Ethics and Time in the Philosophy of History - by Natan Elgabsi & Bennett Gilbert (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This interdisciplinary volume connects the philosophy of history to moral philosophy with a unique focus on time. Taking in a range of intellectual traditions, cultural, and geographical contexts, the volume provides a rich tapestry of approaches to time, morality, culture, and history.

By extending the philosophical discussion on the ethical importance of temporality, the editors disentangle some of the disciplinary tensions between analytical and hermeneutic philosophy of history, cultural theory, meta-ethical theory, and normative ethics. The ethical and existential character of temporality reveals itself within a collection that resists the methodological underpinnings of any one philosophical school. The book's distinctive cross-cultural approach ensures a wide range of perspectives with contributions on life and death in Japanese philosophy, ethics and time in Maori philosophy, non-traditional temporalities and philosophical anthropology, as well as global approaches to ethics.

These new directions of study highlight the importance of the ethical in the temporal, inviting further points of departure in this burgeoning field.

Review Quotes

Ethics and Time in the Philosophy of History brings together scholars from different philosophical traditions to provide fresh perspectives on fundamental issues. Its unifying concern is with humans as beings-in-time: what it means to be shaped historically and what obligations and possibilities may flow from understanding that shaping. The book deserves an audience right across the humanities.
Donald Bloxham, Richard Pares Professor of History, University of Edinburgh, UK

A perennial challenge for existential anthropology is how to reconcile situated accounts of ethics, time, and personhood with universalizing accounts of the human condition. The diverse and penetrating essays in this volume show how such a cross-cultural approach to issues of temporality, historicity, and morality may be developed and applied.
Michael Jackson, Senior Research Fellow in World Religions, Harvard Divinity School, USA

This timely collection brings to bear a welcome existential and hermeneutical approach to the contemporary issues of the philosophy of culture and history. Often rooted in personal experience, as good philosophy always is, its rich contributions shed new light on our ethical experience of time and mortality in this uncertain 21st century.
Jean Grondin, Professor of Philosophy, University of Montréal, Canada

About the Author

Natan Elgabsi is Postdoctoral Researcher at Åbo Akademi University, Finland.
Bennett Gilbert is Assistant Professor at Portland State University, USA.