A sustained reflection on philosopher John William Miller and the metaphysical presuppositions and implications of democracy.The ancient antagonism between the active and the contemplative lives is taken up in this innovative and wide-ranging examination of John William Miller's effort to forge a metaphysics of democracy. The Active Life sheds new light on Miller's actualist philosophy-its scope, its systematic character, and its dialectical form. Michael J. McGandy persuasively sets Miller's actualism in the context of Hannah Arendt's understanding of the active life and skillfully presents actualism as a response to Whitman's challenge to craft a democratic form of metaphysics. McGandy concludes that Miller reveals how the philosophical and the political are inextricably connected, how there is no active life without the contemplative life, and that the contemplative life is founded in the active life.
Michael J. McGandy is Associate Managing Editor for Norton Professional Books.
PrefaceList of Abbreviations Introduction: The Active and Contemplative Lives 1. A Metaphysics of Democracy? 1.1 Senses of Democracy1.2 America's Antimetaphysical Tradition1.3 Rorty's Challenge1.4 Miller's Antimetaphysical Sympathies1.5 Revisions of Metaphysics and History1.6 Reinvigorating Criticism1.7 Conclusion 2. Action 2.1 The Disclosure of Action2.2 Dialectic and Definition2.3 Dialectic and Action2.4 Action as Constructive2.5 Conclusion 3. Symbol 3.1 Symbolic Environment3.2 The Midworld: Signs and Symbols3.3 The Midworld: Symbols and Artifacts3.4 Interpretation3.5 Res Publicae3.6 Conclusion 4. History 4.1 History as Constitutional4.2 Fate, Demonry, Nemesis4.3 Conflict, Revision, Action4.4 Reflection and Autonomy4.5 History and Philosophy4.6 Conclusion 5. Democracy 5.1 The Metaphysics of Morals5.2 Liberal Democracy5.3 The State: Universality and Process5.4 Democracy and Philosophy5.5 Conclusion Epilogue: The Scholar and the Citizen NotesReferencesIndex