Sidney Hook on Pragmatism, Democracy, and Freedom: The Essential Essays

Sidney Hook on Pragmatism, Democracy, and Freedom: The Essential Essays by Hook philosopher/author and wi, Sidney. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9781591020226.

Sidney Hook is arguably Americas most controversial intellectual. After beginning his career as this nations foremost Marxist scholar, he became in the late 1930s the leading anticommunist intellectual and defender of freedom against all forms of totalitarianism. This volume collects twenty-five of Hooks most incisive essays in political philosophy. Clustered into five main sections, the essays discuss pragmatism and naturalism, Marx and Marxism, Democratic theory and practice, and the defense of a free society.In an insightful introduction, editors Talisse and Tempio argue that underlying the wide range of subjects covered by Hook was his unwavering commitment to the "method of intelligence," which contends that any proposal, whether scientific, moral, or political, must be treated as a hypothesis to be confirmed or disconfirmed by the experimental evidence and deliberation of an unfettered community of inquiry. The editors place this methodology at the core of all of Hooks philosophical and political work.This excellent collection makes a superb introduction to the thought of a leading intellectual who for too long has been neglected by mainstream American philosophy.