|
|
The Actor and The Spectator - Beck, Lewis White - Yale University Press
-
August 1975
156 p., 5-1/2 x 8-1/4
ISBN: 9780300018998
ISBN-10: 0300018991
-
Cloth
-
- Related Categories
- Philosophy
|
The Actor and The Spectator
Out of Print.
As the scientific viewpoint covers the intellectual landscape, two models of human action compete for acceptance. The older, humanistic one, based on the idea of man as a self-creating, autonomous agent, is no longer as attractive as the modern, scientific view, which sees mean as a cog in the machinery of the world. In this concise and illuminating book, Lewis White Beck ingeniously uses the most modern kinds of arguments in support of the older, humanistic view of man. Beck begins by posing the question, Can a human machine think? He answers it by showing how the arguments that man is a thinking machine are self-refuting. Then he considers the traditional dichotomy of actor and spectator, presenting a hypothetical scene with two spectators, each explaining an action, and each representing a different way of viewing the world. Illustrating the ways in which we can know ourselves and others, Beck takes up the asymmetry between actor and spectator. This is a central problem for the philosophy of the social sciences because of the philosophical issues raised by the varieties of ways in which we explain our own actions and the actions of others. Mr. Beck defends the concept of having a reason as a criterion for understanding action and then argues that the context of explanation or plot is what enables a person to understand his own actions as well as the actions of others. This book offers a modern argument for freedom in human action and sketches a way in which people, both actors and spectators, can behave morally and freely in this world.
TOP
|