America and the Political Philosophy of Common Sense
- ISBN-10
- 0826218733
- ISBN-13
- 9780826218735
- Category
- Political Science
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2009-12-01
- Publisher
- University of Missouri
- Author
- Scott Philip Segrest
Description
From Aristotle to Thomas Jefferson, seminal thinkers have declared “common sense” essential for moral discernment and civilized living. Yet the story of commonsense philosophy is not well known today. In America and the Political Philosophy of Common Sense, Scott Segrest traces the history and explores the personal and social meaning of common sense as understood especially in American thought and as reflected specifically in the writings of three paradigmatic thinkers: John Witherspoon, James McCosh, and William James. The first two represent Scottish Common Sense and the third, Pragmatism, the schools that together dominated American higher thought for nearly two centuries. Educated Americans of the founding period warmly received Scottish Common Sense, Segrest writes, because it reflected so well what they already thought, and he uncovers the basic elements of American common sense in examining the thought of Witherspoon, who introduced that philosophy to them. With McCosh, he shows the furthest development and limits of the philosophy, and with it of American common sense in its Scottish realist phase. With James, he shows other dimensions of common sense that Americans had long embraced but that had never been examined philosophically. Clearly, Segrest’s work is much more than an intellectual history. It is a study of the American mind and of common sense itself—its essential character and its human significance, both moral and political. It was common sense, he affirms, that underlay the Declaration of Independence and the founders’ ideas of right and obligation that are still with us today. Segrest suggests that understanding this foundation and James’s refreshing of it could be the key to maintaining America’s vital moral core against a growing alienation from common sense across the Western world. Stressing the urgency of understanding and preserving common sense, Segrest’s work sheds new light on an undervalued aspect of American thought and experience, helping us to perceive the ramifications of commonsense philosophy for dignified living.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2009-12-01
- 304 pages
- Ebook
- University of Missouri Press
Similar books
-
Digital Cities: The Internet and the Geography of Opportunity
By Karen Mossberger, Caroline J. Tolbert, William W. FrankoTimberlake, Jeffrey M., AaronJ. Howell, and Amanda Staight. 2011. “Trends in the Suburbaniza— tion of Racial/ Ethnic Groups in U.S. Metropolitan Areas, ...
-
TVA and the Tellico Dam, 1936-1979: A Bureaucratic Crisis in Post-industrial America
By William Bruce Wheeler, Michael J. McDonaldFor example , on January 12 , 1972 , the newly - formed Timberlake Advising Boardcomposed of people from TVA , Boeing , various state agencies , and local ...
-
Encyclopedia of U.S. Political History
By Andrew Robertson, Michael A. Morrison, William G. ShadeIn 1816, Margaret married John Timberlake, a ship's purser in the U.S. Navy, but her conduct continued to be criticized. According to local gossip, ...
-
Drug Control Policy: Essays in Historical and Comparative Perspective
By William O. WalkerClark, Deliver Us From Evil, 218-23; Bonnie and Whitebread, The Marihuana Conviction, 5-15, 28, 32-45; Timberlake, Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, ...
-
Economic Politics in the United States: The Costs and Risks of Democracy
By William R. KeechNor was it to actasa centralized depository, an officeof discountfor commercialbanks, ora lender of last resort” (Timberlake 1978, p. 4).
-
Milton Friedman
By William RugerRichard Timberlake likewise thought Friedman was a “scintillating teacher” (Timberlake 1999, 22). Finally, Becker noted that “no course had anywhere near ...
-
The Libertarian Illusion: Ideology, Public Policy and the Assault on the Common Good
By William E. HudsonIdeology, Public Policy and the Assault on the Common Good William E. Hudson ... 191 Timberlake, Justin, 88 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 26 Townsend, Francis, ...
-
Taxing Choice: The Predatory Politics of Fiscal Discrimination
By William Shughart IIKrauss, Melvyn B., and Edward P. Lazear, eds. 1991. Searching for Alternatives: Drug-Control ... Paul, Randolph E. 1954. ... Timberlake, James, H. 1963.
-
A Short History of American Industrial Policies
By William R. NesterRichard H. Timberlake, The Origins of Central Banking in the United States ... Industrial Policy, and Rational Ignorance,” in Claude E. Barfield and William ...
-
The Boiling Point
By Todd WerdebaughIt 's like when someone judges you that way, and I know it 's because I 'm ... the one 's they judge and criticize have to deal with the pain they cause?