It is commonly agreed that we live in an age of globalization, but the profound consequences of this development are rarely understood. Usually, globalization is equated with the expansion of economic and financial markets and the proliferation of global networks of communication. In truth, much more is at stake: Traditional concepts of individual and national identity as well as perceived relationships between the self and others are undergoing profound change. Every town has become a potential cosmopolis -- an international city -- affecting the way that people conceptualize the...

The prevailing Western paradigm is modernity: a model focused on individual liberty, secularism, and the scientific control of nature. This worldview emerged from the break with the medieval and classical past and advanced a philosophy in which the solitary mind opposes the rest of the world. Although there is a simple appeal in this binary structure, history has shown that it is neither socially nor politically innocuous.

In Freedom and Solidarity, noted political theorist and humanist Fred Dallmayr seeks to bridge the gap between the self and the outside world. Drawing on...

The great German novelist Thomas Mann implored readers to resist the persistent and growing militarism of the mid-twentieth century. To whom should we turn for guidance during this current era of global violence, political corruption, economic inequality, and environmental degradation? For more than two millennia, the world's great thinkers have held that the ethically "good life" is the highest purpose of human existence. Renowned political philosopher Fred Dallmayr traces the development of this notion, finding surprising connections among Aristotelian ethics, Abrahamic and Eastern...

It is commonly agreed that we live in an age of globalization, but the profound consequences of this development are rarely understood. Usually, globalization is equated with the expansion of economic and financial markets and the proliferation of global networks of communication. In truth, much more is at stake: Traditional concepts of individual and national identity as well as perceived relationships between the self and others are undergoing profound change. Every town has become a potential cosmopolis -- an international city -- affecting the way that people conceptualize the...

In addition to war, terrorism, and unchecked military violence, modernity is also subject to less visible but no less venomous conflicts. Global in nature, these "culture wars" exacerbate the tensions between tradition and innovation, virtue and freedom. Internationally acclaimed scholar Fred Dallmayr charts a course beyond these persistent but curable dichotomies in Integral Pluralism: Beyond Culture Wars. Consulting diverse fields such as philosophy, literature, political science, and religious studies, Dallmayr equates modern history with a process of steady pluralization. This...

Sustainability has become a compelling topic of domestic and international debate as the world searches for effective solutions to accumulating ecological problems. In Return to Nature? An Ecological Counterhistory, Fred Dallmayr demonstrates how nature has been marginalized, colonized, and abused in the modern era. Although nature was regarded as a matrix that encompassed all beings in premodern and classical thought, modern Western thinkers tend to disregard this original unity, essentially exiling nature from human life. By means of a philosophical counterhistory leading from...