The Needs of Strangers: An Essay on Privacy, Solidarity, and the Politics of Being HumanWhat do we need in order to survive? Whose needs do we have a right to speak for? Which needs can be satisfied through political actions, and which cannot? To answer these vital questions, Michael Ignatieff returns to the ancient languages of religion, art, and tragedy—and to important texts by Shakespeare, St. Augustine, and the great writers of the Enlightenment. Drawing on these sources, he has written an incisive, moving interpretation of community and democracy in a work that not only examines the breakdown of human solidarity but shows how it might be re-created. The Needs of Strangers restores philosophy to its proper place as a guide to the art of being human. |
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Page 28
... feel a common and shared identity in the basic fraternity of hunger , thirst , cold , exhaustion , loneliness or sexual passion . The possibility of human solidarity rests on this idea of natural human identity . A society in which ...
... feel a common and shared identity in the basic fraternity of hunger , thirst , cold , exhaustion , loneliness or sexual passion . The possibility of human solidarity rests on this idea of natural human identity . A society in which ...
Page 42
... feel , That thou mayst shake the superflux to them , And show the heavens more just . There is also the same new ... feel , feel your power quickly ; So distribution should undo excess , And each man have enough . From this , the pity ...
... feel , That thou mayst shake the superflux to them , And show the heavens more just . There is also the same new ... feel , feel your power quickly ; So distribution should undo excess , And each man have enough . From this , the pity ...
Page 102
... feels and to feel what it knows . In doing so , these therapies are the expression of a metaphysics of feeling . If we could only know what we feel , we would know what it means . If we could know what we feel , we could bear it . No ...
... feels and to feel what it knows . In doing so , these therapies are the expression of a metaphysics of feeling . If we could only know what we feel , we would know what it means . If we could know what we feel , we could bear it . No ...
Contents
Tragedy and Utopia | 7 |
THE NATURAL AND THE SOCIAL | 25 |
BODY AND SPIRIT | 55 |
Copyright | |
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The Needs of Strangers: An Essay on Privacy, Solidarity, and the Politics of ... Michael Ignatieff No preview available - 1986 |
The Needs of Strangers: An Essay on Privacy, Solidarity, and the Politics of ... Michael Ignatieff No preview available - 1986 |
Common terms and phrases
Adam Smith amour de soi Augustine Augustinian available from Penguin basic need beggar belonging blind body books available Bosch's Boswell Cambridge capacity capitalist certainty choice choose Christian citizens civic claim commercial society common Cordelia critique daughters David Hume death desire Discourse on Inequality division of labour duty economic equality Essays father flesh fraternity freedom give happiness Haywain heath Hieronymus Bosch human nature human needs Hume Treatise Hume's hunger individuals inequality insisted J. G. A. Pocock justice King Lear Lear's liberty live London madness man's Marx means metaphysical Michael Ignatieff modern moral necessity needs of strangers never obligation Paradise Pascal passion Philosophy pity poor question reason reconcile Religion religious republic respect retinue rich Rousseau Saint satisfaction scarcity secular self-command Social Contract solidarity species spiral of need spiritual need Stoic things Thou Tom O'Bedlam tragedy utopia virtue vision welfare yearning