to contemporary thought. At the center of the book are some neglected but critical questions about German Idealism: Why do Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel think that philosophy's main task is the construction of a system? Why do they think that every part of this system must derive from a single, immanent and absolute principle? Why, in short, must it be all or nothing? Through close examination of the major Idealists as well as the overlooked figures who influenced their reading of Kant, Franks explores the common ground and divergences between the philosophical problems that motivated Kant and those that, in turn, motivated the Idealists. The result is a characterization of German Idealism that reveals its sources as well as its pertinence--and its challenge--to contemporary philosophical naturalism.

Who's Afraid of Idealism?

Who's Afraid of Idealism? PDF

Author: Luis M. Augusto

Publisher:

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780761832973

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In Who's Afraid of Idealism the philosophical concept of idealism, the extent to which reality is mind-made, is examined in new light. Author Luis Augusto explores epistemological idealism, which is at the source of all other kinds of idealism, from the viewpoints of Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Nietzsche, two philosophers who spent a large part of their lives denigrating the very concept. Working from Kant and Nietzsche's viewpoints that idealism was a scandal to philosophy and the cause of nihilism, Augusto evaluates these philosophers and their role in shaping epistemological idealism. Using textual evidence from their writings and their reactions to western philosophers such as Plato, Descartes, and Hegel's, Who's Afraid of Idealism? argues that in fact Kant and Nietzsche were really idealists at heart. In accessible prose, this text puts forward a theory that goes against current scholarly opinion, and even Kant and Nietzsche's opinions of themselves.

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