Richard Dien Winfield – författare

Exploring Hegel's philosophical psychology to uncover viable remedies to the chief dilemmas plaguing contemporary philosophy of mind, Hegel and Mind exposes why mind cannot be an epistemological foundation nor reduced to discursive consciousness nor modelled after computing machines.

Law in Civil Society advances a new and comprehensive theory of how legal institutions should be reformed to uphold the property, family, and economic rights of individuals in civil society. In so doing, it offers a powerful challenge to the dominant legal theories and practices espoused by liberalism, positivism, natural law, and critical legal thought.Winfield argues against the prevailing assumptions of legal philosophers who dogmatically embrace formal or historical conceptions of law. True law, he contends, must be constructed within the context of the different spheres of rights and ultimately can only exist within a civil society committed to self-determination and community.Working from these fundamental premises, he analyzes in detail a rich array of important legal issues: fair access to legal representation, the rationale for jury trials, appropriate distinctions between civil and criminal legal procedures, the controversies pitting common law versus codification and adversarial versus inquisitorial systems of trial, and the relationship between civil society and the state.Much inspired by Hegel's Philosophy of Right, Winfield's study offers the most convincing critique yet of that renowned philosopher's work and, in the process, provides a more complete and coherent conception of law than Hegel himself articulated. Provocative and highly instructive, the book should attract scholars, teachers, and students in legal and political philosophy and anyone else with an abiding interest in the foundations of Western law.

From Concept to Objectivity uncovers the nature and authority of conceptual determination by critically thinking through neglected arguments in Hegel’s Science of Logic pivotal for understanding reason and its role in philosophy. Winfield clarifies the logical problems of presuppositionlessness and determinacy that prepare the way for conceiving the concept, examines how universality, particularity, and individuality are determined, investigates how judgment and syllogism are exhaustively differentiated, and, on that basis, explores how objectivity can be categorized without casting thought in irrevocable opposition to reality. Winfield's book will be of interest to readers of Hegel as well as anyone wondering how thought can be objective.

The war on terror cannot be truly understood without investigating the legitimacy of modernity, the challenge that religion presents to modernization, the inescapable conflicts attending the emergence and expansion of modernity, and the post-colonial predicament from which Islamist reaction arises. Richard Dien Winfield illuminates the war on terror in light of these issues, presenting an anti-foundationalist justification of the rationality and freedom of modernity, while assessing how religion can stand in opposition to modernity and why Islam has been a privileged vehicle of anti-modern religious revolt. Winfield shows that the privatization that religion must undergo to be compatible with modern freedom involves no capitulation to relativism, but rather is a theological imperative on which the truth of religion depends. Exposing the limits of any purely secular modernization of Islam, Winfield shows how Islam can draw upon its core tradition to repudiate the oppression of Islamist reaction and become at home in the modern world.

This book questions the postmodern credo that the autonomy of reason and action is a delusion, concealing our entrapment in historical convention and masking a logocentric domination. The author shows how this dogma not only assails a false vision of self-determination, but also how it ignores the way in which a critique of rational autonomy can provide no epistemology or ethics, nor any critique of modernity, without embracing the very independence of thought and conduct that it spurns. Freedom and Modernity offers a positive alternative revealing how self-determination is the very substance of legitimacy for both knowledge and conduct.

This is a finely argued, detailed, and comprehensive systematic theory of justice, brilliantly extending Hegelian ethics much as Rawls's Theory of Justice rehabilitated and extended classical Liberalism. Winfield argues that justice, like reason, must be self-grounding, and that to achieve this, it must be self-determined. The theory of justice must therefore abandon its appeal to metaphysically given or transcendentally constituted norms and instead determine the institutions of freedom. In pursuit of this task, Winfield offers insightful discussions of property relations, morality, the family, capital and commodity relations, economic and social justice, and the state. In contrast to Liberalism, which sees the state as instrumental to non-political ends, Winfield defends the democratic state as the just realization of freedom. Throughout, it is argued that justice is defined interactively, where one's freedom is determined by how one's interactions respect and foster the institutional freedom of others.Although the author's arguments proceed systematically, at each stage he deals adroitly with the relevant major thinkers in the Western tradition-not only with Hegel, but with the ancients, the classical liberals, Marx, and contemporaries such as Rawls.

First published in 1989, Overcoming Foundations offers a challenge to both postmodernism and traditional doctrines of knowledge and value by undertaking a systematic philosophy without foundations. United by a concern for overcoming foundations without overcoming philosophy, the essays in this book discuss a wide range of issues in epistemology and ethics, incorporating analysis of major thinkers of the past and present and drawing critically on Hegel’s argument. The book unveils the dogmatic assumption of the futility of philosophy’s traditional quests for universal truth and ethics and lays out the strategy for achieving autonomy of reason and valid norms of conduct without foundational appeals.After examining how a critique of foundations can be executed without making new foundational claims, Winfield considers how philosophy must operate in order to think truth without given conceptual schemes and to achieve rational autonomy. Finally, the author explores the implications of a reason free of foundations for the history of philosophy and the debates embroiling contemporary thought. The essays outline an independent theory of justice, rethinking morality, and the structures of civil society and democratic government. Overcoming Foundations advances a much ignored philosophical alternative, a systematic contribution to epistemology, ethics, and social and political philosophy.

