Through the concept of orientation, this essay attempts to establish a philosophical account of the structure of our daily lives. By examining Kants notion of orientation and Heideggers response to Kant, I highlight the importance of the fact that orientation comes from the world, not simply from our ability to determine our position in the world by means of a coordinate system. Consequently, I argue, the concrete instantiation of a life given in a narrative can supplement the structure that the theoretical framework of justice, which establishes the principles guiding the institutions of our society, claims to leave undetermined. This texture fills the space of justice and culture with tangible things and practices that make up our daily life. The novel America America is used as a diagnostic tool to illuminate the forces and opportunities found in our culture that need to be either recognized and avoided, or discovered, revealed, and spoken for. I suggest that instrumental reason and the attainment of mere pleasure, as a cultural forces guiding our practices, fail to provide a tenable answer to the question of the good life and that they should be avoided when we are considering the ultimate how and what of the practices that make up the structure of our lives. In response to the failure of instrumental reason, I propose a deepening of our practices by way of familiarity (through closeness) and accomplishment (through engagement) with the things that are integral to practices such as making maple syrup and preparing a meal.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MONTANA/oai:etd.lib.umt.edu:etd-01152010-125350 |
| Date | 03 February 2010 |
| Creators | Clark, Maxwell Haus |
| Contributors | Albert Borgmann, Deborah Slicer, Robert Baker |
| Publisher | The University of Montana |
| Source Sets | University of Montana Missoula |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.umt.edu/theses/available/etd-01152010-125350/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Montana or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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