Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation

Jonathan Lear, John U Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and the Department of Philosophy Jonathan Lear

Harvard University Press, 2006 - PHILOSOPHY - 187 pages

Shortly before he died, Plenty Coups, the last great Chief of the Crow Nation, told his storyâe"up to a certain point. âeoeWhen the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground,âe he said, âeoeand they could not lift them up again. After this nothing happened.âe It is precisely this pointâe"that of a people faced with the end of their way of lifeâe"that prompts the philosophical and ethical inquiry pursued in Radical Hope. In Jonathan Learâe(tm)s view, Plenty Coupsâe(tm)s story raises a profound ethical question that transcends his time and challenges us all: how should one face the possibility that oneâe(tm)s culture might collapse?This is a vulnerability that affects us allâe"insofar as we are all inhabitants of a civilization, and civilizations are themselves vulnerable to historical forces. How should we live with this vulnerability? Can we make any sense of facing up to such a challenge courageously? Using the available anthropology and history of the Indian tribes during their confinement to reservations, and drawing on philosophy and psychoanalytic theory, Lear explores the story of the Crow Nation at an impasse as it bears upon these questionsâe"and these questions as they bear upon our own place in the world. His book is a deeply revealing, and deeply moving, philosophical inquiry into a peculiar vulnerability that goes to the heart of the human condition.

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Radical hope: ethics in the face of cultural devastation

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In this very engaging book, Lear (philosophy, Univ. of Chicago) examines the cultural collapse of the tribe of Native Americans known as the Crow Nation. He describes his analysis as a form of ...

Contents

• AFTER THIS NOTHING HAPPENED: 1
• Protecting a Way of Life: 10
• Gambling with Necessity: 21
• Was There a Last Coup?: 26
• Witness to Death: 34
• Subject to Death: 42
• The Possibility of Crow Poetry: 50
• ETHICS AT THE HORIZON: 55
• Reasoning at the Abyss: 56
• A Problem for Moral Psychology: 62
• The Interpretation of Dreams: 66
• Crow Anxiety: 73
• The Virtue of the Chickadee: 80
• The Transformation of Psychological Structure: 82
• Radical Hope: 91
• CRITIQUE OF ABYSMAL REASONING: 3
• Aristotles Method: 8
• Radical Hope versus Mere Optimism: 13
• Courage and Hope: 18
• Virtue and Imagination: 24
• Historical Vindication: 36
• Personal Vindication: 42
• Response to Sitting Bull: 48
• Notes: 57
• Acknowledgments: 79
• Index: 81

About the author

Considered one of the most independent and perceptive analysts of contemporary intellectual culture, Jonathan Lear has authored several thought-provoking works including Aristotle and Logical Theory; Aristotle: The Desire to Understand; Love and Its Place In Nature; A Philosophical Interpretation of Freudian Psychoanalysis; and Open Minded, among others. He is a member of the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago and has been recognized as John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation
• Authors: Jonathan Lear, John U Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and the Department of Philosophy Jonathan Lear
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2006
• ISBN: 0674023293, 9780674023291
• Length: 187 pages
• Subjects: PHILOSOPHY / General; Philosophy / Ethics & Moral Philosophy; Psychology / Movements / Psychoanalysis