Full Description
This title was first published in 2000. Rethinking Prejudice offers the first philosophical monograph on the concept of prejudice. It takes its start from a study of Enlightenment thought, and pursues the topic to the reassessment of prejudice in contemporary hermeneutics. Yet history of ideas is a means rather than an end in this book. Dorschel analyzes the debates about prejudice from the 17th century onwards in order to shed light upon present concerns. Prejudice is not something peculiar to racists and similarly sinister figures, Dorschel argues; rather, it is an indispensable part of everyone's intellectual repertoire; if relevant phenomena are to be criticized, a genuine moral stance cannot be avoided. This book introduces and explores a topic of wide interest, particularly to those researching within the fields of philosophy, history of ideas, cultural studies, and social and political theory.
Contents
1. On enlightenment, especially on its conclusion that all prejudices should be abandoned. 2. On the intricate relation of prejudice to experience, and on its alleged stupidity. 3. On the hermeneutic vindication of prejudice, and why it does not succeed. 4. On the paradox of recommending prejudices, and the ways in which it can be circumvented. 5. On morality, sadism, and related matters, or how to see that prejudice is not to be dispensed with.
