What do you think?
Rate this book
Not Thinking like a Liberal
In a compelling meditation on the ideas that shape our lives, one of the world’s most provocative and creative philosophers explains how his eccentric early years influenced his lifelong critique of liberalism.
Liberalism is so amorphous and pervasive that for most people in the West it is background noise, the natural state of affairs. But there are nooks and crannies in every society where the prevailing winds don’t blow. Raymond Geuss grew up some distance from the cultural mainstream and recounts here the unusual perspective he one in which liberal capitalism was synonymous with moral emptiness and political complacency.
Not Thinking like a Liberal is a concise tour of diverse intellectual currents―from the Counter-Reformation and communism to pragmatism and critical theory―that shaped Geuss’s skeptical stance toward liberalism. The bright young son of a deeply Catholic steelworker, Geuss was admitted in 1959 to an unusual boarding school on the outskirts of Philadelphia. Outside was Eisenhower’s America. Inside Geuss was schooled by Hungarian priests who tried to immunize students against the twin dangers of oppressive communism and vapid liberal capitalism. From there Geuss went on to university in New York in the early days of the Vietnam War and to West Germany, where critical theory was experiencing a major revival.
This is not a repeatable journey. In tracing it, Geuss reminds us of the futility of abstracting lessons from context and of seeking a universal view from nowhere. At the same time, he examines the rise and fall of major political theories of the past sixty years. An incisive thinker attuned to both the history and the future of ideas, Geuss looks beyond the horrors of authoritarianism and the shallow freedom of liberalism to glimpse a world of genuinely new possibilities.
Liberalism is so amorphous and pervasive that for most people in the West it is background noise, the natural state of affairs. But there are nooks and crannies in every society where the prevailing winds don’t blow. Raymond Geuss grew up some distance from the cultural mainstream and recounts here the unusual perspective he one in which liberal capitalism was synonymous with moral emptiness and political complacency.
Not Thinking like a Liberal is a concise tour of diverse intellectual currents―from the Counter-Reformation and communism to pragmatism and critical theory―that shaped Geuss’s skeptical stance toward liberalism. The bright young son of a deeply Catholic steelworker, Geuss was admitted in 1959 to an unusual boarding school on the outskirts of Philadelphia. Outside was Eisenhower’s America. Inside Geuss was schooled by Hungarian priests who tried to immunize students against the twin dangers of oppressive communism and vapid liberal capitalism. From there Geuss went on to university in New York in the early days of the Vietnam War and to West Germany, where critical theory was experiencing a major revival.
This is not a repeatable journey. In tracing it, Geuss reminds us of the futility of abstracting lessons from context and of seeking a universal view from nowhere. At the same time, he examines the rise and fall of major political theories of the past sixty years. An incisive thinker attuned to both the history and the future of ideas, Geuss looks beyond the horrors of authoritarianism and the shallow freedom of liberalism to glimpse a world of genuinely new possibilities.
224 pages, Hardcover
Published May 31, 2022
19 people are currently reading
331 people want to read
About the author
Raymond Geuss
49 books85 followersRaymond Geuss, Emeritus Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Cambridge, is a political philosopher and scholar of 19th and 20th century European philosophy.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
January 10, 2024
I think I came across this book "Not thinking like a liberal" (Harvard University Press, 2022) by Raymond Geuss (Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge) thanks to a favorable review in the Jacobin mag.
First, I didn't quite get what the book was trying to do, like apropos what? But then it's been an inspiring read to say the least (like much of art, I had to just take it in as a whole first without really 'understanding what this was about', step away a little, look at it again and 'let it work').
Bigger picture: western liberal democracy is not the end of history - quite the contrary, it's being challenged from many directions, most promising challengers are various right wing authoritarian projects. The key obstacle to forming a progressive alternative is precisely the political elite's inability to see beyond liberalism, decrying any alternative (or even discussion thereof) as authoritarian. The best example is probably the global financial crisis of 2008 which was a direct effect of the application of liberal doctrines to the banking system. The only remedies liberals seem to have in their medicine chest to prevent a recurrence of such a crisis seem toothless to the point of absurdity since they are trapped in the liberal bind.
Anyway, a few take-aways:
#1 Important to overcome the false dichotomy (there is no alternative) of liberalism and authoritarianism. There's a world beyond the liberal consensus (and linked elite discourse) that is not authoritarian. Geuss insists that a person can be simultaneously nonliberal and antiauthoritarian. The book is an attempt to paint a picture of this form of life and set of beliefs (not liberal, non-authoritarian) which is not just possible, but which actually existed (see #2).
