The Social Philosophers: Community and Conflict in Western Thought - Softcover

Nisbet, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 160618038X ISBN 13: 9781606180389

Publisher: The American Philosophical Society Press, 2025

Synopsis

Western ideas of moral authority, freedom, consensus, and personality emerge from humankind’s search for community

In this provocative, classic, absorbing work of social and intellectual history, Robert Nisbet advances the idea that Western social philosophy arose during the disintegration of the ancient Greek and Roman communities, and has been preoccupied ever since with the problem of community lost and community to be gained. He further contends that Western ideas of moral authority, freedom, consensus, and personality take on their distinctive character when viewed through the lens of humankind’s search for community.

Much of the book’s originality lies in its organization. Nisbet distinguishes six major types of community in Western life and thought: military, political, religious, revolutionary, ecological, and plural. Each of these is presented as a continuing current in Western history and as a vital context to the central ideas of social philosophy. From Plato and Aristotle down to such modern thinkers as Marx, Tocqueville, Weber, Kropotkin, and Fanon, we are able to see the dominant ideas and perspectives of Western thought as responses to conflicts and crises―above all, to those affecting humankind’s quest for community. Written by one of America’s best-known historical sociologists, and with a new foreword by Luke Sheahan, The Social Philosophers will be of interest to the student as well as the general reader.

About this title

About the Authors

Robert Nisbet (1913–1996), a former Guggenheim fellow and member of the American Philosophical Society, was the author
of many books, among them The Quest for Community: A Study in the Ethics of Order and Freedom; Social Change and History; The Present Age: Progress and Anarchy in Modern America; and The Making of Modern Society.

Luke C. Sheahan is Associate Professor of Political Science at Duquesne University and Senior Affiliate in the Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society (PRRUCS) at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Why Associations Matter: The Case for First Amendment Pluralism.

Edition details

• Publisher: The American Philosophical Society Press
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 160618038X
• ISBN 13: 9781606180389
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 440