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  Aristotle's Politics: Living Well and Living Together

  Eugene Garver

  “Man is a political animal,” Aristotle asserts near the beginning of the Politics. In this novel reading of one of the foundational texts of political philosophy, Eugene Garver traces the surprising implications of Aristotle’s claim and explores the treatise’s relevance to ongoing political concerns. Often dismissed as overly grounded in Aristotle’s specific moment in time, in fact the Politics challenges contemporary understandings of human action and allows us to better see ourselves today. Close examination of Aristotle’s treatise, Garver finds, reveals a significant, practical role for philosophy to play in politics. Philosophers present arguments about issues—such as the right and the good, justice and modes of governance, the relation between the good person and the good citizen, and the character of a good life—that politicians must then make appealing to their fellow citizens. Completing Garver’s trilogy on Aristotle’s unique vision, Aristotle’s Politics yields new ways of thinking about ethics and politics, ancient and modern.

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  Confronting Aristotle's Ethics: Ancient and Modern Morality

  Eugene Garver

  What is the good life? Posing this question today would likely elicit very different answers. Some might say that the good life means doing good - improving one's community and the lives of others. Others might respond that it means doing well - cultivating one's own abilities in a meaningful way. But for Aristotle these two distinct ideas - doing good and doing well - were one and the same and could be realized in a single life. In Confronting Aristotle's Ethics, Eugene Garver examines how we can draw this conclusion from Aristotle's works, while also studying how this conception of the good life relates to contemporary ideas ofmorality. The key to Aristotle's views on ethics, argues Garver, lies in the Metaphysics or, more specifically, in his thoughts on activities, actions, and capacities. For Aristotle, Garver shows, it is only possible to be truly active when acting for the common good, and it is only possible to be truly happy when active to the extent of one's own powers. But does this mean we should aspire to Aristotle's impossibly demanding vision of the good life? In a word, no. Garver stresses the enormous gap between life in Aristotle's time and ours. As a result, this book will be a welcome rumination on not only Aristotle, but the relationship between the individual and society in everyday life.

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  Poetics and Rhetoric

  Aristotle . and Eugene Garver

  It is no exaggeration to say that all Western literary criticism flows from Aristotle. In the Poetics he focuses mainly on drama, especially tragedy, and introduces ideas that are still being debated more than two thousand years later. Among them is the often misunderstood theory of the unities of action, place, and time, as well as such concepts as: art as a form of imitation, and drama as an imitation of human actions; plot as a drama’s central element, and "reversal” and "recognition” as important elements within a plot; and the purging of pity and fear from the audience as the function of tragedy. Rather than offer these ideas merely as abstract theories, Aristotle applies them in cogent analyses of the classic Greek dramas—the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. In the Rhetoric, Aristotle turns to the principles of persuasive writing, including argumentation and the logical development of proof, appeals to emotion, and matters of delivery and style. Perhaps most essentially, Aristotle teaches us how to engage in the central civic activities of accusing and defending, recommending policies, and proving and refuting ideas. These two foundational works are key documents for understanding the culture and politics of Western civilization, and how they continue to evolve today.

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  For the Sake of Argument: Practical Reasoning, Character, and the Ethics of Belief

  Eugene Garver

  Eugene Garver considers the relationship between thought and character. He demonstrates how acts of deliberation and persuasion foster friendship between individuals, leading to common action and diversity

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  The Heart of What Matters: The Role for Literature in Moral Philosophy

  Anthony Cunningham

  This work aims to show that literature has a powerful role to play in understanding life's ethical problems. It offers a critique of Kantian ethics, which has enjoyed a preeminent place in moral philosophy in the United States, arguing that it does not do justice to the reality of our lives.

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  Pluralism in Theory and Practice: Richard McKeon and American Philosophy

  Eugene Garver and Richard Buchanan

  Unknown to many, unintelligible to some, Richard McKeon (1900-1985) is considered by those familiar with his work to be among the most important of all twentieth-century philosophers. In a career that spanned seven decades, McKeon published eleven books and more than 150 articles, inspired and intimidated generations of students (among them Richard Rorty, Wayne Booth, and Paul Goodman), and received most of the honors available to an American philosopher. As a teacher and administrator at the University of Chicago, he was instrumental in founding its general education program and initiating the first interdisciplinary program in the humanities. His achievements outside the university included a major part in developing the first cultural and philosophical projects of UNESCO. Fearsome in the classroom, he is renowned for his scholarly brilliance; the problems he thought important, however, did not occupy his colleagues' attention. Ironically, they are now the very issues that present-day philosophers grapple with, namely pluralism, the relationship of philosophy to the history of philosophy, rhetoric and philosophy, the diversity of culture, and the problems of communication and community. Pluralism in Theory and Practice not only brings McKeon to the attention of contemporary philosophers and students; it also puts his theories into practice. Some of the essays explicate aspects of McKeon's thought or situate him in the context of American intellectual and practical engagement. Others take the concerns he raised as starting points for inquiries into urgent contemporary problems, or, in some cases, for reexamining McKeon's work as fertile ground for shaping the direction of new investigation.

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  Aristotle's Rhetoric: An Art of Character

  Eugene Garver

  In this major contribution to philosophy and rhetoric, Eugene Garver shows how Aristotle integrates logic and virtue in his great treatise, the Rhetoric. He raises and answers a central question: can there be a civic art of rhetoric, an art that forms the character of citizens? By demonstrating the importance of the Rhetoric for understanding current philosophical problems of practical reason, virtue, and character, Garver has written the first work to treat the Rhetoric as philosophy and to connect its themes with parallel problems in Aristotle's Ethics and Politics. Garver's study will help put rhetoric at the center of investigations of practice and practical reason.

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  Machiavelli and the History of Prudence

  Eugene Garver