Background Practices: Essays on the Understanding of Being

by Hubert L. Dreyfus, Mark A. Wrathall (Editor)

This volume presents a selection of Hubert Dreyfus's pioneering work in bringing phenomenology and existentialism to bear on the philosophical and scientific study of the mind. Each of the thirteen essays interprets, develops, and extends the insights of his predecessors working in the European philosophical tradition. One of Dreyfus' central contributions to reading the historical canon of philosophy comes from his recognition that great philosophers help us to understand the "background practices" of a culture - the practices that shape and embody our most basic understanding of ourselves and the things and situations we encounter in our world. Background practices are all too often overlooked completely, or else their importance is misunderstood. Each chapter in this volume shows in one way or another how a broad range of philosophical topics can only be properly understood when we recognize how they are grounded in the background practices that shape our lives and give
meaning to our activities, our tasks, our normative commitments, our aims and our goals.

Genres: Philosophy

270 pages, Hardcover

Published August 22, 2017

About the author

Hubert Lederer Dreyfus was professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where his interests include phenomenology, existentialism, the philosophy of psychology and literature, and the philosophical implications of artificial intelligence.

Reviews

[Elaine]

chapter 2

[no · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic collection of essays. Dreyfus continues to be my favorite interpreter of Heidegger.

[Angus Mancini-Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essays number 13, and 14 hav been super helpful in relation to my thesis. Honestly all of part IV.

RIP Dreyfus.