Communication Ethics and Tenacious Hope

Contemporary Implications of the Scottish Enlightenment
Erscheinungsjahr 2022
ISBN: 978-0-8093-3853-5
Verlag: Southern Illinois University Press

Buch, Englisch, 304 Seiten, Paperback, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm

Tenacious hope, the heart of a just and free society.

During the Enlightenment, Scottish intellectuals and administrators met the demands of profit and progress while shepherding concerns for self and other, individual and community, and family and work. Communication Ethics and Tenacious Hope captures the “unity of contraries,” offering the Scottish Enlightenment as an exemplar of tenacious hope countering the excesses of individualism. Ronald C. Arnett reveals two stories: the struggle between optimism and tenacious hope, and optimism’s ultimate triumph in the exclusion of difference and the reification of progress as an ultimate good. 

In chapters that detail the legacies of Lord Provost George Drummond, Adam Smith, David Hume, Thomas Reid, George Campbell, Adam Ferguson, and Sir Walter Scott, Arnett highlights the problematic nature of optimism and the ethical agency of tenacious hope. Arnett illustrates the creative union of education and administration, the ability to accept doubt within systems of knowledge and imagination, and an abiding connection to local soil. As principles of progress, free will, and capitalism swept Europe, proponents of optimism envisioned a world of consumerism and absolutes. In contrast, practitioners of tenacious hope embraced uncertainty and compassion as pragmatic necessities.

This work continues Arnett’s scholarship, articulating the vital importance of communication ethics. Those seeking to discern and support a temporal sense of the good in this historical moment will find in this timely work the means to pursue, hold, and nourish tenacious hope. This insightful theorization of the Scottish Enlightenment distills the substance of a just and free society for meeting dangerous and uncertain times.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Textlinguistik, Diskursanalyse, Stilistik
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Ethik, Moralphilosophie
• Sozialwissenschaften Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaften Kommunikationswissenschaften

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Contents
- PART I. A TALE OF TWO STORIES
- 1. Communication Ethics: The Necessity of Tenacious Hope
- Part II. COORDINATES OF CREATIVE INNOVATION
- 2. Scottish Education: Ethics and Productive Change
- 3. Lord Provost George Drummond: Architect of Imaginative Space
- PART III. SCHOLARSHIP AND LOCALITY
- 4. Adam Smith: Commercial Life and Caution
- 5. David Hume: Scholarship and Skepticism
- 6. Thomas Reid: Common Sense and Undue Clarity
- 7. George Campbell: An Integrative Rhetoric
- 8. Adam Ferguson: Discerning Intersections
- PART IV. THE REIFYING GRASP
- 9. Sir Walter Scott: The Fragility of Commemoration
- Communication Ethics and Marginalization: The Dark Side of Progress
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index

Über Autor(innen)

Ronald C. Arnett is professor and chair of the department of communication and rhetorical studies at Duquesne University and the Patricia Doherty Yoder and Ronald Wolfe Endowed Chair in Communication Ethics. He is the author or coauthor of over a hundred scholarly articles and twelve books, the coeditor of seven books, and the recipient of eight book awards, including recognition for Levinas’s Rhetorical Demand: The Unending Obligation of Communication Ethicsand Communication Ethics in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt’s Rhetoric of Warning and Hope.