#2 Unlike the usual philosophical way of arguing through refutation etc, this is more of a biographical and ethnographical account of a broader political philosophy argument or rather 'offer'. The book is not intended as a critique of liberal theory, let alone of its political and economic institutions (there are plenty already). Its main goal is to provide an (autobiographical) ethnological account drawing attention to both an individual life and forms of life that are non liberal. The book doesn't try to claim the one and only truth but a suggestion to overcome the fallacy of liberalism. So, already major points for this rather unusual approach which I love.
#3 So then Geuss takes us on a journey through his life and the teachers that formed his way of thinking. It starts with his upbringing in a catholic boarding school, where the catholic teachers were anti-liberal in their conviction that “not all opinions, values, tastes, or lifestyle choices should be tolerated.” While for many liberals (and me!) that kind of Catholic proscription is alarming, Geuss argues that it shouldn’t be as liberals draw the line too (without saying so). The difference is that while Catholics have always understood that some things must be proscribed, liberal thinkers have to justify policies that restrict expression without calling them restrictions. Don't get me wrong, Geuss is not a catholic and is not arguing in favour of Catholic morality but he sees this particular nonliberal upbringing as a way that 'inoculated' him against falling for the liberal flawed concept of freedom. I am not going to reproduce the whole trajectory here but one can see how this leads to Adorno's critique of the “liberal fiction” that truth is universally communicable and also rejecting "slightly deviant forms of liberalism like that proposed in numerous works by Habermas, who abandons the traditional concept of the sovereign subject, but still bases his view on some particularly naive ideas about idealized free discussion and on a baroque theory of consensus.”
#4 I think more than anything, the increasingly authoritarian (and militaristic) character of neoliberalism post global financial crisis - that presents itself without alternative- is what is driving an authoritarian reaction among growing parts of society outside liberal elite circles debates which are increasingly out of touch with reality. I know this is a problematic statement but looking at the magnitude of problems at hand - climate change, unprecedented levels of inequality, global wars, displacement, hunger and other crises - the policy offers by western political leaders seem absurd and seem to only ensure status quo and ever widening inequality, with the growing class of billionaires losing their minds on how to spend their cash.
#5 The book doesn't (and doesn't want to) offer a non-liberal and non-authoritarian counter proposal because a) it doesn't have to, Adorno "Not only could the demand for a “clear result” be a form of repression, but the same could be true of the relentless requirement that a critic present “something positive” or a “positive alternative” to the state of affairs being criticized. It was part of a strategy for the defense of the status quo. To insist that anyone who criticized existing conditions must have a clear, easily formulable proposal for something to replace it, was to impose on the critic an inappropriately severe demand"
#6 and b) it already exists; call it democratic socialism, call it 21st century socialism whatever (some use the language of Green New Deal) - we must be very, very clear about one point only: it's not for lack of ideas, proposals and political leaders and organizations we are stuck with the status quo (which is a sinking ship) but because those who benefit from the status quo prevent any alternative from emerging, conveniently hiding behind liberal ideas thus garnering the support of the educated elites who tend to dominate western democracies (ie selling fighter jets to Saudi Arabia in the name of freedom - you can't make this crap up).
#7 Most importantly, and beautifully, the book calls for two things: a real openness to engage with ideas outside the mainstream (while liberals proclaim freedom of expression, they tend to clamp down incredibly harshly outside the sanctioned liberal discourse) and action without hope: "Don’t dawdle in the rut of results" - as an injunction to disconnect action from dependency on results. To the extent to which this is possible, action without hope is too. People can lose their motivation to act for all kinds of peculiar reasons, and it is perfectly possible that people who convince themselves that the pointlessness of an action is a reason to abstain from it will not be motivated to perform it, but that is because of what they have persuaded themselves to believe about action. It is by no means necessary to adopt this demotivating attitude. We have, I think, no choice but to act because of the people we are. ❤️
First, I didn't quite get what the book was trying to do, like apropos what? But then it's been an inspiring read to say the least (like much of art, I had to just take it in as a whole first without really 'understanding what this was about', step away a little, look at it again and 'let it work').
Bigger picture: western liberal democracy is not the end of history - quite the contrary, it's being challenged from many directions, most promising challengers are various right wing authoritarian projects. The key obstacle to forming a progressive alternative is precisely the political elite's inability to see beyond liberalism, decrying any alternative (or even discussion thereof) as authoritarian. The best example is probably the global financial crisis of 2008 which was a direct effect of the application of liberal doctrines to the banking system. The only remedies liberals seem to have in their medicine chest to prevent a recurrence of such a crisis seem toothless to the point of absurdity since they are trapped in the liberal bind.