First published in 1989, Overcoming Foundations offers a challenge to both postmodernism and traditional doctrines of knowledge and value by undertaking a systematic philosophy without foundations. United by a concern for overcoming foundations without overcoming philosophy, the essays in this book discuss a wide range of issues in epistemology and ethics, incorporating analysis of major thinkers of the past and present and drawing critically on Hegel’s argument. The book unveils the dogmatic assumption of the futility of philosophy’s traditional quests for universal truth and ethics and lays out the strategy for achieving autonomy of reason and valid norms of conduct without foundational appeals.After examining how a critique of foundations can be executed without making new foundational claims, Winfield considers how philosophy must operate in order to think truth without given conceptual schemes and to achieve rational autonomy. Finally, the author explores the implications of a reason free of foundations for the history of philosophy and the debates embroiling contemporary thought. The essays outline an independent theory of justice, rethinking morality, and the structures of civil society and democratic government. Overcoming Foundations advances a much ignored philosophical alternative, a systematic contribution to epistemology, ethics, and social and political philosophy.

Exploring Hegel's philosophical psychology to uncover viable remedies to the chief dilemmas plaguing contemporary philosophy of mind, Hegel and Mind exposes why mind cannot be an epistemological foundation nor reduced to discursive consciousness nor modelled after computing machines.

The Intelligent Mind conceives the psychological reality of thought and language, explaining how intelligence develops from intuition to representation and then to linguistic interaction and thinking. Overcoming the prevailing dogmas regarding how discursive reason emerges, this book secures the psychological possibility of the philosophy of mind.

The Intelligent Mind conceives the psychological reality of thought and language, explaining how intelligence develops from intuition to representation and then to linguistic interaction and thinking. Overcoming the prevailing dogmas regarding how discursive reason emerges, this book secures the psychological possibility of the philosophy of mind.

As enthusiasm for computational models of the mind has waned and the revolution in neuroscience has progressed, attention in philosophy and cognitive science has shifted toward more biological approaches. The Living Mind establishes that mind cannot be immaterial or reduced to mechanistic or cybernetic processes, but must instead possess a subjectivity embodied in an animal organism. On this basis, the work proceeds to show why mind involves a pre-conscious psyche, a non-discursive consciousness and self-consciousness, and an intelligence overcoming the opposition of consciousness. In so doing, The Living Mind provides a detailed account of the psyche and consciousness, paving the way for conceiving the psychological enabling conditions of rational theory and practice.

This text provides a truly comprehensive guide to one of the most important and challenging works of modern philosophy. The systematic complexity of Hegel's radical project in the Science of Logic prevents many from understanding and appreciating its value. By independently and critically working through Hegel's argument, this book offers an enlightening aid for study and anchors the Science of Logic at a central position in the philosophical canon.

Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit: A Critical Rethinking in Seventeen Lectures provides a clear and philosophically engaging investigation of Hegel’s first masterpiece, perhaps the most revolutionary work of modern philosophy. The book guides the reader on an intellectual adventure that takes up Hegel’s revolutionary strategy of paving the way for doing philosophy without presuppositions by first engaging in a phenomenological investigation of knowing as it appears. That preliminary investigation observes how the prevailing view of knowing that condemns cognition to operating with presuppositions proves unable to justify its own knowledge claims and ends up undermining the distinction between knowing and its object on which that view depends. Unlike other studies of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, the work rethinks the entire argument with sustained attention to the project that gives the work its revolutionary significance. Free of unnecessary jargon and always focusing on clearly unraveling the argument in its entirety, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit: A Critical Rethinking in Seventeen Lectures, will be indispensable to undergraduate and graduate students of philosophy, Hegel scholars, and anyone interested in tackling the radical project of doing philosophy without foundations.

The war on terror cannot be truly understood without investigating the legitimacy of modernity, the challenge that religion presents to modernization, the inescapable conflicts attending the emergence and expansion of modernity, and the post-colonial predicament from which Islamist reaction arises. Richard Dien Winfield illuminates the war on terror in light of these issues, presenting an anti-foundationalist justification of the rationality and freedom of modernity, while assessing how religion can stand in opposition to modernity and why Islam has been a privileged vehicle of anti-modern religious revolt. Winfield shows that the privatization that religion must undergo to be compatible with modern freedom involves no capitulation to relativism, but rather is a theological imperative on which the truth of religion depends. Exposing the limits of any purely secular modernization of Islam, Winfield shows how Islam can draw upon its core tradition to repudiate the oppression of Islamist reaction and become at home in the modern world.

