Background
Edel, Abraham was born on December 6, 1908 in Pittsburgh. Son of Simon and Fannie (Malamud) Edel.
(Over the past two decades, applied ethics has turned incr...)
Over the past two decades, applied ethics has turned increasingly toward theories that explore ethical questions faced by a variety of professions and away from classic moral concerns. Abraham Edel, Elizabeth Flower, and Finbarr O'Connor utilize examples of professional, public policy, and personal decision making to illustrate the strengths and limitations of the application of ethics in a rapidly changing world. They first discuss the emergence of applied ethics and how it functions within a philosophical tradition. They are not concerned, however, with solving the problems they expose, but with employing them as a means to critique applied ethics. Using human rights and health and welfare issues, the authors examine the subsequent ethical stumbling blocks that surround the 'moral order' of these social concerns. Through a historical discussion of the abundant ethical theories posited since the Enlightenment, they suggest ways to decide which can serve as intellectual tools for applied ethics and consider how knowledge and experience enter into any moral decision. Turning to the factors pertinent in the analysis and solution of moral problems, they dissect the underlying influences on the practice of ethics, the way in which a moral problem is diagnosed and its relevant contexts established, the ensuing conflicts between the concerns of the individual and of society, and the degree of inventiveness in issues of morality. The authors suggest that, instead of viewing theory as a set consequence derived from prior applications, relating theory to practice will engage a process of mutual aid, from which each element will learn, refining and improving the other. Abraham Edel is Research Professor, University of Pennsylvania, and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, City University of New York. Elizabeth Flower is Professor of Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania. Finbarr O'Connor is Professor of Philosophy, Beaver College. The three collaboratively edited "Morality, Philosophy, and Practice: Historical and Contemporary Readings and Studies".
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( The problem created by diverse and competing modes of c...)
The problem created by diverse and competing modes of conceptual analysis that have been employed in the social disciplines is the topic of this first volume of the Science, Ideology, and Value series. How such conflicts are to be interpreted is the main philosophical task of this book. The introductory essay is an extended philosophical overview of major modes of analysis. Changing modes of analysis are also correlated with changes in the theory of definition. The conclusion is that a creative attitude toward analysis rather than the conflict of hardened schools, is required in contemporary social science. The first part of the book consists of papers analyzing selected concepts in the social disciplines, both scientific and normative. The second part consists of chapters on theoretical issues of values and methods in analyzing social concepts. Edel treats in particular the controversy over values in social science against claims of a value-free science as a research issue and develops a systematic framework for detecting and locating values in political science, and again to judicial decision. An introduction to each paper gives the social and philosophical context in which it was written; assesses its modes of analysis in comparison to the lessons of the overview in the introductory essay; and speculates occasionally on the consequences of integrated, more comprehensive modes.
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( The great twentieth-century dichotomy that has pervaded...)
The great twentieth-century dichotomy that has pervaded moral philosophy and value theory on the one hand and social science and social theory on the other, concerns this volume. Part one approaches this dichotomy between fact (knowledge/science) and value (worth/morality) from different angles. It opens with a general study of the way value and fact are construed, then locates where scientific materials enter into ethics. Part two deals with issues of moral attitude and practical responsibility in the work of science and technology. Scientists' social responsibility as a function of changing social roles of science, and knowledge and responsibility in the professions are examined. In the concluding chapter Edel examines the dichotomy between fact and value as a social and an ideational phenomenon.
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(On June 20,1938, the trustees of the City Colleges of New...)
On June 20,1938, the trustees of the City Colleges of New York changed the by-laws on the governance of the colleges. The transformation of New York City's colleges from autocratic to democratic rule virtually overnight was a revolutionary event in American higher education within the context of the 1930s. Abraham Edel writes of this revolution as an active participant and as an eminent philosopher who has experienced more than a half century of educational reform. The book focuses on the meaning and import of democratic organization in the governance of universities, but, at the same time, the author's personal reflections make it an intellectual memoir that charts the evolution of an idea. Labor unionism, the Great Depression, and the rise of fascism shaped the political, social, economic, and intellectual climate of the 1930s. Edel relates this milieu to the authoritarian system of governance in the City Colleges. He describes the growth of a college teachers union, a sit-down strike by students, and the controversy, agitation, and organizing that hurled the teaching staff into political action. He identifies the pioneering significance of this revolution this experiment in democracy at a time when dictatorship was viewed as more efficient and examines the lessons learned by sudden rather than piecemeal reform, by human responses to institutional change, and by the relation of ideas to social movements. After tracing the history of this transformation, Edel works toward a philosophy of democratic governance by evaluating the variety of claims for participation in terms of the ultimate mission of the university. Admitting a preference for democratic forms, Edel examines current issues in academic governance and the often acrimonious debate over participation by various groups. Abraham Edel is Research Professor of Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania, and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, City University of New York.
