Practical Rationality & Human Difference: Perspectives on and Beyond Alasdair MacIntyre

MacIntyrean thought offers a new semantics of humanism, enabling dialogue among rival intellectual traditions.

One of the fundamental aspects of the cultural landscape of the last century has been the revival of philosophical anthropology, often in the form of a radical examination of the humanum. This renaissance constitutes an attempt to meet the primary challenges posed by an era which profoundly doubts the very possibility of a semantics of humanism. This book argues that MacIntyrean thought offers an important contribution to the development of a new semantics of humanism, since it enables dialogue and rational competition among perspectives belonging to rival intellectual traditions. The volume explores a variety of fresh, intriguing takes on the question of rationality and the human in an age of advanced modernity.