From Concept to Objectivity uncovers the nature and authority of conceptual determination by critically thinking through neglected arguments in Hegel’s Science of Logic pivotal for understanding reason and its role in philosophy. Winfield clarifies the logical problems of presuppositionlessness and determinacy that prepare the way for conceiving the concept, examines how universality, particularity, and individuality are determined, investigates how judgment and syllogism are exhaustively differentiated, and, on that basis, explores how objectivity can be categorized without casting thought in irrevocable opposition to reality. Winfield's book will be of interest to readers of Hegel as well as anyone wondering how thought can be objective.

At a time when the enemies of democracy cannot be dissuaded by appeals to shared values and conventions, nothing is more pressing than a thoroughgoing investigation of what the state should be. Whereas contemporary thinkers have mostly relativized political justice or conceived it as a formal concept lacking institutional detail, The Just State provides a comprehensive theory of self-government, legitimating democracy and concretely conceiving how political institutions should be organized. Carefully and clearly evaluating the fundamental options of normative political theory, philosopher Richard Dien Winfield shows how political self-determination has an exclusive validity independent of any assumptions, enabling democracy to be successfully defended against postmodernists and antimodern fundamentalists. Winfield first examines the household, social, and cultural transformations that enable political emancipation. He then methodically details how self-government should be organized. Uniquely addressing all the central issues embroiling contemporary politics, The Just State determines how political parties should function; resolves controversies between participatory and representative democracy, majoritarian and proportional representation, presidential and parliamentary systems, and federalism and centralization; and examines the ramifications of international relations for political freedom. By tackling all the questions that political philosophers have abandoned to neutral description by political scientists, Winfield reclaims political relevance for normative theory. The Just State will be of key interest to law students, politicians, and citizens at large who wrestle with what a just constitution should mandate, how positive laws should be legislated and enforced, what content they should have, and how their constitutionality should be determined.

In Defense of Reason After Hegel repudiates the assault on truth pervading public life and the academy by drawing upon arguments pioneered by Hegel. These arguments show how thought can free itself of arbitrary foundations and establish the exclusive validity of self-determination in knowing, conduct, and aesthetic worth. Wide ranging in scope and radically subverting the reigning orthodoxies in contemporary culture, the essays of In Defense of Reason After Hegel forge a path for restoring the authority of rational autonomy in theory and practice.

In Defense of Reason After Hegel repudiates the assault on truth pervading public life and the academy by drawing upon arguments pioneered by Hegel. These arguments show how thought can free itself of arbitrary foundations and establish the exclusive validity of self-determination in knowing, conduct, and aesthetic worth. Wide ranging in scope and radically subverting the reigning orthodoxies in contemporary culture, the essays of In Defense of Reason After Hegel forge a path for restoring the authority of rational autonomy in theory and practice.

The book develops a philosopher’s guide to life in the universe, conceiving how nature becomes a biosphere in which life can emerge, what are the basic life processes common to any organism, how evolution can give rise to the different possible forms of life, and what distinguishes the essential life forms from one another.

In this book, Richard Dien Winfield builds upon Hegel’s Aesthetics to provide a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the individual fine arts, which remedies Hegel's inconsistencies and major omissions.

In this book, Richard Dien Winfield builds upon Hegel’s Aesthetics to provide a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the individual fine arts, which remedies Hegel's inconsistencies and major omissions.

This book tackles the key theoretical and practical challenges confronting humanity as it stands at the brink of self-destruction.  Its wide ranging investigations counter the enfeeblement of thought and action by showing how reason can free itself of bondage to the principle of non-contradiction and reduction to calculation, how the reigning dogmas that block true knowledge of mind and obscure the limitations of artificial intelligence can be overcome, how language enables rather than limits the freedom of thinking and conduct, how the concrete context of action cannot rob it of its autonomy, why capital punishment is illegitimate, how caste can be overcome and religion can be reformed to be compatible with democracy, how fascism can be philosophically refuted, and how nuclear and climate change Armageddon can be averted in an era of globalization.  This book is essential reading for all scholars, researchers and advanced students of political philosophy and German idealism.

This book develops a comprehensive systematic economic theory, conceiving how the dynamic of market relations generates an economy dominated by the competitive process of individual profit-seeking enterprises.

This book defies the reigning dismissal of the philosophy of nature by turning to what Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel have had to say about nature and critically thinking through their arguments to reconstruct a comprehensive account of the universe.

The book develops a philosopher’s guide to life in the universe, conceiving how nature becomes a biosphere in which life can emerge, what are the basic life processes common to any organism, how evolution can give rise to the different possible forms of life, and what distinguishes the essential life forms from one another.

This book develops a comprehensive systematic economic theory, conceiving how the dynamic of market relations generates an economy dominated by the competitive process of individual profit-seeking enterprises.

This book defies the reigning dismissal of the philosophy of nature by turning to what Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel have had to say about nature and critically thinking through their arguments to reconstruct a comprehensive account of the universe.