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( In this stunning act of synthesis, Abraham Edel capture...)
In this stunning act of synthesis, Abraham Edel captures the entire range of Aristotle's thought in a manner that will prove attractive and convincing to a contemporary audience. Many philosophers approach Aristotle with their own, rather than his, questions. Some cast him as a partisan of a contemporary school. Even the neutral approach of classical scholarship often takes for granted questions that reflect our modern ways of dissecting the world. Aristotle and His Philosophy shows him at work in asking and answering questions. Abraham Edel fashions a sound comparative way of using current analysis to deepen our understanding of Aristotle rather than argue with or simply appropriate him. Edel examines how Aristotle's basic ideas operated in his scientific and humanistic works, what they enabled him to do, what they kept him from doing, and what in turn we can learn from his philosophical experimentation. The purpose of this volume is twofold: to provide a comprehensive introduction to Aristotle's thought, and to throw fresh light on its patterned and systematic character. First, tracing the pattern in Aristotle's metaphysical and physical writings, he then explores the psychology, epistemology, ethics and politics, rhetoric and poetics. In the process, Edel discusses the way interpretations of Aristotle are built up and how different philosophical outlooks—Catholic, Hegelian, Marxian, linguistic, naturalistic, and pragmatic—have affected the reading of Aristotelian texts and ideas. The new introduction probes the general problem of interpreting a philosophy, and suggests how working through the different interpretations can contribute to a fuller understanding. This methodological self-consciousness makes Aristotle and His Philosophy markedly different from other studies of Aristotle. Martha C. Nussbaum of Brown University has described Edel as having "philosophical sensitivity and good sense throughout. His scholarship is comprehensive, but handled with grace and clarity."
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( The twentieth century has been rich in the variety of i...)
The twentieth century has been rich in the variety of its ethical theories. Since the turn of the century, contending philosophical positions have tended to view ethics either as spiritual and separate from the natural world or as a function of bodily or material forces. Although both factions had roots in older philosophies, the speed and complexity of modern development, in science and technology engendered a multiplicity of smaller schools within traditonal domains. Li the fifth volume of Science, Ideology, and Value, Abraham Edel offers a consideration of some of the major moral theories of this troubled century and a guide to their historical development and context. In treating the newer and distinctively twentieth-century philosophical schools, Edel concentrates on movements rather than on the individual philosopher's rounded theory. The treatment of John Dewey comes in a chapter on pragmatic tests and ethical insights, while that of Edward Alexander Westermarck comes in a larger discussion of ethical relativism. Edel's consideration of John Rawls and Alasdair Maclntyre provides a broader lesson in the problems and pitfalls of dealing with ethical ideas apart from history and social context. Edel obse/ves that while the concepts of morality, and the theories in which they are enmeshed, have been familiar subject matter of ethical theory, the one topic that has been little explored is changes over time in ethical practice. While the fact of different moralities and the rise and fall of a given morality have been dealt with in a historical vein, how such changes have impacted the theory of ethics as such has received only limited treatment. Edel devotes significant space to this topic, noting that the study of moral change may yield both a deeper understanding of the functioning of morality within the social culture as well as new vistas on the function of ethical theories themselves.
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( Initially prepared as part of the Foundations of the Un...)
Initially prepared as part of the Foundations of the Unity of Science volumes under the auspices of the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Science and the Structure of Ethics soon took on a life of its own. Well positioned in the naturalistic tradition of ethical theory extending from John Dewey at the start and Richard Rorty at the conclusion of the century, Abraham Edel's volume offers a remarkable synthesis of the ways hi which ethical statements can be examined, and the nature of ethical concerns. Edel reveals a singular capacity to move beyond oracular controversies of the good and the right hi favor of a comparative, analytic, and functional account of how ethical perspectives and practices affect the content of moral discourse. In Edel's work, the structure of ethical behavior is defined by biological, psychological, social, and historical functions. Hence a scientific account of ethics is possible since moral norms are themselves products of an experiential field open to verification procedures common to all other walks of human life. In reviewing the impact of Edel's work hi general, and this volume in particular, Irving Louis Horowitz notes that Edel's naturalistic emphasis fits neatly with a view of ethics as something grounded in human experience rather than mandated from divine assumption: "It is hard for me to imagine a turning back from the hard lessons of the century, any more in ethical theory than in empirical research as such. We owe a central place in our century's intellectual capital to Edel's examination of ethical doctrines in the light of changing circumstances." This is a work certain to enlist the interest of ethicists, sociologists of knowledge, as well as those concerned with issues hi the philosophy of science and religion alike.
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(Quine, W.V.O. Krikorian, Yervant H. & Abraham Edel eds. C...)
Quine, W.V.O. Krikorian, Yervant H. & Abraham Edel eds. Contemporary Philosophical Problems. Selected Readings. New York, MacMillan Company, 1959. 8°. Octavo, 707pp. First edition. Very good copy in publisher's cloth covered boards. From the library of philosopher W. V. Quine with his ownership signature to front free end paper.
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( This book presents the results of an experiment in int...)
This book presents the results of an experiment in interdisciplinary collaboration to clarify theories of morality and anthropology and philosophy, showing how each may be enriched by borrowing from the other. Pooling the resources and methods of their respective fields-anthropology and philosophy-May and Abraham Edel examine the wide range of moral differences in the world "to establish 'coordinates' for the more systematic mapping of particular moralities, to explore more explicitly the relations of morality to cultural patterns and social processes, and to see how philosophic issues of ethical theory become refined and reformulated when their cultural content is made manifest." The book contains an implicit suggestion that the anthropologist should focus on morality as an independent area of study and that the philosopher should stop treating morality in isolation. Anthropology tends to include morality as an incidental part of other inquiries. Philosophy, on the other hand, tends to cut morality off from the framework of psychological and cultural processes; the result is a kind of deadlock in ethical theory. The Edels observe that to develop a working concept of morality at least as well developed as that furnished for religion, anthropology can benefit from philosophic methods of analyzing concepts and from philosophical ways of conceptualizing problems of ethical theory. On the other hand, philosophy can use the methods of anthropology, to approach morality in more meaningful terms. This study is not addressed only to professionals; its aim, rather, is to "provide an orientation to morality itself in a world in which human problems are becoming extremely complex and have to be confronted directly as moral."
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( In Ethical Judgment, Abraham Edel makes clear the part ...)
In Ethical Judgment, Abraham Edel makes clear the part played by biological and social scientific information in ethical judgment and moral action using psychological, anthropological, and economic materials as well as historical studies. Edel suggests that many controversies in ethical theory have emerged because different ethical theories made different scientific assumptions. In the almost forty years since his book was first published, life has become more complex and technological change has accelerated, bringing changes to our morality and ethical theory as well as our conduct. If anything, his observations are even more pertinent, compelling us to examine the empirical core of ethical statements. Edel maintains that since our knowledge of social life and history is constantly growing, moral theories and ethical judgments ought to embody the best knowledge available at any point in tune. However, because all knowledge and belief is only probable, there is never absolute certainty but only what Edel calls residual indeterminacy in human life and knowledge due to complexity and change. Edel lists four factors that form the basis for moral decisions: universal needs (food); perennial aspirations (friendships); central necessary conditions (job security); and critical contingent factors under special circumstances (land reform in a landholder-ruled society). In his new introduction, Edel applies those factors to the present day, discussing societal changes over the past forty years, such as the number of women in the workforce, the impact of the civil rights movement, and the fact that isolationism as a national policy is no longer feasible. Ethical Judgment is a recognized classic hi the modern study of ethical theory. It will be valuable reading for sociologists, historians, and all scholars interested in the study of ethics and American culture.
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(Abraham Edel addresses the questions of what is meant by ...)
Abraham Edel addresses the questions of what is meant by "education," how educational institutions and processes are evaluated, and how they can be improved, and what curriculums are best and why. At a time when our ability to provide effective education can spell success or failure for individuals and society alike, Edel clears away old confusions and indicates the conditions that must be satisfied in order for education to be successful for this and future generations.
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(Broad in span and highly flexible, this text offers a com...)
