Premium
Dialectical Activity, Ritual, and Value: A Critique of T albot B rewer
Author(s) -
Cordner Christopher
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
philosophical investigations
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.172
H-Index - 14
eISSN - 1467-9205
pISSN - 0190-0536
DOI - 10.1111/phin.12080
Subject(s) - dialectic , action (physics) , epistemology , agency (philosophy) , dimension (graph theory) , value (mathematics) , philosophy , non human , sociology , mathematics , physics , quantum mechanics , pure mathematics , statistics
Abstract T albot B rewer has argued that contemporary philosophy of action and ethics are hampered by a picture of human agency as essentially consisting in bringing about states of affairs – a “production‐oriented” conception of action. From classical sources, centrally including A ristotle, B rewer retrieves a different picture – of human activity as fundamentally “dialectical”. Ritual activity, including a ritual dimension of many dialectical activities, affirms and deepens our human presence in and to the world, and to other human beings. I argue that this aspect of ritual activity cannot be adequately recognised in the terms of B rewer's dialectical account of human activity.