Anyway, a few take-aways:
#1 Important to overcome the false dichotomy (there is no alternative) of liberalism and authoritarianism. There's a world beyond the liberal consensus (and linked elite discourse) that is not authoritarian. Geuss insists that a person can be simultaneously nonliberal and antiauthoritarian. The book is an attempt to paint a picture of this form of life and set of beliefs (not liberal, non-authoritarian) which is not just possible, but which actually existed (see #2).
#2 Unlike the usual philosophical way of arguing through refutation etc, this is more of a biographical and ethnographical account of a broader political philosophy argument or rather 'offer'. The book is not intended as a critique of liberal theory, let alone of its political and economic institutions (there are plenty already). Its main goal is to provide an (autobiographical) ethnological account drawing attention to both an individual life and forms of life that are non liberal. The book doesn't try to claim the one and only truth but a suggestion to overcome the fallacy of liberalism. So, already major points for this rather unusual approach which I love.
#3 So then Geuss takes us on a journey through his life and the teachers that formed his way of thinking. It starts with his upbringing in a catholic boarding school, where the catholic teachers were anti-liberal in their conviction that “not all opinions, values, tastes, or lifestyle choices should be tolerated.” While for many liberals (and me!) that kind of Catholic proscription is alarming, Geuss argues that it shouldn’t be as liberals draw the line too (without saying so). The difference is that while Catholics have always understood that some things must be proscribed, liberal thinkers have to justify policies that restrict expression without calling them restrictions. Don't get me wrong, Geuss is not a catholic and is not arguing in favour of Catholic morality but he sees this particular nonliberal upbringing as a way that 'inoculated' him against falling for the liberal flawed concept of freedom. I am not going to reproduce the whole trajectory here but one can see how this leads to Adorno's critique of the “liberal fiction” that truth is universally communicable and also rejecting "slightly deviant forms of liberalism like that proposed in numerous works by Habermas, who abandons the traditional concept of the sovereign subject, but still bases his view on some particularly naive ideas about idealized free discussion and on a baroque theory of consensus.”
#4 I think more than anything, the increasingly authoritarian (and militaristic) character of neoliberalism post global financial crisis - that presents itself without alternative- is what is driving an authoritarian reaction among growing parts of society outside liberal elite circles debates which are increasingly out of touch with reality. I know this is a problematic statement but looking at the magnitude of problems at hand - climate change, unprecedented levels of inequality, global wars, displacement, hunger and other crises - the policy offers by western political leaders seem absurd and seem to only ensure status quo and ever widening inequality, with the growing class of billionaires losing their minds on how to spend their cash.
#5 The book doesn't (and doesn't want to) offer a non-liberal and non-authoritarian counter proposal because a) it doesn't have to, Adorno "Not only could the demand for a “clear result” be a form of repression, but the same could be true of the relentless requirement that a critic present “something positive” or a “positive alternative” to the state of affairs being criticized. It was part of a strategy for the defense of the status quo. To insist that anyone who criticized existing conditions must have a clear, easily formulable proposal for something to replace it, was to impose on the critic an inappropriately severe demand"
#6 and b) it already exists; call it democratic socialism, call it 21st century socialism whatever (some use the language of Green New Deal) - we must be very, very clear about one point only: it's not for lack of ideas, proposals and political leaders and organizations we are stuck with the status quo (which is a sinking ship) but because those who benefit from the status quo prevent any alternative from emerging, conveniently hiding behind liberal ideas thus garnering the support of the educated elites who tend to dominate western democracies (ie selling fighter jets to Saudi Arabia in the name of freedom - you can't make this crap up).
#7 Most importantly, and beautifully, the book calls for two things: a real openness to engage with ideas outside the mainstream (while liberals proclaim freedom of expression, they tend to clamp down incredibly harshly outside the sanctioned liberal discourse) and action without hope: "Don’t dawdle in the rut of results" - as an injunction to disconnect action from dependency on results. To the extent to which this is possible, action without hope is too. People can lose their motivation to act for all kinds of peculiar reasons, and it is perfectly possible that people who convince themselves that the pointlessness of an action is a reason to abstain from it will not be motivated to perform it, but that is because of what they have persuaded themselves to believe about action. It is by no means necessary to adopt this demotivating attitude. We have, I think, no choice but to act because of the people we are. ❤️
July 26, 2023
A refreshing but puzzling book.
