Social action and human nature -

Axel Honneth, Hans Joas

Cambridge

1988

208 páginas

6h 56m

ISBN-10: 0521339359

In his preface to this new translation, Charles Taylor discusses the role of philosophical anthropology in examining assumptions about human beings which underlie the methods of other disciplines, such as psychology and sociology. Professor Taylor sees wide-ranging consequences in this discussion, not only for contemporary intellectual debate, but also for public policy and accepted images of human life. Honneth and Joas begin with a critique of Marxian theory, which is especially sensitive to issues in the new social movements, ecological, and feminist. They then discuss the work of writers such as Gehlen and Plessner, who are largely unknown in the English-speaking world but have written provocatively on exactly the issues now being debated in Britain and America. The authors conclude by examining the possibilities and risks of three types of historical anthropology through the work of Elias, Foucault and Habermas. The book has been revised for its English edition and will be of interest to a wide range of students in philosophy, social theory, and the social sciences generally.