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Aspiration Agnes Callard (Associate Professor of Philosophy, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Chicago)

Aspiration By Agnes Callard (Associate Professor of Philosophy, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Chicago)

Aspiration by Agnes Callard (Associate Professor of Philosophy, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Chicago)

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Summary

Aspiration by Agnes Callard locates standing assumptions in the theory of rationality, moral psychology and autonomy that preclude the possibility of working to acquire new values. The book also explains what changes need to be made if we are to make room for this form of agency, which I call aspiration.

Aspiration Summary

Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming by Agnes Callard (Associate Professor of Philosophy, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Chicago)

Becoming someone is a learning process; and what we learn is the new values around which, if we succeed, our lives will come to turn. Agents transform themselves in the process of, for example, becoming parents, embarking on careers, or acquiring a passion for music or politics. How can such activity be rational, if the reason for engaging in the relevant pursuit is only available to the person one will become? How is it psychologically possible to feel the attraction of a form of concern that is not yet one's own? How can the work done to arrive at the finish line be ascribed to one who doesn't (really) know what one is doing, or why one is doing it? In Aspiration, Agnes Callard asserts that these questions belong to the theory of aspiration. Aspirants are motivated by proleptic reasons, acknowledged defective versions of the reasons they expect to eventually grasp. The psychology of such a transformation is marked by intrinsic conflict between their old point of view on value and the one they are trying to acquire. They cannot adjudicate this conflict by deliberating or choosing or deciding-rather, they resolve it by working to see the world in a new way. This work has a teleological structure: by modeling oneself on the person he or she is trying to be, the aspirant brings that person into being. Because it is open to us to engage in an activity of self-creation, we are responsible for having become the kinds of people we are.

Aspiration Reviews

But undoubtedly, further research will build off of Callard's valuable contribution to understanding how and why people aspire. * Rabbi Dr. Stu Halpern, Yeshiva University *
Agnes Callard develops and defends a fascinating new idea about aspiration, the form of agency involving the rational process by which we work to care about something new. For Callard, aspiring agents exhibit a distinctive form of rationality that is not a matter of decision-making at all. Choosing to undergo a personal revolution is, rather, aspiring to a certain type of self-change. Deep and broad in its philosophical reach, the book makes a major contribution to our understanding of practical rationality and moral psychology. - L.A. Paul, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
A superb, agenda-setting addition to recent philosophical investigations into 'transformative experience', the kind of experience that results in changes to one's basic values. Callard rightly singles out aspiration - a change in one's values that, she argues, is rationally guided by what those values will become - as a critically important species of such experience, and brings out, with clarity, insight, and brilliance, the deep connections between this phenomenon and a range of other central topics in moral psychology and the theory of practical reasoning, such as the nature of moral responsibility, internalism about reasons, and akrasia. - Ned Hall, Harvard University
Moving, quietly profound...-The New Yorker
I may suspect that classical music has value, though I cannot myself see it. And so I may strive to uncover the sublimity of Schumann. Yet such aspirational attempts to acquire taste are bewildering. For if I cannot see the value of classical music, why should I pursue it so ardently? Agnes Callard seeks to solve this puzzle by claiming that aspiration is dualistic. When we aspire, we are in transition: we are shedding who we are now and becoming who we aspire to be. As such, says Callard, our aspirational behaviour must answer to both aspects of our being: to our current values and our inchoate grasp of our later values.-The Times Literary Supplement

About Agnes Callard (Associate Professor of Philosophy, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Chicago)

Agnes Callard was born in Budapest, Hungary, raised in New York City and received a BA from the University of Chicago. She left Chicago for the University of California, Berkeley, where she received an MA in Classics and a PhD in Philosophy, and subsequently returned to the University of Chicago to teach in the philosophy department. Her areas of specialization are ancient philosophy and ethics.

Additional information

CIN0190085142G
9780190085148
0190085142
Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming by Agnes Callard (Associate Professor of Philosophy, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Chicago)
Agnes Callard (Associate Professor of Philosophy, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Chicago)
Used - Good
Paperback
Oxford University Press Inc
2019-10-14
306
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - Aspiration