It was refreshing insofar as the autobiographical informs the philosophical. The author weaves recollections of his own upbringing into the text. This is not merely for ‘human interest’, but to help anchor and justify his views. Those views pivot largely on acknowledging context and contingency, on ‘anthropology’ rather than conventional analytical philosophy with its frameworks and imperatives.
Apart from his “naturally contrarian temperament” Geuss reckons he was fated not to become a liberal thanks to a host of contingent circumstances. These he notes in some detail. Crucial was his secondary schooling under tutelage of non-doctrinaire Catholic refugees from Eastern Europe in the depths of the cold War. They took dim views of liberalism, but even dimmer ones of Stalinism and comparable doctrines. Further, Geuss devotes several illuminating chapters to formative episodes later in life, chiefly as an academic, with other intellectuals who questioned or rejected liberalism.
But the book left me puzzled, or at least left me facing paradoxes. For example, Geuss sees risks in rejecting obscure expression. Following Adorno and Marcuse, he thinks that making things easy to grasp may filter out radical alternatives whereas ‘clear’ expression can confine thought to that compatible with the status quo. Yet I wonder: what would Brecht and other dissenters from the status quo, who communicated with powerful clarity, make of that? (At the same time, Geuss himself takes pains with his prose; he re-states things if he thinks the reader may not follow his writing, which is generally clear and unpretentious.)
Then there's the issue of negativity. Like Adorno, he favours it. Therefore to ask critics for counter-proposals is to make an “inappropriately severe demand” on them. Criticism alone should suffice. But I am left wondering: can such passive aggressiveness make any real difference outside the seminar rooms and lecture halls? Perhaps Geuss’s other books, notably Who Needs a World View?, offer explanations, for they aren’t on offer in Not Thinking Like a Liberal, despite its allusions to the importance of alternatives to liberalism and its “toothless” propositions.
Finally, I was left puzzled by remarks at the very end of this book – a book whose chief bugbear is the exalted notion of the sovereign individual, the cornerstone of liberalism. In the concluding chapter, the chief item on the charge sheet against liberalism turns out to be surveillance – that is, disrespect for the privacy of individuals. Finally, there's the penultimate sentence, which begins "In the end, though, we need to decide what sort of people we wish to be as individuals…” Given that not thinking like a liberal is a main point of this book, the writer chose a peculiar way to end it.
It was refreshing insofar as the autobiographical informs the philosophical. The author weaves recollections of his own upbringing into the text. This is not merely for ‘human interest’, but to help anchor and justify his views. Those views pivot largely on acknowledging context and contingency, on ‘anthropology’ rather than conventional analytical philosophy with its frameworks and imperatives.
Apart from his “naturally contrarian temperament” Geuss reckons he was fated not to become a liberal thanks to a host of contingent circumstances. These he notes in some detail. Crucial was his secondary schooling under tutelage of non-doctrinaire Catholic refugees from Eastern Europe in the depths of the cold War. They took dim views of liberalism, but even dimmer ones of Stalinism and comparable doctrines. Further, Geuss devotes several illuminating chapters to formative episodes later in life, chiefly as an academic, with other intellectuals who questioned or rejected liberalism.
But the book left me puzzled, or at least left me facing paradoxes. For example, Geuss sees risks in rejecting obscure expression. Following Adorno and Marcuse, he thinks that making things easy to grasp may filter out radical alternatives whereas ‘clear’ expression can confine thought to that compatible with the status quo. Yet I wonder: what would Brecht and other dissenters from the status quo, who communicated with powerful clarity, make of that? (At the same time, Geuss himself takes pains with his prose; he re-states things if he thinks the reader may not follow his writing, which is generally clear and unpretentious.)
Then there's the issue of negativity. Like Adorno, he favours it. Therefore to ask critics for counter-proposals is to make an “inappropriately severe demand” on them. Criticism alone should suffice. But I am left wondering: can such passive aggressiveness make any real difference outside the seminar rooms and lecture halls? Perhaps Geuss’s other books, notably Who Needs a World View?, offer explanations, for they aren’t on offer in Not Thinking Like a Liberal, despite its allusions to the importance of alternatives to liberalism and its “toothless” propositions.
