There is perhaps no greater legacy for a teacher like Richard Bernstein than to see his students take upon themselves the responsibility for moving forward conversations which he initiated. Bernstein's students extend, build upon and sometimes challenge his arguments. His epilogue alone is worth the price, but the real lesson comes as he responds to each argument with precision, insight, ... Read moreand humility.
Warren G. Frisina, Hofstra University Honoring Dick Bernstein (b. 1932), long-time professor of philosophy at New School for Social Research, this collection is an excellent reminder to those who have benefited over many years from Bernstein's scholarship and publications, e.g., Beyond Objectivism and Relativism (CH, May'84), Praxis and Action (CH, Jul'72), and critical appraisals of such figures as C. S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, Hannah Arendt, Hans Gadamer, and Jurgen Habermas. In its own way each of the 11 essays explores what Bernstein called engaged fallibilistic pragmatism. The essays are presented under two headings: Judgment and Critique and Hermeneutics and History. The breadth of Bernstein's philosophical grasp is well demonstrated. But more significantly described is his character as a teacher promoting courage to hold firm to particular commitments and encounter the truth through new questions and texts. As Lauren Barthold puts it in her essay ( Acts of Betrayal: Gadamer and Hermeneutics ), To perpetuate a tradition and keep it alive requires one to be open to applying it anew and living it out in different ways. This volume properly celebrates Bernstein and his expansion of American philosophy. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.
CHOICE
Of those philosophers whose tap-root was the revival of Classical American philosophy, now sixty years of age, the most philosophically cosmopolitan, by far, was the work of Richard Bernstein. This book of trenchant essays in his honor, illustrates once again Bernstein's rich grasp of the history of philosophy, its contemporary European versions, and the utter necessity of having a rich, thick, enlightening, and necessary philosophical pluralism. With the philosophy of John Dewey as a permanent deposit, Richard Bernstein has led the way for many decades in how to think, act, and create on behalf of a philosophical pluralism, one that straddles and softens conflict, opens paths of agreement, and bequeaths a philosophical tapestry of intellectual healing rather than ideological rancor. Gratitude here for the scholars who have sharpened and elucidated Bernstein's stellar contributions to philosophical wisdom over the past fifty years.
John J. McDermott, Texas A&M University Show Less