Swimming Against the Current in Contemporary Philosophy: Occasional Essays and Papers (Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy)

Looks at being a follower of Aristotle or St. Thomas Aquinas in a modern philosophical world. Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: On Trying to Be an Aristotelian or a Thomist in Today's World Part I. Quieting Various of the Alarms and Excursions in Recent Philosophy 1. Can Philosophy Ever Be a Thing for Hoosiers? 2. Folly and Sense in Present-Day Philosophy 3. Is Quine a Metaphysician? 4. Richard Rorty's Would-Be Deconstruction of Analytic Philosophy Part II. What Price Ethics in the Eyes of Modern Moral Philosophyers? 5. Telos and Teleology in Aristotelian Ethics 6. Variations, Good and Bad, on the Theme of Right Reason in Ethics 7. Language and Ethics: "What's Hecuba to Him, or He to Hecuba?" 8. In Appreciation and Refutation of Alan Gewirth's Principle of Generic Consistency 9. Ethical Egoism, New Style: Should Its Trademark Be Libertarian or Aristotelian? Part III. A Concluding Miscellany, Ranging From a Defense of the Humanities to a Defense of Natural Law 10. The What and the Why of the Humanities 11. Why Need a General Be Human? 12. The Poor, Hapless Humanities 13. Natural Law: Dead or Alive? 14. Can John Finnis Bring Off a Revival of Natural Law? 15. Natural Law and the "Is-"Ought" Question: Queries to Finnis and Grisez 16. A Poor Benighted Philosopher Looks at the Issue of Judicial Activism Select Bibliography Index Presents the collected essays of Prof. Henry B. Veatch, distinguished philosopher and teacher. They examine a variety of topics, including the works of Quine, Rorty, Gewirth, and Finnis as well as a variety of topics such as ethical egoism, libertarianism, the works of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas.