Contingencies of Value: Alternative Perspectives for Critical Theory
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- Synopsis
- Polemical without being rancorous, Contingencies of Value mounts a powerful critique of traditional conceptions of value, taste, judgment, and justification. Through incisive discussions of works by, among others, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Northrop Frye, Georges Bataille, Jacques Derrida, Richard Rorty, and Jürgen Habermas, Smith develops an illuminating alternative framework for the explanation of these topics. All value, she argues, is radically contingent. Neither an objective property of things nor merely a subjective response to them, it is the variable effect of numerous interacting economies that is, systems of apportionment and circulation of "goods." Aesthetic value, moral value, and the truth-value of judgments are no exceptions, though traditional critical theory, ethics, and philosophy of language have always tried to prove otherwise. Smith deals in an original way with a wide variety of contemporary issues--from the relation between popular and high culture to the conflicting conception of human motives and actions in economic theory and classical humanism. In an important final chapter, she addresses directly the crucial problem of relativism and explains why a denial of the objectivity of value does not--as commonly feared and charged--produce either a fatuous egalitarianism or moral and political paralysis.
- Copyright:
- 1988
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Excellent
- Book Size:
- 230 Pages
- ISBN-13:
- 9780674167865
- Publisher:
- Harvard University Press
- Date of Addition:
- 10/29/15
- Copyrighted By:
- The President and Fellows of Harvard College
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
- English
- Has Image Descriptions:
- No
- Categories:
- Nonfiction, Philosophy
- Submitted By:
- Worth Trust
- Proofread By:
- Worth Trust
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.