| ""Sidney Hook is best understood as a casualty in the tragedy of the American left, not a villain or hero in its melodrama. his work of the 1920s and 1930s is important not as an object lesson of the corrosive dangers of pragmatism or a passing youthful romanticism but as an eloquent elaboration and defense of revolutionary socialism. His later thought was not the logical consequence of his early views but the antithesis of them.".." Of great relevance to contemporary debates about socialism and democracy, Young Sidney Hook reopens the controversial question of the relationship between Marxism and pragmatism. In the first biography of philosopher Sidney Hook to be published since his death in 1989, Christopher Phelps vividly describes the neglected early thought and political history of this important New York intellectual, pragmatist philosopher, and anti-Stalinist polemicist. Throughout the Cold War decades, Hook was a notoriously strident anti-communist. But in his earlier life, he had a very different career as a talented radical philosopher and Marxist scholar who argued for replacing capitalism with a more democratic society. Challenging scholars on both the left (who see Hook's early beliefs as ill-conceived) and the right (who see them as immature), Phelps explores the contributions young Hook made to social theory, ethics, politics, epistemology, and discussions of scientific method.
Annotation:
A biography of the noted American philosopher and political activist (1902-1989), whose opinions moved from staunch communism to Deweyan liberalism over the course of his career. In this volume, Phelps, a professor of history, concentrates on the formation of Hook's thought in the early stages of his career.
|
PraiseNew York Times Book Review
"[An] engrossing, mildly irritating, and astonishingly sentimental book." - Alan Ryan 12/14/1997New York Review of Books
"Phelp's book is for the most part a competent, straightforward account of Hook's political journey from socialist revolutionary to what Phelps calls "bourgeois democracy". He uses letters, interviews, and other documents to fill out some of the murkier parts Hook's own story." - Christopher Phelps 04/09/1998 |
|