Finally, I was left puzzled by remarks at the very end of this book – a book whose chief bugbear is the exalted notion of the sovereign individual, the cornerstone of liberalism. In the concluding chapter, the chief item on the charge sheet against liberalism turns out to be surveillance – that is, disrespect for the privacy of individuals. Finally, there's the penultimate sentence, which begins "In the end, though, we need to decide what sort of people we wish to be as individuals…” Given that not thinking like a liberal is a main point of this book, the writer chose a peculiar way to end it.
February 9, 2024
lovely book and arms you with the resources to claim that it is both possible and reasonable to be antiliberal and antiauthoritarian if one takes a basically Adornian perspective. worth a read because it'll trigger a wide range of responses as he traverses several different periods in his life/thinking. short and sweet and funny. less deflationary than Rorty
October 17, 2022
As someone deeply imbedded in liberal thought, to the point of embodying it, the falseness of liberalism has created a dysfunctional individual. I'm well aware of my wants (at least I think I do) but fear that those wants conflict with the principles of non-interference and suspicion of power that is common in liberal thought.
How can you desire to change the world while respecting the non-interference principle? Power and authority are necessary, yet the legitimacy of both is under question as someone deeply influenced by Wolff's In Defence of Anarchism. To be myself is to be morally objectionable, or alternatively I will just live as a shadow. I can see part of myself in the Calvinist 'Andras' - a gloomy thought considering their fate.
Reading Geuss' book hasn't changed my fundamental beliefs. I still deeply value autonomy, yet it is also clear that my over-valuing of autonomy isn't as rational as I suppose. My liberal mindset also isn't benefiting me, just like it is not clear how liberalism is fulfilling human needs all while debasing the planet we live on.
There are alternatives. I don't have to live by the false dichotomy of liberalism or authoritarianism that pervades our culture. The next question is how?
In all, this was an important book for myself. No doubt the influence of the book hasn't yet been processed. Even though I had no religious upbringing, I did spend time studying with Jehovah's Witnesses and did Theology as part of my BA. This and Geuss' review of the impact of Robert Paul Wolff, who deeply inspired me, made the musings personal to me.
I highly recommend this book, though those who are committed to philosophy being a discipline of argumentation and clearly defined thesis' will get very frustrated with this work.
How can you desire to change the world while respecting the non-interference principle? Power and authority are necessary, yet the legitimacy of both is under question as someone deeply influenced by Wolff's In Defence of Anarchism. To be myself is to be morally objectionable, or alternatively I will just live as a shadow. I can see part of myself in the Calvinist 'Andras' - a gloomy thought considering their fate.
Reading Geuss' book hasn't changed my fundamental beliefs. I still deeply value autonomy, yet it is also clear that my over-valuing of autonomy isn't as rational as I suppose. My liberal mindset also isn't benefiting me, just like it is not clear how liberalism is fulfilling human needs all while debasing the planet we live on.
There are alternatives. I don't have to live by the false dichotomy of liberalism or authoritarianism that pervades our culture. The next question is how?
In all, this was an important book for myself. No doubt the influence of the book hasn't yet been processed. Even though I had no religious upbringing, I did spend time studying with Jehovah's Witnesses and did Theology as part of my BA. This and Geuss' review of the impact of Robert Paul Wolff, who deeply inspired me, made the musings personal to me.
I highly recommend this book, though those who are committed to philosophy being a discipline of argumentation and clearly defined thesis' will get very frustrated with this work.
June 5, 2022
books primary job is to try to convince you of the ultimately contingent nature of judgments and world-views. The target audience seems to me like a specific type of reader that is highly familiar with mainstream liberal academic thought and not at all with old conservative critiques of the view from nowhere or American pragmatism, tripping itself into the exact same self-undermining pitfalls. It neglects argument to focus on a biographical, intellectual account meant to expose the reader to the contingent spatio-temporal relationship the author believes underlies all sound discourse.
Lots to agree with, especially the critique of a dogmatist view in regards to traditional, tropey pol-phi dyads, but felt incredibly disappointing because I think it wrongly ignores the more serious objections to epistemic pragmatism that stem from the philosophy of science, which, although not directly damaging to the points administered at the particular knowledge claims the book takes as its target, do pose gnawing difficulties on the world-view as a whole which I was more interested to see addressed.
It's also fair to note that, as Rorty has already shown, none of this actually implies a break with political liberalism, serving then ultimately as a critique in so far as the reader takes their contingencies as True as opposed to simply desirable or preferable. The lack of any alternative particularly emphasizes this point.
I guess if this book is for you or not depends on your background and the time and place in which you read it.
Wait...
Lots to agree with, especially the critique of a dogmatist view in regards to traditional, tropey pol-phi dyads, but felt incredibly disappointing because I think it wrongly ignores the more serious objections to epistemic pragmatism that stem from the philosophy of science, which, although not directly damaging to the points administered at the particular knowledge claims the book takes as its target, do pose gnawing difficulties on the world-view as a whole which I was more interested to see addressed.
It's also fair to note that, as Rorty has already shown, none of this actually implies a break with political liberalism, serving then ultimately as a critique in so far as the reader takes their contingencies as True as opposed to simply desirable or preferable. The lack of any alternative particularly emphasizes this point.
I guess if this book is for you or not depends on your background and the time and place in which you read it.
Wait...
Read
September 6, 2023- [ ] Arguing against Protestant Sola scriptura. Historical argument was that Luther is completely incorrect that the church rests on scripture, it’s the opposite. Constantine established a council to select and exclude works from the cannon. Through history, what is scripture has rested on what the believers have decided. Also the church operated for three centuries without “Scripture“ before the council Constantine created. Scripture rests on the church. A more fundamental argument was that there is no literal interpretation of the Bible. The Bible is a corpus including even poetry. Why would that be literal. Also, there is no way to “let THE WORD stand on its own” because of the way we understand text. The original is not English so your English translation is already the interpretation of 2 millennia of scholars. That isn’t a bad thing either. Our understanding of things is not innate, it is contingent upon all the elements of your life and times. Without the aid of thousands of years of interpretation by believers, you are severely deprived of meaning. In my opinion, this argument isn’t saying that one should never consciously try to take a step back from the teachings of t he church and try to get some different meaning. But breaking from the church’s interpretation is all that Luther really wants. He is simply a rebel grasping for power and trying to get people to interpret his way.
July 4, 2022
"A certain kind of liberalism is the very air one breathes in most English-speaking countries, where a basic familiarity with Locke and J. S. Mill is very widely shared, and where features of what pass as their basic ideas are so deeply embedded in the political and social institutions and the public discourse that it can be difficult for someone who does not have a slightly deviant social position or education to get an appropriate cognitive distance from them, and thus to see some of their deficiencies for what they are. Adorno in Minima moralia writes that “Der Splitter in deinem Auge ist das beste Vergrößerungsglas” (The piece of grit in your eye is the best magnifying glass). Of course, there is nothing pleasant about having a piece of grit in one’s eye—grit itself is not in any way inherently valuable, and not all bits of grit actually contribute to acuity of vision—but a piece of grit would acquire a contextual importance if it did permit someone to see something it would otherwise be difficult to see. My peculiar Catholic education was such a piece of grit." (42)
October 14, 2024
My reading of works by Geuss continues. This is the third book of his I've read, after 'Real Politics' and 'Worldview.' I have still not tired of his work, and intend to take up 'Critical Theory,' next. What I admire most about Guess, ideas aside (which are fascinating to think with), is his lucid and engaging writing style, even when the subject is difficult and counterintuitive. Something to aspire to.
In this, he explores if it is possible to not think like a liberal in today's world, and what it would take to do so, not only in terms of theoretical viewpoints to adopt, but perhaps more importantly, the circumstances that would enable one to really do so in the first place. He uses his own personal history as the basis of this exploration, so on a surface level, this can also just be read as a fairly entertaining memoir.
If anything, this book has shown me how hard it is to actually not think like a liberal, and it has given me some starting points for identifying the tendency in other works, including my own.
In this, he explores if it is possible to not think like a liberal in today's world, and what it would take to do so, not only in terms of theoretical viewpoints to adopt, but perhaps more importantly, the circumstances that would enable one to really do so in the first place. He uses his own personal history as the basis of this exploration, so on a surface level, this can also just be read as a fairly entertaining memoir.
If anything, this book has shown me how hard it is to actually not think like a liberal, and it has given me some starting points for identifying the tendency in other works, including my own.
Read
June 12, 2022Somehow I am always entranced by specific lines and paragraphs and yet totally unmoved by his books as a whole. score one for ideology.
July 22, 2022
On the re-read pile. Completely engaging and fascinating, but not a simple read. Many resonances.
August 19, 2022
Really liked the autobiographical element. Nice quick read for someone who is fairly familiar with Geuss’s work.
January 16, 2024
Great book. Reads like a story. Well, actually is a story.
February 6, 2023
Cambridge philosopher thinks that maybe the individual is not sovereign and maybe rational debate is not always the solution
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews