Life and Action: Elementary Structures of Practice and Practical Thought

Thompson, Michael

ISBN 10: 067401670X / ISBN 13: 9780674016705

Published by Harvard University Press, 2008

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 85F88_85_067401670X

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Life and Action: Elementary Structures of Practice and Practical Thought
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication Date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 067401670X
• ISBN 13: 9780674016705
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

Any sound practical philosophy must be clear on practical concepts―concepts, in particular, of life, action, and practice. This clarity is Michael Thompson’s aim in his ambitious work. In Thompson’s view, failure to comprehend the structures of thought and judgment expressed in these concepts has disfigured modern moral philosophy, rendering it incapable of addressing the larger questions that should be its focus.

In three investigations, Thompson considers life, action, and practice successively, attempting to exhibit these interrelated concepts as pure categories of thought, and to show how a proper exposition of them must be Aristotelian in character. He contends that the pure character of these categories, and the Aristotelian forms of reflection necessary to grasp them, are systematically obscured by modern theoretical philosophy, which thus blocks the way to the renewal of practical philosophy. His work recovers the possibility, within the tradition of analytic philosophy, of hazarding powerful generalities, and of focusing on the larger issues―like “life”―that have the power to revive philosophy.

As an attempt to relocate crucial concepts from moral philosophy and the theory of action into what might be called the metaphysics of life, this original work promises to reconfigure a whole sector of philosophy. It is a work that any student of contemporary philosophy must grapple with.

About the Author

Michael Thompson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh.