Background
Wolff, Robert Paul was born on December 27, 1933 in New York City. Son of Walter Harold and Charlotte (Ornstein) Wolff.
(An analysis of the foundations of the authority of the st...)
An analysis of the foundations of the authority of the state and the problems of political authority and moral autonomy in a democracy.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520215737/?tag=2022091-20
( The Ideal of the University is a lucid, comprehensive a...)
The Ideal of the University is a lucid, comprehensive analysis of the rationale, principles, and presuppositions that make contemporary universities what they are. The book begins with four sharp, carefully delineated models of a university. After analyzing such controversial issues as the role of grading in the university and the “myth” of value neutrality. Wolff turns to the crucial question of how the university should be governed. He argues for a radical reconstruction based on a “social contract” that would place ultimate authority in the hands of the faculty and students. The book concludes with a series of “practical proposals for Utopian reform,” including such provocative recommendations as a variable-length, ungraded undergraduate program and elimination of the Ph.D. degree. In his introduction to this new edition, Wolff expands upon his original speculations to argue in substantive detail for the liberating potential of the liberal arts. Drawing upon Freud and Marcuse, Wolff proposes that literature, art, and philosophy embody a promise of gratification that engenders a negative critique of the social and cultural status quo. The rationale for the liberal arts university is society’s need for a reservoir of critical thinking that is the motor of social, economic, and political progress. Elegantly written and passionately argued; The Ideal of the University is essential reading for educators and sociologists.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006C4PGM/?tag=2022091-20
(An analysis of the foundations of the authority of the st...)
An analysis of the foundations of the authority of the state and the problems of political authority and moral autonomy in a democracy.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DI31BLS/?tag=2022091-20
( Four Decades of Student-Friendly Philosophy About...)
Four Decades of Student-Friendly Philosophy About Philosophy is an introductory text that covers all the major fields of philosophy in an easy-to-read language, interspersed with short selections from the major philosophers. It has been a best-selling leader in the field for more than forty years and it is written by an internationally recognized author of more than twenty books.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0205194125/?tag=2022091-20
( For Introductory Philosophy Courses. An introducto...)
For Introductory Philosophy Courses. An introductory philosophy text that covers all the major fields of philosophy in easy-to-read language, interspersed with short selections from the major philosophers. The text has been a best-selling leader in the field for more than thirty years. It is written by an internationally recognized author of more than twenty books. He is an important voice in social and political philosophy, Immanuel Kant's philosophy, and the philosophy of education.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0205645186/?tag=2022091-20
(The Autonomy of Reason reflects Wolff’s determination to ...)
The Autonomy of Reason reflects Wolff’s determination to get out of Kant’s system what is good and to get out of Kant’s system for good. Readers will certainly benefit from Wolff’s two decades of intense study of Kant. Wolff does not see his task as one of either historical exegesis or philosophical criticism. In the place of both Wolff proposes a “philosophical reconstruction” of the text.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CIA5TRO/?tag=2022091-20
( Robert Paul Wolff explains the development of the class...)
Robert Paul Wolff explains the development of the classical theory of value from Adam Smith to Karl Marx in a form readily accessible to readers unfamiliar with anything more than high school algebra, while at the same time offering to the specialist a fundamental criticism of Marxian political economy and an original and controversial interpretation of Capital. He clarifies recent mathematical reinterpretations of classical political economy, so that philosophers, political scientists, psychologists, and sociologists interested in Marx's theories can understand the modern rehabilitation of his political economy. Originally published in 1985.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691022313/?tag=2022091-20
(Since its publication in 1971, John Rawls’ A Theory of Ju...)
Since its publication in 1971, John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice has been the subject of a lively debate among philosophers, economists, and political scientists. In this book, Robert Paul Wolff provides an interpretation and critique of Rawls’ theory that both clarifies it and reveals its basic flaws. According to Professor Wolff, Rawls’ device of a bargaining game among self-interested parties is designed to solve Kant’s problem of deriving substantive moral and political principles from purely formal criteria of rationality. This book traces the ever-greater complications introduced by Rawls into his theory to overcome weaknesses and respond to critics. Once he has reconstructed Rawls’ theory to exhibit its underlying structure, Professor Wolff subjects it to a series of fundamental criticisms and shows where it fails by appealing to economic, psychological, and sociological considerations, as well as to those of philosophy. Understanding Rawls contends that Rawls’ approach to social philosophy – by way of formal models of game theory and welfare economics – is fundamentally misguided. The bargaining “theorem” sketched by Rawls is shown to be invalid, and the author suggests that a different mode of analysis, owing more to the legacies of Marx and Freud, would be more fruitful in the search for a usable conception of social justice.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BPWNS24/?tag=2022091-20
(In this book Robert Paul Wolff dispels much of the myster...)
In this book Robert Paul Wolff dispels much of the mystery surrounding Karl Marx's "Capital" by providing literary-philosophica analysis of the text and of Marx's intentions. The book solves lasting puzzles about "Capital, such as why it lacks proper scientific sobriety and why it speaks on many levels.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0870236164/?tag=2022091-20
( Four Decades of Student-Friendly Philosophy About...)
Four Decades of Student-Friendly Philosophy About Philosophy is an introductory text that covers all the major fields of philosophy in an easy-to-read language, interspersed with short selections from the major philosophers. It has been a best-selling leader in the field for more than forty years and it is written by an internationally recognized author of more than twenty books. Note: MyPhilosophyLab does not come automatically packaged with this text. To purchase MyPhilosophyLab, please visit www.MyPhilosophyLab.com or you can purchase a valuepack of the text + MyPhilosophyLab (9780205219070)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0205206204/?tag=2022091-20
(Autobiography of an Ex-White Man is an intensely personal...)
Autobiography of an Ex-White Man is an intensely personal meditation on the nature of America by a White Philosopher who joined a Black Studies Department and found his understanding of the world transformed by the experience. The book begins with an autobiographical narrative of the events leading up to Wolff's transfer from a Philosophy Department to the W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, and his experiences in the Department with his new colleagues, all of whom had come to Academia from the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Wolff discovered that the apparently simple act of moving across campus to a new Department in a new building worked a startling change in the way he saw himself, his university, and his country. Reading as widely as possible to bring himself up to speed in his new field of academic responsibility, Wolff realized after a bit that his picture of American history and culture was undergoing an irreversible metamorphosis. America, he realized, has from its inception been a land both of Freedom and of Bondage: Freedom for the few, and then for those who are White; Bondage at first for the many, and then for those who are not White. Slavery is thus not an aberration, an accident, a Peculiar Institution -- it is the essence and core of the American experience. Wolff's optimistic outlook leads him to express the hope that our acknowledging the realities of America's racial history and present will begin to tear down the formidable barrier to change. He sees this refashioning of the American story as a first step toward the crafting of a truly liberatory project. Robert Paul Wolff is Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and the author of numerous books, including Introductory Philosophy and In Defense of Anarchism.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1580461808/?tag=2022091-20
(Autobiography of an Ex-White Man is an intensely personal...)
Autobiography of an Ex-White Man is an intensely personal meditation on the nature of America by a White Philosopher who joined a Black Studies Department and found his understanding of the world transformed by the experience. The book begins with an autobiographical narrative of the events leading up to Wolff's transfer from a Philosophy Department to the W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, and his experiences in the Department with his new colleagues, all of whom had come to Academia from the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Wolff discovered that the apparently simple act of moving across campus to a new Department in a new building worked a startling change in the way he saw himself, his university, and his country. Reading as widely as possible to bring himself up to speed in his new field of academic responsibility, Wolff realized after a bit that his picture of American history and culture was undergoing an irreversible metamorphosis. America, he realized, has from its inception been a land both of Freedom and of Bondage -- Freedom for the few, and then for those who are White, Bondage at first for the many, and then for those who are not White. Slavery is thus not an aberration, an accident, a Peculiar Institution -- it is the essence and core of the American experience. Wolff's optimistic outlook leads him to express the hope that acknowledging the realities of America's racial history and present will begin to tear down the formidable barrier to change. He sees this refashioning of the American story as a first step toward the crafting of a truly liberatory project. Robert Paul Wolff is Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and the author of numerous books, including Introductory Philosophy and In Defense of Anarchism.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1580463134/?tag=2022091-20
( The Ideal of the University is a lucid, comprehensive a...)
