Reshaping Reason: Toward a New Philosophy

by John McCumber

In Reshaping Reason, John McCumber advocates new life for American philosophy. At present, McCumber believes, American philosophy is ready to go in new directions, but American philosophers remain hopelessly divided between analytic or Continental approaches. There seems to be no middle ground, and the debate between the two traditions has created indifference to the field, both in wider intellectual culture and among philosophers themselves. Here, McCumber brings together aspects of analytic and Continental philosophy to give, for the first time, a fully temporalized account of reason. He proposes an expanded set of rational tools for reason and with these tools takes a fresh look at key issues in ontology, ethics, and social philosophy. This is a gutsy and ambitious book that not only shows philosophy's achievements and failures in cold light, but suggests how philosophy might become more rigorous and relevant to society at large.

287 pages, ebook

First published September 1, 2007

About the author

John McCumber is a Distinguished Professor and Chair of the UCLA Department of Germanic Languages. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy and Greek from the University of Toronto. Prior to his tenure at UCLA, Prof. McCumber taught at Northwestern University, The Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research, and the University of Michigan–Dearborn.