Fleeing the universal
Subtitle: the critique of post-rational criticism
By: Carl Rapp.
Series: SUNY series, Intersections : philosophy and critical theory; Intersections (Albany, N.Y.)
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Albany, N.Y
Language: eng
Number of pages: 297
Subjects: Critical theory.
Description: Fleeing the Universal takes issue with the popular view that contemporary literary and cultural theory has brilliantly effected, or at least brilliantly reported, the demise of philosophy and the emergence of a new post-philosophical culture. It offers a critique of the various options presented by "post-rational" critics and theories and, at the same time, argues for the superiority of speculative philosophy to all these options.

Further, it demonstrates that the chief problems with post-rationalism were already seen, before our time, by two speculative philosophers, Hegel and Santayana, both of whose systems of philosophy are primarily intended to avoid the problems that beset the critique of reason.

Fleeing the Universal criticizes the arguments and methods of deconstruction, the new pragmatism, and New Historicism, and suggests that the alternatives to post-philosophy developed by Hegel in the early nineteenth century and by Santayana in the early twentieth century have not been superseded by any theory associated with the culture of postmodernism or the analytical techniques of poststructuralism.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 275-294) and index.
Some chapters are revisions of articles previously published in various sources from 1987 to 1991.