Books in the Philosophy and Cultural Identity series

This book is both a critique of the concept of the rights-holding, free, autonomous individual and attendant ideology dominant in the contemporary West, and an account of an alternative view, that of the role-bearing, interrelated responsible person of classical Confucianism, suitably modified for addressing the manifold problems of today.

The unique mission of a public education is to reproduce a civic public. For the most part this will not happen in a vacuum and requires specific institutions, the most prominent of which are the public schools. Publicly supported schools have other functions as well. They socialize, train, produce a workforce, and, hopefully, promote individual growth and autonomy. Walter Feinberg argues that while all of these functions may be carried on by private or religious schools as well, public schools should have the additional responsibility of reproducing a civic public for a diverse pluralistic society. As Feinberg demonstrates, the problem is that in the context of neoliberal ideology, where all the other educational functions are reduced to economic ones within a market context ruled by competitionnation to nation, state to state, community to community, school to school, teacher to teacher, student to studentthe public function becomes less and less central and more and more difficult to carry out. What Is a Public Education and Why We Need It suggests ways to change this by bringing the idea of a true public education back into focus.

In The Cultural Roots of Strategic Intelligence, Gino LaPaglia argues that Strategic Intelligence is a core dynamic of human rationality and that it has always been foundational for creating meaning in society. For thousands of years the identity of the heroic strategist has provided hope for human life lived in extremis.

Material matters in new Chinese art, which presents its subjects through the directness and immediacy of its material. This book applies theories by Osborne and Danto to new Chinese art to show how artists are working below the level of language to make each work of art prove that it is art.

This book explores two contemporary combative views regarding the search for just families. These views arise from the conundrum of the family being seen as a supportive, nurturing ';haven' versus a grievously unjust, harmful institution that violates the rights and freedoms of any individual family member. Triggered by anti-family movements, which have been inspired by the ideas of some theorists and writers, the book addresses the question: Is family destined to wither away? It challenges the radical idea that the solution to the problem of unjust families is their complete replacement by purportedly just anti-familial alternatives. Chhanda Gupta advances a distinct reformist and reconciliatory view that the expulsion of either side of the family-anti-family binary is not the answer. She seeks to syncretize the seemingly irreconcilable ideas propagated through that philosophical binary. Furthermore, she urges that the search for just families must find its answer in clarifying how the term ';just' applies to the characters, behaviors, and attitudes of people who comprise actual families. The search is not for a perfectly just society or polity, or even for a perfectly just family. Instead it is a search for ways to redress the remediable injustices that occur in families, in order to benefit and uplift individuals and families and the societies in which they live.