The Ideal of the University is a lucid, comprehensive analysis of the rationale, principles, and presuppositions that make contemporary universities what they are. The book begins with four sharp, carefully delineated models of a university. After analyzing such controversial issues as the role of grading in the university and the “myth” of value neutrality. Wolff turns to the crucial question of how the university should be governed. He argues for a radical reconstruction based on a “social contract” that would place ultimate authority in the hands of the faculty and students. The book concludes with a series of “practical proposals for Utopian reform,” including such provocative recommendations as a variable-length, ungraded undergraduate program and elimination of the Ph.D. degree. In his introduction to this new edition, Wolff expands upon his original speculations to argue in substantive detail for the liberating potential of the liberal arts. Drawing upon Freud and Marcuse, Wolff proposes that literature, art, and philosophy embody a promise of gratification that engenders a negative critique of the social and cultural status quo. The rationale for the liberal arts university is society’s need for a reservoir of critical thinking that is the motor of social, economic, and political progress. Elegantly written and passionately argued; The Ideal of the University is essential reading for educators and sociologists.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0807031895/?tag=2022091-20
Wolff, Robert Paul was born on December 27, 1933 in New York City. Son of Walter Harold and Charlotte (Ornstein) Wolff.
AB, Harvard University, 1953. Master of Arts in Philosophy, Harvard University, 1954. Doctor of Philosophy, Harvard University, 1957.
Instructor, Harvard University, 1958-1961; assistant professor philosophy, University of Chicago, 1961-1963; visiting lecturer, Wellesley College, 1963-1964; associate professor philosophy, Columbia, 1964-1969; professor, Columbia, 1969-1971; professor philosophy, U. Massachusetts, Amherst, 1971-1992; professor Afro-American studies and philosophy, U. Massachusetts, Amherst, since 1992; graduate program director doctoral program in Afro-American development consultant, U. QwaQwa, South Africa, since 1998.
( Robert Paul Wolff explains the development of the class...)
( Four Decades of Student-Friendly Philosophy About...)
( Four Decades of Student-Friendly Philosophy About...)
(Autobiography of an Ex-White Man is an intensely personal...)
(Autobiography of an Ex-White Man is an intensely personal...)
(In this book Robert Paul Wolff dispels much of the myster...)
( The Ideal of the University is a lucid, comprehensive a...)
( The Ideal of the University is a lucid, comprehensive a...)
( The Ideal of the University is a lucid, comprehensive a...)
(Since its publication in 1971, John Rawls’ A Theory of Ju...)
(The Autonomy of Reason reflects Wolff’s determination to ...)
(An analysis of the foundations of the authority of the st...)
(An analysis of the foundations of the authority of the st...)
(Paperback: 123 pages Publisher: Beacon Press (December 16...)
( For Introductory Philosophy Courses. An introducto...)
(Contents: Beyond Tolerance (Wolff).- Tolerance and the Sc...)
(Name inside. All pages intact. Don't think it was ever re...)
Executive director Harvard-Radcliffe Alumni/ae Against Apartheid, 1988-1990. President, executive director University Scholarships for South African Students, since 1990. Co-director Institute Advanced Study in Humanities University Massachusetts, 1992-1998, director Doctoral Program in Afro-American Studies, since 1996, director Undergraduate Mentoring and Achievement Program, since 2006.
Married Cynthia Griffin, June 9, 1962 (divorced 1986). Children: Patrick Gideon, Tobias Barrington. Married Susan Gould, August 25, 1987.