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Practical Intellect and Substantial Deliberation

In Seeking an Expressive Notion of Rationality

  • Book
  • © 2018

Overview

Authors:
  1. Cheng Yuan

    1. Department of Philosophy, Capital Normal University, Beijing, China

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  • Explores the fundamental philosophical questions on the self-world rational relationship without conforming to academic stereotypes

  • Presents a significant diagnosis of various forms of intellectualism (philosophical, epistemic, moral, etc.), which critically evaluates today’s pervasively reflective-intellectual culture

  • Makes any detached notion of rationality and formalized understanding of human intellect highly problematic, which can potentially inspire to the current debate over artificial intelligence

  • Involves various fields of study and philosophical literature from ancient to contemporary, tightly connected by an ongoing theme

  • Uses everyday cases, metaphors, folk stories and references to movies and literature, making the arguments more penetrating and appealing for a broad readership

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Table of contents (6 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxvii
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  2. Plan, Rationality, and Self-Orientation (Selbstorientierung)

    • Cheng Yuan
    Pages 1-22

  3. Performing Deliberation

    • Cheng Yuan
    Pages 23-48

  4. Sensitive Perception, Stable Disposition and Deliberation: Starting from “Virtue Is Knowledge”

    • Cheng Yuan
    Pages 49-88

  5. Deliberative Emotion

    • Cheng Yuan
    Pages 89-120

  6. Animal Rationale: Revised Reading

    • Cheng Yuan
    Pages 121-172

  7. Rationality as Architecture and/or Music-Playing

    • Cheng Yuan
    Pages 173-182

  8. Back Matter

    Pages 183-189
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Keywords

About this book

This book presents an anti-intellectualist view of how the cognitive-mental dimension of human intellect is rooted in and interwoven with our embodied-internal components including emotion, perception, desire, etc., by investigating practical forms of thinking such as deliberation, planning, decision-making, etc. With many thought-provoking statements, the book revises some classical notions of rationality with new interpretation: we are “rational animals”, which means we have both rational capabilities, such as calculation, evaluation, justification, etc., and more animal aspects, like desire, emotion, and the senses. According to the traditional position of rationalism, we use well-grounded reason as the fundamental basis of our actions. But this book argues that we simply perform our practical intellect intuitively and spontaneously, just like playing music. By this the author turns the dominant metaphor of “architecture” in understanding of human rationality to that of “music-playing”. This book presents a groundbreaking and compelling critique of today’s pervasively reflective-intellectual culture, just as Bernard Williams, Charles Taylor and other philosophers diagnose, and makes any detached notion of rationality and formalized understanding of human intellect highly problematic.Methodologically, it not only reconciles the phenomenological-hermeneutic tradition with analytical approaches, but also integrates various theories, such as moral psychology, emotional studies, action theory, decision theory, performativity studies, music philosophy, tacit knowledge, collective epistemology and media theory. Further, its use of everyday cases, metaphors, folk stories and references to movies and literature make the book easy to read and appealing for a broad readership.






Reviews

“I recommend this book enthusiastically to anyone interested in ethics, moral psychology or philosophy of action, comparative philosophy, and Chinese philosophy.” (Zemian Zheng, Dao, Vol. 18, 2019)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Department of Philosophy, Capital Normal University, Beijing, China

    Cheng Yuan

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Practical Intellect and Substantial Deliberation

  • Book Subtitle: In Seeking an Expressive Notion of Rationality

  • Authors: Cheng Yuan

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8651-9

  • Publisher: Springer Singapore

  • eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-981-10-8650-2Published: 22 January 2019

  • eBook ISBN: 978-981-10-8651-9Published: 11 January 2019

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XXVII, 189

  • Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Ethics, Modern Philosophy

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