Recovering the Personal
The Philosophical Anthropology of William H. Poteat
Contributions by Bruce Haddox, Edward St. Clair, Dale W. Cannon, Ronald L. Hall, James W. Stines, Elizabeth Newman, R. Melvin Keiser, Kieran Cashell, William H. Poteat Edited by Dale W. Cannon, Ronald L. Hall
Publication date:
14 September 2016Length of book:
228 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksISBN-13: 9781498540940
Modernity has radically challenged the assumptions that guide our ordinary lives as persons, in ways we are not normally aware. We live our concrete lives taking for granted that personal decisions, desires, relationships, actions, aspirations, values, and knowledge are central to our existence. But in modernity, we think of these matters as private, idiosyncratic, and subjective, even irrational. This modern conception of ourselves and the associated way of reflection known as modern critical thinking came to dominate our thinking is culminates in the dualistic philosophy of René Descartes. This dualism has spawned a reductionist view of persons and tainted “the personal” with connotations of bias, partiality, and privacy, leaving us with the presumption that if we seek to be objective and intellectually respectable, we must expunge the personal.
William H. Poteat’s work in philosophical anthropology has confronted this concern head on. He undertakes a radical critique of the various forms of mind-body dualism and materialist monism that have dominated Western intellectual concepts of the person. In a unique style that Poteat calls post-critical, he uncovers the staggering incoherencies of these dualisms and shows how they have resulted in a loss of the personal in the modern age. He also formulates a way out of this modern cultural insanity. This constructive dimension of his thought is centered on his signature concept of the mindbody, the pre-reflective ground of personal existence. The twelve contributors in this collection explore outgrowths and implications of Poteat’s thought.
Recovering the Personal will be of interest to a broad range of intellectual readers with interests in philosophy, psychology, theology, and the humanities.
William H. Poteat’s work in philosophical anthropology has confronted this concern head on. He undertakes a radical critique of the various forms of mind-body dualism and materialist monism that have dominated Western intellectual concepts of the person. In a unique style that Poteat calls post-critical, he uncovers the staggering incoherencies of these dualisms and shows how they have resulted in a loss of the personal in the modern age. He also formulates a way out of this modern cultural insanity. This constructive dimension of his thought is centered on his signature concept of the mindbody, the pre-reflective ground of personal existence. The twelve contributors in this collection explore outgrowths and implications of Poteat’s thought.
Recovering the Personal will be of interest to a broad range of intellectual readers with interests in philosophy, psychology, theology, and the humanities.
These essays, especially those by Bruce Haddox and Edward St. Clair, include richly evocative reminiscences of what it was like to be Poteat’s student. They also, especially those by Dale Cannon and Ron Hall, include fine expositions of Polanyi’s thought. . . . How appropriate that this jewel box of a book should culminate with such a rich example of how Poteat’s language itself, plumbed to its premodern depths, can help us find our way back to where we have been all along, but awakened from the amnesia modernity has fostered in us and refreshed for the tasks of weaning our intellectual world in its many facets from the deadly fixations that threaten to blind it to the obvious."