David Lovekin

Moral Philosophy and Moral Education

Philosophy

“I recommend Thora Bayer's Moral Philosophy and Moral Education for publication. It can be viewed as a companion piece to D. P. Verene's Moral Philosophy and the Modern World and Metaphysics and the Modern World, both published by Cascade Books. Bayer's book is based on Giambattista Vico's premise that the true is the made and that human making first began in the literatures of the ancients. Vico's ideal of education entails a grasp of the totality of this making. Ernst Cassirer echoes this view with the aide of Kant and Hegel (and the entire history of philosophy) to see culture as the work of spirit-making symbols from objects that reveal the labor of the self, which begins in myths. Thus, education requires a grasp of the totality of this making where symbols attempt harmony in difference for the good of the individuals and of the whole community. Morality, education, and culture, historically grasped, combine in universals expressing the individuals that maintain them and that keep the barbarians of reason bereft of imagination at the gate.”

The Political Illusion

Ethics, Culture & Social Issues

“The Political Illusion completed Ellul's trinity of social criticism that includes The Technological Society and Propaganda. On this 50th anniversary of the book's publication, his insight still holds strong that politics is no longer possible as the free pursuit of external goals to support the general good.”