The Geography of Good and Evil: Philosophical Investigations (Crosscurrents (ISI Books)) - Softcover

Kinneging, Andreas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1610170040 ISBN 13: 9781610170048

Publisher: ISI Books, 2011

Synopsis

Do good and evil exist? Absolutely.

In this bracing book, the eminent Dutch philosopher Andreas Kinneging turns fashionable thinking on its head, revealing how good and evil are objective, universal, and unchanging—and how they must be rediscovered in our age.

In mapping the geography of good and evil, Kinneging reclaims, and reintroduces us to, the great tradition of ancient and Christian thought. Traditional wisdom enables us to address the eternal questions of good and evil that confront us in both public and private life. Though it is common to accept uncritically the blessings of modernity and its intellectual sources, the Enlightenment and Romanticism, Kinneging shows that traditional thinking is richer and more realistic. Indeed, we see how, in more than a few respects, the Enlightenment and Romanticism brought not progress but deterioration.

Kinneging skillfully reformulates and defends the insights of traditional thinking for today’s readers, demonstrating how an objective morality is to be understood and how we can know what morality demands of us. At a time when the traditional virtues have practically disappeared from our language (that is, all but one—“tolerance”), he lays out the foundations of virtue and vice. Ultimately, Kinneging reveals the lasting significance of these seemingly archaic notions—to our own lives, to our families, to our culture, and to civilization.

This profound, award-winning work establishes Andreas Kinneging as one of our wisest moral philosophers.

“Shows with utmost clarity the virtue of intellectual courage . . . A brilliant model for sallies against our dark age.”—The Intercollegiate Review

“[Kinneging is] leader of a conservative intellectual revival in the Netherlands.” —New York Times Magazine

About this title

Book Description:

Do good and evil exist?

Not according to fashionable thinking in the Western world. The typical modern view holds that good and evil are merely subjective judgments, figments of the mind.

But in this bracing book, the eminent Dutch philosopher Andreas Kinneging turns such thinking on its head. Good and evil, he declares, are objective, universal, and unchanging. They are not to be invented, but must be discovered—or, in our age, rediscovered.

In mapping the geography of good and evil, Kinneging reclaims, and reintroduces us to, the great tradition of ancient and Christian thought. That tradition is not merely of historical interest; it is of direct existential interest to us all. Traditional wisdom enables us to address the eternal questions of good and evil that confront us in both public and private life. Though it is common to accept uncritically the blessings of modernity and its intellectual sources, the Enlightenment and Romanticism, Kinneging shows that traditional thinking is richer and more realistic. Indeed, we see how, in more than a few respects, the Enlightenment and Romanticism brought not progress but deterioration.

Kinneging skillfully reformulates and defends the insights of traditional thinking for today’s readers, demonstrating how an objective morality is to be understood and how we can know what morality demands of us. At a time when the traditional virtues have practically disappeared from our language (that is, all but one—“tolerance”), he lays out the foundations of virtue and vice. Ultimately, Kinneging reveals the lasting significance of these seemingly archaic notions—to our own lives, to our families, to our culture, and to civilization.

ISI Books is proud to present the first English translation of this profound, award-winning work. The Geography of Good and Evil establishes Andreas Kinneging as one of our wisest and most insightful moral philosophers.

About the Author:

Andreas Kinneging holds the Chair in Legal Philosophy at the Law Faculty of the University of Leiden (Netherlands). He is the editor of a new, three-volume English edition of Nicolai Hartmann’s Ethics, and most recently he edited a book on the future of the European Union titled Rethinking Europe’s Constitution. The Dutch edition of The Geography of Good and Evil was awarded the Socrates prize in 2006 as the best Dutch book in the field of philosophy.

About this edition

• Publisher: ISI Books
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1610170040
• ISBN 13: 9781610170048
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 298