Self-Construction and the Formation of Human Values: Truth, Language, and Desire - Softcover

Kiros, Teodros

Softcover

ISBN 10: 027597314X ISBN 13: 9780275973148

Publisher: Praeger, 2001

Synopsis

A theoretical defense of the potential of ordinary individuals to empower themselves through the construction of values.|This volume presents a theoretical defense of the potential of ordinary individuals to construct values and through them to become self-empowering, responsible participants in a democratic community. Rather than conceiving of power as domination, the author identifies true power as self-empowerment, a notion based on self-construction. He proposes the vision of an authentically free self filled with a compassion that is a composite of reason and feeling. Such a composite self does not consciously manipulate language, truth, and desire to dominate and subordinate other individuals, but uses them to construct values and norms that can enrich others. To support his argument the author draws on both classical and contemporary philosophers, as well as on literary sources.

About this title

About the Author

TEODROS KIROS is Master Lecturer in Philosophy at Suffolk University and Associate-in-Residence in the Department of Afro-American Studies, Harvard University. He is the author of Toward the Construction of a Theory of Political Action: Antonio Gramsci (1985), Moral Philosophy and Development: The Human Condition in Africa (1992), and numerous journal articles. He is an editor of New Political Science and co-editor of The Promise of Multiculturalism (1998).

Edition details

• Publisher: Praeger
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 027597314X
• ISBN 13: 9780275973148
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224