Background
Winfield, Richard Dien was born on April 7, 1950 in New York City. Son of Sidney Lincoln and Lillian Winfield.
(From the beginning philosophy has understood its pursuit ...)
From the beginning philosophy has understood its pursuit of truth to depend upon the autonomy of reason. For beauty to be evaluated in its own right, autonomy has to be allowed. The author expands upon these considerations in these investigations of truth, right and beauty which offer a post-Enlightenment solution to the reigning incomprehension of the unity of autonomy and normativity and of the foundation-free legitimacy of modernity.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0754616207/?tag=2022091-20
( "A closely reasoned account defining, arranging, and sy...)
"A closely reasoned account defining, arranging, and systematically explicating some of the major concepts of aesthetics. Winfield's system has range and power such that it will invite a variety of commentary and discussion among those scholars who take a serious interest in the concepts analyzed in this kind of philosophical endeavor."--David A. White, DePaul University "A clear and comprehensive exposition, critical analysis, and defense of Hegel's aesthetics in relation to some of its most significant competitors in the history of Western thought."--Robert E. Wood, University of Dallas Systematic Aesthetics rehabilitates and develops the approach to aesthetics pioneered by Hegel, showing how it overcomes the dilemmas undermining the two other basic options in aesthetic theory, the metaphysical (pioneered by Plato and Aristotle) and the transcendental (initiated by Hume and Kant and dominating contemporary theory). By demonstrating the pitfalls of these other approaches, Winfield frees aesthetics from the appeal to privileged givens and determining processes of reception that obscure the individuality underlying all aspects of fine art. Systematic Aesthetics provides a thorough account of the concept of beauty, of the type of truth suited for artistic construal, and of the special transfiguration of content in art--how the unity of meaning and configuration affects the physical being of the artwork and its relation to its audience, how artistic creation operates, and how the reception of art involves both catharsis and aesthetic judgment--without succumbing to arbitrary interpretation. In the course of providing an independent theory of his own, Winfield engages in a critical dialogue with classic and contemporary figures in the philosophy of art, from Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Hegel, and Heidegger to Lukács, Szondi, Derrida, Goodman, and Danto. Both in the breadth of debate that it enters and in the scope of the issues that it addresses, Systematic Aesthetics stands apart. Paving the way for further exploration of particular art forms, Winfield presents a radical challenge to the dogmas of tradition and of postmodernism alike. Richard Dien Winfield is professor of philosophy at the University of Georgia. His previous books include The Just Economy; Reason and Justice; Overcoming Foundations; Freedom and Modernity; and Law in Civil Society.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813013682/?tag=2022091-20
(Law in Civil Society advances a new and comprehensive the...)
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.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0700606998/?tag=2022091-20
(At a time when the enemies of democracy cannot be dissuad...)
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.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591023173/?tag=2022091-20
(The war on terror cannot be truly understood without inve...)
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.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0754660567/?tag=2022091-20
(Winfield develops a systematic theory of the fundamental ...)
Winfield develops a systematic theory of the fundamental styles of art, addressing the most neglected area of aesthetics, without which neither cultural divides, artistic periods, nor the fate of art in modernity can be understood. Stylistics thoroughly critiques Hegel's analysis of symbolic, classical, and romantic art in order to conceive the basic modes of artistic style. In so doing, the book presents an alternative to the two most prevalent approaches in aesthetics: the metaphysical mimetic theory pioneered by Plato and Aristotle and the transcendental theory of aesthetic reception pioneered by Hume and Kant and followed by most contemporary theorists. Unlike these two approaches, Stylistics pays due heed to the individuality and unity of meaning and configuration basic to artistic phenomena, making possible a rigorous differentiation of particular forms of artistic style. Because the resulting analysis of style never loses sight of the self-understanding that art provides, Stylistics provides powerful tools for reinterpreting the cultural differences of antiquity and modernity and of East and West.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/079142782X/?tag=2022091-20
Winfield, Richard Dien was born on April 7, 1950 in New York City. Son of Sidney Lincoln and Lillian Winfield.
Bachelor in Philosophy, Yale College, New Haven, Connecticut, 1972. Master of Arts in Philosophy, University Heidelberg, Germany, 1973. Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, 1977.
Assistant professor University Georgia, Athens, 1982—1987, associate professor, 1987—1993, professor, 1993—2001, distinguished research professor, since 2001.
(The war on terror cannot be truly understood without inve...)
(Winfield develops a systematic theory of the fundamental ...)
(At a time when the enemies of democracy cannot be dissuad...)
(Law in Civil Society advances a new and comprehensive the...)
( "A closely reasoned account defining, arranging, and sy...)
(From the beginning philosophy has understood its pursuit ...)
(This is a collection of essays that presents an original ...)
Member of Society Systematic Philosophy (president since 1986), Hegel Society of America 2002-2004.
Married Sujata Gupta, April 28, 1983. Children: Kalindi, Manas Samuel, Rasik Sidd.