Broad in span and highly flexible, this text offers a comprehensive collection of readings in moral and ethical theory set in their historical and intellectual contexts. Major historical schools from the early Graeco-Roman to the present are ordered chronologically, yet the readings lend themselves well to grouping by author, by school of thought, or by theme and problem. A combination of important classic selections in moral theory with unusual readings concerning institutional practice gives the text a unique double focus: Each theory is followed from abstraction to application, and at the same time the editors highlight the connections and continuity between historical schools of thought.
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( In the current atmosphere of controversy about modes of...)
In the current atmosphere of controversy about modes of interpreting literature, historical influences in science, and subtle ideologies in social theory, Abraham Edel confronts the institutionalized separation of the humanities and the sciences, the segregation of disciplines through structures that rest on entrenched dualisms, and the isolations reenforced by habits of the academy and its struggles over turf. Edel's "search for connections" - carried out not only theoretically but through a series of particular studies spanning major disciplines from philosophy and social theory to jurisprudence, biography, and cultural anthropology - leads into uncharted waters. He faces the startling conclusion that the clue to answering internal questions characteristically turns out to come from trans-discipline relations. This fourth volume of Edel's Science, Ideology and Value focuses in a Deweyan vein on the functional requirements at the base of the social sciences and humanities alike: discipline structures are subject to change, development, and decay, and even to categorial shifts as well as to readjustments. At the same time, Edel's philosophical nauralism helps diagnose the obstacles to research that stem from imposed dualisms such as theory and practice, subjectivity and objectivity, fact and value, individual and society, as well as social contrasts of elite and mass. Normative structures are to be held responsible to inquiry, and a self-conscious exploratory practice is needed to minimize the risks of arbitrary closures. For those who wish to get beyond sloganeering in the world of education, humane learning, and the social and historical sciences, this book is a must.
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Edel, Abraham was born on December 6, 1908 in Pittsburgh. Son of Simon and Fannie (Malamud) Edel.
Bachelor, McGill University, 1927; Master of Arts, McGill University, 1928; Bachelor, University of Oxford, 1930; Doctor of Philosophy, Columbia University, 1934.
Member faculty department philosophy City College of New York, 1931-1973, professor, 1962-1973, professor emeritus, from 1973. Distinguished professor Graduate School City University of New York, 1970-1973. Emeritus City University New York Graduate School, from 1973.
Research professor philosophy University Pennsylvania, 1974—2001, research professor emeritus, from 2001. Visiting appointments institutions including Columbia University, University California, Berkeley, Swarthmore College, University Pennsylvania, Case Western Reserve University, State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center, others.
( In the current atmosphere of controversy about modes of...)
( In Ethical Judgment, Abraham Edel makes clear the part ...)
( Initially prepared as part of the Foundations of the Un...)
( This book presents the results of an experiment in int...)
( The problem created by diverse and competing modes of c...)
(Abraham Edel addresses the questions of what is meant by ...)
( When Method in Ethical Theory was initially published ...)
(Over the past two decades, applied ethics has turned incr...)
( The great twentieth-century dichotomy that has pervaded...)
( In this stunning act of synthesis, Abraham Edel capture...)
( In this stunning act of synthesis, Abraham Edel capture...)
(Broad in span and highly flexible, this text offers a com...)
(Broad in span and highly flexible, this text offers a com...)
(The aim of this book is to show the major problems of eth...)
(On June 20,1938, the trustees of the City Colleges of New...)
( The twentieth century has been rich in the variety of i...)
(Format Paperback Subject Literary Collections)
(Bobbs-Merrill, 1963, 1st, Good., No dust jacket. Light sp...)
(Hardcover book.)
(Quine, W.V.O. Krikorian, Yervant H. & Abraham Edel eds. C...)
Association National Humanities Center, 1978-1979. Senior fellow Center for Dewey Studies, 1981-1982. Member American Philosophical Association (Vice-President Eastern division 1972), Metaphys.
Society, American Society.Polit. and Legal Philosophy, American Society Value Inquiry (president 1984), International Association Philosophy Law and Social Philosophy (vice president American section 1971-1973, president 1973-1975, honorary president 1997), Philosophy Education Society, Society for Advancement American Philosophy.
M C.
Married May Mandelbaum, January 30, 1934 (deceased May 1964). Children: Matthew (deceased), Deborah. Married Elizabeth Flower, May 11, 1973 (deceased June 1995).
Married Sima Szaluta, April 20, 1997.